Hidden Forces

In Episode 266 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with financial historian, journalist, and author Edward Chancellor. For the last twenty years, Chancellor has been arguably known best for his book, “Devil Take the Hindmost,” which is a fantastic history of the last 400 years of financial speculation. Yet, that streak may be soon coming to an end with the publication tomorrow of his latest book, “The Price of Time,” an absolutely brilliant philosophical exploration of interest and its essential role in valuing and directing the allocation of capital, labor, and resources in the economy over time. Interest rates have sometimes been described on this podcast and elsewhere as the “price of money.” While this definition is useful, it fails to capture the temporal dimension of interest rates and the role that they play in expanding the continuum of economic activity, cooperation, investment, and consumption beyond the immediate grasp of the present moment. The ability to accumulate capital in the form of mon