Hidden Forces

In Episode 110 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Chief Investment Officer of Hayman Capital Management and founding member of the “Committee on the Present Danger: China,” about the gathering threat posed to Western, liberal democracies and open societies by the Chinese Communist Party. Kyle explains how the CCP and its state champions have been using US capital markets to fund the development of China’s armed forces, the threats posed by a Chinese operated 5G network, as well as concerns about the acquisition and use of Americans’ genomic data by the Chinese government. Kyle also goes into detail about his thesis on Hong Kong, its peg to the USD, as well as the fragility of its banking system. Additional topics include the “reeducation camps” and reports of organ harvesting in Xinjiang, the Chinese social credit system, the Federal Reserve Repo market, and Kyle’s outlook for the macroeconomy.  The second part of this discussion is available to Hidden Forces Patreon subscribers. You can access tha

In Episode 109 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Financial Times Global Business Columnist, Rana Faroohar about her latest book dealing with the worlds of Big Tech and finance.  We are living in a dramatic period of societal change and uncertainty that most generations rarely get to experience. The changes we are experiencing are being driven primarily by a particular set of Internet-enabled technologies and businesses that are undergoing a rapid phase of consolidation.  The last time Americans saw anything similar was during the late 19th century. This was a period where people’s relationships to nature and to the land were being radically reshaped by the railroads, industrial capitalism, and urbanization. Their sense of time and space, their relationships to their communities, and to each other were being profoundly reordered and this produced an unprecedented amount of anxiety. Like today, this period coincided with a rise in populism and calls for heavy-handed regulation of what had become ind

In Episode 108 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Pauline Brown, the former Chairman of North America for LVMH, the world’s leading luxury goods company. Pauline has over thirty years’ experience acquiring, building, and leading some of the world’s most influential, luxury brands. In this conversation, she shares insights about how anyone can strengthen and grow his or her own aesthetic intelligence and apply that intelligence towards enhancing the quality and prosperity of one’s life and business. Pauline’s case for aesthetic intelligence rests on four basic points. The first is simply that aesthetics matter, not only in life but also in business. The second is that aesthetic intelligence can be cultivated. In fact, each of us possesses far more capacity than we use; aesthetic vision and leadership also have the power to transform companies and even entire sectors, as has been proven time and again by companies like Apple, Dyson, and others. Lastly, in the absence of aesthetics, most businesses ar

In Episode 107 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz, about his new book “Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation. In the book, Andrew reveals how the boundaries between technology, media, and politics have been erased, resulting in the deeply broken informational landscape in which we all now live. This conversation is meant to help us understand what went wrong and how we might go about trying to fix it. For several years, New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz has been embedded in two worlds. The first is the world of social-media entrepreneurs—the new gatekeepers of Silicon Valley—who upended all traditional means of receiving and transmitting information. The second is the world of the people he calls the gate-crashers—the conspiracists, white supremacists, and nihilist trolls who have become experts at using social media to advance their agenda, influence elections, or just make money. Marantz weaves th

In Episode 106 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joshua Landis, a Middle East scholar and Syria expert about the disorderly withdrawal of American forces from Syria and the larger shift in the balance of power that we are seeing as nations scramble to remake alliances in the wake of America’s absence. It seems that what we've seen transpire in the Middle East during the past week is a symptom of a much larger trend: the deterioration of the rules-based international order, the fulcrum around which the world has turned for three generations—the entirety of living memory. It is the break-down of national borders, in many cases borders that have been artificially constructed and maintained by the credible threat of American military power. As America begins its long-anticipated withdrawal from the world stage, others will rise to take her place. It was probably naive to imagine that this could happen in a managed way. Perhaps it was always destined to be messy. As much as Trump's detractors wish to b

In Episode 105 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jake Hanrahan about the crisis unfolding in the border region between Syria and Turkey following the US withdrawal of forces from northern Syria. This withdrawal precipitated the subsequent assault by Turkish Armed Forces on the Kurdish YPG-controlled region of Rojava. Jake Hanrahan is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker based in the UK. He has reported from Syria, Iraq, southeast Turkey, and other conflict zones for HBO, Vice News, PBS Newshour, and BBC News, to name a few.  Turkish President Erdogan, after obtaining the consent of President Trump, began his invasion into the Kurdish YPG controlled region of Syria known as Rojava this past Wednesday. During Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper confirmed to Margaret Brennan that roughly 1,000 U.S. troops would be evacuated from northern Syria following Trump’s troop withdrawal announcement. There are also multiple reports of ISIS families and fighters previousl

In Episode 104 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Maloney, perennial entrepreneur and host of the documentary series Hidden Secrets of Money about monetary history, libertarianism, and Austrian economics.  Before starting GoldSilver.com, Mike overcame his childhood dyslexia to found a series of companies, including a high-end stereo manufacturer, winning several design awards in the process. Few people know this, but one of Mike Maloney’s own designs is on permanent display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Mike also grew up dyslexic, leaving school after the 9th grade. Mike’s first job was as a traveling salesman, driving all over the Southwest and as far North as Oregon with a van full of samples and catalogs of automotive parts and accessories that he sold to customers. Eventually, Mike started his own high-end stereo equipment manufacturer, as well as an annual show called the Home Entertainment Show that took place during the same day as the Consumer Electronics Show. It was

In Episode 103 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand, who argues that the world’s cultures can be classified into two categories by virtue of their norms. She offers a lucid explanation of how and why cultures become tight or loose, outlining their different societal attitudes. This episode is full of eye-opening insights for development professionals, policymakers and those working in international business.  According to Gelfand, tight cultures have a large number of social norms that enforce order and conformity and tend to evolve in nations that face many natural and human-made threats. Loose cultures, on the other hand, have more lenient norms and tolerate a wider array of behaviors. They generally face fewer chronic threats – but may tighten up temporarily in the event of an acute threat. Furthermore, says Michele, tight and loose cultures each have advantages and disadvantages and it’s possible to modify a nation’s norms in order to address protracted socia

In Episode 102 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with economist and former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, William White, about the state of our market economy and the prospects for an ‘international reset’ of the global financial system. William R. White was most recently chairman of the Economic and Development Review Committee at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2009 to 2018. He is famous for having flagged the wild behavior in debt markets before the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. He began his career in 1969 as an economist working at the Bank of England. In 1972 he joined the Bank of Canada where he spent 22 years and was appointed Deputy Governor in September 1988. In 1994, he joined the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and served as its Economic Adviser and Head of the Monetary and Economic Department from May 1995 to June 2008.  In their conversation, Demetri and Dr. White discuss a wide range of topics focused primarily on the global financ

In Episode 101 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Casey, an acclaimed author, journalist, researcher, and entrepreneur who currently serves as CEO and founder of Streambed Media, an early-stage video production and technology platform that seeks to optimize capital formation and creative output in the digital media industry. Michael is also chairman of CoinDesk’s advisory board and a senior advisor at the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative, where he has spearheaded research projects that employ blockchain technology to achieve social impact goals. Michael Casey’s breadth of experience as a financial journalist for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, as well as his time spent stationed overseas in Thailand and Argentina, provide him with a unique perspective on the ‘problem of trust’ and what he calls ‘the Internet’s original sin.’ The latter is a reference to the observation that the inventors of packet switching and the basic Web protocols did, according to Casey, “a masterful

In Episode 100 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Hedera Hashgraph founders Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon about Open Access, now that the network has officially gone public. This is the go-to-episode for anyone looking to understand the public ledger and why Fortune 100 companies like IBM, Deutsche Telekom, Boeing, and others have joined Hedera's Governing Council. As a seed investor in Hedera Hashgraph, Demetri’s involvement with the public ledger goes back to September 2017, when he first invited Leemon Baird onto Hidden Forces to discuss the Hashgraph Whitepaper. Weeks later, Demetri put on an event at the Assemblage NoMad where Mance Harmon joined a panel alongside two other members of the executive team. The panel explored the innovation of Hashgraph consensus, specifically virtual voting and gossip-about-gossip. On March 13th, 2018, Leemon and Mance announced the launch of Hedera Hashgraph at an event in New York City, and on August 1st, 2018, news of the ledger’s $6 Billion valuation was m

In episode 99 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Claudio Borio about outstanding sources of financial instability and some of the challenges facing Central Banks as the economy and markets begin to show signs of weakness heading towards the end of 2019. Dr. Borio heads the Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank for International Settlements and has written extensively about some of the longer-term, structural forces bedeviling policymakers since the early 2000s.  More recently, the Federal Reserve held its annual Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Fed Chairman Jay Powell delivered a speech titled, “Challenges for Monetary Policy,” in which he addresses “three longer run questions” bedeviling policymakers. In the speech, Powell breaks up the post-war history of central banking into three distinct eras: 1950–1982, 1983–2009, and 2010—. The day before Jay Powell’s speech, on August 22nd, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, published a series of tweets where he conducted a si

I've taken the next few weeks off for a much needed summer vacation. I'll be releasing a couple of overtime segments while I'm gone that are normally available only to our Patreon subscribers. This segment was recorded with Senator Bob Kerrey, one of the ten members of the 9/11 Commission. Not only are his comments about the Kingdom's involvement in the attacks provocative and revealing, but the conversation itself is jovial and pleasant in a way that is rarely seen in our politics today. This recording also includes information about upcoming episodes, including conversations with the Chairman of North America for Louis Vuitton, the co-founder of Kickstarter, and many other notable guests. I hope you all enjoy it, and please feel free to reach out to me by email at dk@hiddenforces.io with any feedback or suggestions about the show and our upcoming lineup of guests.  Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenf

In Episode 98 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with famed Hong Kong investor David Webb, an outspoken critic of China’s authoritarian grip over the coastal territory. There are two parts to this story that we explore during this conversation. The first deals with Hong Kong – specifically, its political and economic future as an independent territory of mainland China. The second deals with China itself – specifically, its political and financial stability as the most leveraged economy at scale, in the world.  The events in Hong Kong over the last several months – exacerbated by Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s determination to push through the Extradition bill despite mounting opposition – have created a terrifying sense of crisis and disorder in the city. Videos of police beatings and retaliatory violence by protestors, as well as satellite images of what appear to be armored personnel carriers and other vehicles belonging to China’s paramilitary People’s Armed Police, have created an ominous sense of fo

In Episode 97 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Nic Carter, co-founder of both the VC fund Castle Island Ventures, as well as the research and data analytics company Coinmetrics.io. Nic also has a master’s degree in philosophy, and the two spend much of the overtime applying that discipline to bitcoin by examining the works of people like Friedrich Nietzsche and his philosophy around essence, John Rawls and his veil of ignorance, as well as applying a strain of utilitarian thought to questions of money and society. This conversation with Nic Carter is an attempt to understand Bitcoin as more than just the sum of its parts. One of the lessons that Demetri has taken away from his continued research into Bitcoin through the works of people like Nick Szabo, Paul Sztorc, and others, is that trying to measure the cryptocurrency against existing systems or conventions is almost always counterproductive. This is likely because Bitcoin is more than just money or a payments network. Bitcoin is a movement. W

In this week’s episode of Hidden Forces, I make available the overtime to my episode with journalist Matt Taibbi that aired on February 18th, 2019.  In this overtime, Matt Taibbi shares his experience on the campaign trail with Donald Trump in 2016, as well as his predictions for the 2020 election. Matt and I also discuss the Goldman Sachs 1MDB scandal, which has remained largely out of the headlines. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 96 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with investor and co-founder of Real Vision, Raoul Pal about the future of global money in a multi-polar world, including a discussion about Bitcoin, Libra, debt, demographics, and much more. The inspiration for this conversation derives from a theme captured in William Strauss and Neil Howe's Generational Theory, also known as the Fourth Turning, where the authors describe a four-stage cycle of social moods associated with recurring generational archetypes, which they call "turnings.” These include: "The High", "The Awakening", "The Unraveling," and "The Crisis." The question we explore in this conversation is: “are we at the fourth turning, and if so, what does this mean for the type of change we can expect to see in the coming decades?”  All of this leads to a discussion about digital currency in a multi-polar world where the power of governments to maintain the global order is diminished and where corporations and the private sector may gain an openin

In Episode 95 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with investor and author of Epsilon Theory, Ben Hunt, about the power of narrative and how it is used to shape and control our behavior as investors. This episode also includes a series of in-depth discussions about the long legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, identitarian narratives, three-body problems, the challenge of making accurate predictions, and ‘The Great Bitcoin Epic.' Ben Hunt’s background and career path have been anything but ordinary. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard, co-founded multiple tech companies, and managed his own billion-dollar hedge fund. When he isn’t busy writing about market narratives or indeterminant models, you can find him tending to his horses, gathering a fresh basket of eggs, or engaging in other chores on his family farm in Connecticut. The main themes from Epsilon Theory that we focus on in this conversation include the three-body problem, as well as Ben Hunt’s writings on narrative and the pow

In Episode 94 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with author of REBOOT, Jerry Colonna about leadership and the art of growing up.  This is a deeply personal conversation, but it is also one that draws upon the common wellspring of human experience. Learning to be a great leader is also about learning how to become an adult, and this requires that we learn how to embrace life in all of its beauty, suffering, and grace. The introduction to this week’s episode retells the story of Minos, King of Knossos after whom the great Minoan civilization is named. The Minoans populated the islands of the eastern Mediterranean during the second millennium, and are thought by some modern scholars of antiquity to have provided the substance for Plato’s Atlantis reference in Timaeus and Critias.  As is often the case, this week’s episode overtime rivals the full episode in quality and depth, as both Jerry and Demetri share personal stories of suffering, grace, and transformation. You can access this part of the recording

This is a service announcement for regular listeners of Hidden Forces. I have released a nearly 2-hour long recording of my conversation with Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon of Hedera Hashgraph to my Hidden Forces Patreon subscribers that will be published on the main podcast feed after the network goes public sometime this summer. I wanted to give supporters of the podcast the opportunity to hear that conversation before anyone else. It’s a great excuse for those who haven’t subscribed yet, to do so. There is no long-term commitment and you can cancel your subscription at any time. Subscribing for even a single month helps fund the podcast and keep it ad-free, but I know that many of you will end up sticking around longer, as the overtime content, in particular, is well worth your support. You can access that episode, as well as our latest overtime segments, transcripts, and rundowns at Patreon.com/HiddenForces and you can expect another phenomenal episode to air this Monday, at our usual time. Until then, hav