Hidden Forces

In Episode 76, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Robby Soave, the journalist at the center of what has become the biggest national news story in America, and which concerns a group of Catholic school students from Kentucky who were thrust into the national spotlight for seeming to have denigrated and mocked the dignity of a native American man solemnly beating his drum at the steps of the Lincoln memorial during MLK weekend and on the day of an Indigenous Peoples March in the nation’s capital.

In Episode 75, Demetri Kofinas speaks with bitcoin maximalist Pierre Rochard, about arguments for hyperbitcoinization, including a conversation about anarcho-capitalism, governance, decentralization, monetary theories of value, lightning network, and the importance of bitcoin’s supply schedule in setting it apart from the rest of the crypto ecosystem. @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 74, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Peter Boockvar. Peter is Chief Investment Officer for Bleakly Advisory Group and a regular on CNBC. The two discuss recent comments by Fed chairman Powell, the prospect and performance of financial stocks, concerns about liquidity, the government shutdown, trade, China, marijuana stocks, Tesla, and what Demetri believes is the resurgence of democratic socialism as a powerful force that markets will need to contend with in 2020. Patreon.com/HiddenForces

In this Special Episode, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Haseeb Qureshi of MetaStable Capital about the recent 51% attack against Ethereum Classic, its implications for exchanges that continue to list smaller-cap coins like ETC, Dash, Monero, etc., and what it means for the debate between proof-of-work and proof-of-stake. They also explore why ETC’s price was largely unaffected by the attack and what this says about the sophistication of cryptocurrency speculators and investors. patreon.com/hiddenforces

In Episode 73, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Daniel Peris about the history of financial theory, how certain theories like MPT, CAPM, efficient markets, etc., became the dominant paradigm by which investors have come to understand risk, and what happens when happens when everyone is using them. Subscribe at HiddenForces.io

In Episode 72, Demetri speaks with US Senator Bob Kerrey, about the economic, cultural, and political transformations that have overtaken American society throughout the course of his life. Senator Kerrey also served as one of the ten members of the 9/11 commision, prompting a conversation on the role played by the Saudi government in orchestrating the September 11th attacks, as well questions about why the Bush administration and the media refused to hold the Kingdom accountable for its involvement.

In this Christmas Day special, Demetri Kofinas shares twenty-five minutes of never-before-heard audio from his conversation with Howard Marks, but not before announcing the long-awaited-for launch of the Hidden Forces subscription service. Subscribers can gain access to overtime segments, transcripts, and rundowns from each and every episode. Subscriptions require creating a Patreon account but can be accessed directly through the Hidden Forces website.

In Episode 71, Demetri Kofinas speaks with speaks with James Mulvenon, an expert on Chinese military affairs, cyber issues, and matters of commercial espionage. James has been investigating and writing about Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, for years, which makes him the ideal person to speak to about the recent arrest of the company’s CFO and its implication for US-China trade talks.

In Episode 70, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Andrei Shleifer, professor of economics at Harvard University and one of the most cited economists in the world. Their conversation centers on the subject of beliefs: how they impact markets and how economists and financial practitioners like Dr. Shleifer are attempting to model them using data about people’s expectations, assumptions, and attitudes in order to make better-informed investment and policy decisions.

In Episode 69, Demetri Kofinas speaks with renowned philosopher and novelist Rebecca Goldstein, about the philosophy of mattering and what makes human life worth living. This is a question that human beings have been grappling with since time immemorial. Perhaps, nowhere did this question pose a more existential imperative than in ancient Greece, which provides the setting for this week’s conversation.

In Episode 68, Demetri Kofinas speaks with David Kotok, co-founder and CIO of Cumberland Advisors, about wide-range of issues currently facing the global economy including trade, the US Dollar, European monetary policy, corporate bonds, as well as what markets David thinks are most at risk as the Fed continues down its path of tightening and as protectionist trade measures begin to introduce new anomalies into the American economy.

In this week's episode, Demetri Kofinas conducts an impromptu monologue after a last-minute rescheduling of his interview with a prominent, former US senator, governor, and member of the 9-11 commission. He reflects on some of the subjects he intended to cover with his guest, including the role of the Saudi government in the 9-11 attacks. He also spends a good amount of time exploring the spirit of the last 4 decades in America, as he considers what future generations will say about the 2010's. 

In Episode 67, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Bill Janeway about how a new sort of political economy, driven by the disruptive forces of globalization, financialization, and the information revolution, has made ideological approaches to economic thinking obsolete. In this conversation, Janeway proposes a new model for how to think about capitalism at the frontier of technological change that includes an important role for the state in creating the foundation for paradigm-shifting innovation.

I have decided to focus more of my coverage on financial markets heading into the new year. This update was recorded on my iPhone only hours before being released. It includes my thoughts and reflections about Day 1 at the Robin Hood Investors Conference that I was invited to attend on account of my episode with Montana Skeptic.  @coveringdelta

In Episode 66, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Brian McCullough about the history of the World Wide Web. The conversation spans the earliest days of the web beginning with the browser and Netscape’s historic IPO that kicked off the greatest stock market mania since 1929. Additional topics include the founding and development of Google, Amazon, Napster, Microsoft, and more. @hiddenforcespod