Hidden Forces

In Episode 137, Demetri Kofinas speaks with professor of finance at Peking University, Michael Pettis about his and Matthew Klein’s latest book, “Trade Wars are Class Wars,” which looks at how rising inequality within countries heightens trade conflicts between them. The conversation also includes a discussion about how the imbalances discussed in this episode are now seeping into our systems of government, turning a financial crisis into a political one.

In Episode 136, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Casey about “The Great Monetary Inflation” and the future of digital money. This is a wide-ranging conversation that culminates in a discussion about the political and monetary forces that have been unleashed in response to the spread of COVID-19 and their implications for the future of capitalism and liberal democracy.

In Episode 135, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Lowell Randel, Vice President of Government and Legal Affairs for the Global Cold Chain Alliance, which serves as the voice of the cold chain industry, representing 1,300 member companies in over 85 countries. The two discuss the impact that COVID-19 and the government shutdowns have had on food supply chains, processing facilities, and the industrial farm sector.

In Episode 134, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management and author of Weekend Notes about investing in a volatile world where four decades of assumptions about markets, politics, and policy no longer hold. We are living through a period of radical uncertainty and disillusionment with institutions and markets that we haven’t seen for a hundred years. The stakes for portfolio managers, politicians and individuals have never been higher.

In celebration of surpassing 1,000 Hidden Forces premium subscribers, we've made this special conversation with Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter on innovation in the age of financial repression available to listeners on the main podcast feed.

In this Special Episode, Demetri Kofinas releases the overtime segment to Episode 123 with Grant Williams and Ben Hunt. The three discuss the power of authenticity and narrative in an era of fake news and “ponzi people,” what it’s like to build a content business, what they’ve learned doing it, and what drives them to keep going.

In Episode 133, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Leland Miller, CEO of China Beige Book, which runs the largest private Chinese data collection operation in the world, about the state of China’s economy in the wake of COVID-19. The two discuss the impact of the global shutdown on all the major sectors of China’s economy, as well as the implications for China’s already fragile banking system. Geopolitical considerations and consequences are explored in-depth during the Overtime.

In Episode 132, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Tom Derry, CEO of the Institute for Supply Management and publisher of the market-moving ISM Manufacturing Index about the impact of COVID-19 on global supply chains. This is a deep-dive into how the intricate world of just-in-time manufacturing, outsourcing, and globalization has been affected by the world-wide disruptions caused by the novel coronavirus.

In Episode 131, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Hari Krishnan about portfolio construction and positioning once a market downturn is already underway. Although the content discussed in this episode is considered sophisticated, we try and make it accessible to the average listener. Topics include the investor mindset, systemic risk, options pricing, the role of credit in the market cycle, endogenous vs. exogenous risk, agent-based modeling, exchange traded products, volatility, and trend following strategies.

In Episode 130, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Gillian Tett, chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large of the Financial Times about America’s new “wartime economy” and the unspoken consequences of the most radical financial and political crisis since World War II.

In Episode 129, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Josh Crumb, founder & CEO of Abaxx Technologies and the former head of metals strategy at Goldman Sachs. The two discuss a curious case of backwardation on the COMEX where the price of gold in near-dated futures expiring at the end of March spiked by almost 10% last week to $70 an ounce above the cost of physical. Josh explains what really happened, how disruptions to global supply chains caused by COVID-19 factor in, and why it matters to you.

In Episode 128, Demetri Kofinas speaks with George Selgin, director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute about the recently announced monetary and fiscal policy measures being undertaken to stem the economic fallout from COVID-19 and the government mandated shutdown of the American economy. This is a deep-dive into the specifics of the Federal Reserve and US government’s policies, including the mechanics of the monetary and fiscal stimulus.

In Episode 127, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ben Hubbard, the Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times about Saudi Arabia and the rise to power of Mohammed bin Salman. Topics include the ongoing oil price war, tensions with Iran, the war in Yemen, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. The two also discuss the impact of coronavirus for the region’s politics and security.

In this Special Episode, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Yaneer Bar-Yam, President of the New England Complex Systems Institute. Professor Bar-Yam studies the unified properties of complex systems as a systematic strategy for answering basic questions about the world. He has been actively applying these theories to the study of COVID-19 in search of ways to curb what he believes is an increasingly dangerous pandemic that threatens to destabilize our societies and the world.

In Episode 126, Demetri Kofinas speaks with David Kilcullen, a theorist and practitioner of guerrilla and unconventional warfare, and counterterrorism. Their conversation deals mainly with the evolution of warfare, including an extensive analysis of Chinese and Russian methods targeting the West. The two also discuss the emergency measures currently being put into place across the world in response to the spread of Coronavirus and the implications of those measures for the future of liberal democracy.