In Episode 397 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jim Bianco, President and Macro Strategist at Bianco Research, about the macroeconomic factors driving the recent rise in bond yields and a range of other variables shaping the economies of the U.S., Europe, and China, as well as their impact on investors' portfolios.

In the first hour, Bianco and Kofinas analyze the factors behind the surge in long-term interest rates across the developed world. Their discussion covers the Federal Reserve's role, concerns about government debt and deficits, inflation, tariff policies, and economic growth expectations amid these potential challenges.

In the second hour, they shift their focus to the implications of these changes for investors. They explore the resilience—or lack thereof—of the traditional 60/40 portfolio and strategies for mitigating portfolio volatility in a market environment where stocks and bonds increasingly move in tandem. Additionally, Demetri and Jim examine the drivers of U.S. dollar strength, the risks posed by U.S. equity concentration, the potential for a recession, and what the continued decline in Chinese bond yields suggests about the state of China's economy.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 01/14/2025

In Episode 396 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Christine Rosen about her book, “Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World,” which explores the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology and its effects on our experience of life as embodied human beings.

Christine is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on American history, society and culture, and technology and human behavior. Rosen is also a monthly columnist for Commentary Magazine, one of the cohosts of the popular Commentary Podcast.

Demetri and Christine spend the first hour of their conversation focused on the philosophical and moral questions that arise from our unreserved embrace of virtual realities and mediated experiences. They explore questions about the nature of reality, how embodiment shapes experience, and whether the virtualization of our lives is the natural progression of our interplay with technology or if it represents something fundamentally different and profoundly immoral about the world we are building.

In the second hour, Kofinas and Rosen discuss the effect that these technologies and the logic that animates them have on our sense of self, agency, and freedom. They explore how time spent inside virtual spaces hosted on large tech platforms may be contributing to the rising levels of depression, anxiety, antisociality, and other mental and personality disorders that we may or may not recognize in each other and in ourselves. They also discuss what can and should be done, both at an individual and societal level, to begin to address the problem.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

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Episode Recorded on 12/17/2024

In Episode 395 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Zach Abraham and Chase Taylor about the recent revision in the Fed’s summary of economic projections, the investment opportunities in Latin America, the economic effects of the war in Syria, the state of the outgoing Biden administration, and the economic prospects associated with a second and more invigorated Trump administration in 2025.

They spend the first hour discussing how Fed policy, demographics, and systematic passive flows continue to drive mean reversion in equity markets and whether the most recent drawdown is yet another opportunity to buy-the-dip or if the downside risk to investors is beginning to outweigh the fear of missing out on the next rally.

In the second hour, Demetri, Zach, and Chase discuss the political and economic experiment being undertaken by Javier Milei’s administration in Argentina, whether the country is becoming investable again, how it may serve as a role model for neighboring countries in Latin America, and how Chase and Zach are approaching this potentially enormous investment opportunity.

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Episode Recorded on 12/20/2024

In Episode 394 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with geopolitical analyst and forecaster Kamran Bokhari about the fall of Damascus and the implications of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in Syria for the balance of power in the Middle East.

Kamran last came on the podcast a year ago to discuss the violence ignited by Hamas’ October 7th attacks, the nature and scope of Iranian involvement, and how various regional actors, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Houthis, and Hezbollah were exploiting the growing disorder for their own advantage as the Biden administration struggled to stabilize a region that was on the verge of another major war.

That war has seemingly come and gone, leaving Iran’s influence network along the Shia crescent from Damascus to Beirut, along with its proxies and affiliates in utter devastation or full-on retreat. Assad’s departure and the fall of his regime in Syria are the equivalent of a geopolitical earthquake and are already dramatically changing the balance of power in the Middle East.

Kamran and Demetri spend the first hour of this episode recapping these recent events, enumerating the key players who expect a seat at the table for any negotiation over Syria’s future, why the center of gravity in the Sunni Muslim world is shifting from Riyadh to Ankara, and what all of this means for Iran and the strategic vision that has guided the Islamic revolution since 1979.

In the second hour, Kofinas and Bokhari go one by one through every major country that will be materially affected by the outcome in Syria. They discuss the consequences and opportunities for Turkey, the new threats and challenges posed to Israel, what this new reality means for the Saudis, the interests of the United States and Russia, and why el-Sisi's regime in Egypt may be the next major Arab government to come under pressure in the years to come.

You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

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Episode Recorded on 12/09/2024

In Episode 393 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Herman Mark Schwartz, a professor in the Politics department of the University of Virginia and the author of three books on economic development, globalization, and the geopolitics of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Demetri and Mark discuss an article that he recently co-authored in American Affairs about AI’s potential to create a new growth wave of creative destruction that could rival or surpass those of previous innovation cycles, with enormous implications for business, society, and the role of government in the economy. They discuss what these so-called “Schumpeterian” growth waves typically look like, how they create complex interactions across all facets of the economy, and how they ultimately exhaust themselves, making room for the birth of a new innovation cycle.

In the second hour, Mark and Demetri apply this framework to the growth wave that we have been living through for more or less the last 50 years and which now appears to be in the late stages of endogenous decay. They examine three scenarios for what might come next. The first is an extension of the current wave, the second is a new paradigm driven by AI as the key general-purpose technology, and the third is neither an extension of the current wave nor a transition to a new paradigm, but rather a series of crises characterized by commodity shortages, energy insecurity, political polarization, and global conflict.

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If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

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Episode Recorded on 12/02/2024

In Episode 392 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with author, investor, and financial historian Russell Napier, about how to navigate a seminal transition in the global trade and monetary order. This episode aims to provide you with the tools to understand, value, and manage the assets, exposures, and risks in your portfolios and to capitalize on opportunities that come along only once every hundred years.

In the first hour, Demetri and Russell Napier discuss the origins of the non-system that came to shape international trade and finance in the decades after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods international system of fixed exchange rates. They discuss the de-pegging of the RMB from the USD, the closing of the gap between the discount rate and the growth rate in developed economies, and the implications of America’s escalating economic war against China.

In the second hour, which is available to premium subscribers only, Russell Napier and Kofinas focus most of their time on the implications of this breakdown in the international trade and monetary system for investors. They discuss how developed world governments are likely to repress capital, what you want to own in such a world, what you don’t want to own, and how to tell the difference. They also discuss what a new Chinese monetary order might look like, which countries would participate, and how such a system would build off China’s efforts to digitize the Yuan and create a Chinese-built digital payments infrastructure that extends beyond China’s borders as part of the Digital Silk Road initiative. They also discuss the prospects for a strategic Bitcoin fund, the use of stablecoins as an extension of Dollar hegemony, and the fate of the Euro in a world torn between Beijing and Washington.

You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

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Episode Recorded on 11/27/2024

In Episode 391 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Wolfgang Münchau, the director and co-founder of Eurointelligence and the author of a phenomenal new book about post-WWII Germany, the rise and fall of the German economy, its industrial sector, and the end of what he dubs “The German Miracle.”

Wolfgang Münchau and Demetri spend the first hour of this episode laying the foundation to help listeners understand how Germany became the economic and financial juggernaut that we have known it to be throughout the 1990s and most of the 21st century. They discuss the two pillars of the German economy, the supercharging of its industrial growth model during the period of globalization and unipolarity, and the cultural, technological, and geopolitical sources of its economic decline.

In the second hour, Kofinas and Münchau zero in on the ten structural sources of weakness for the German economy, including the German capital model and banking system, a corporatism that misaligns incentives between the interests of politicians and those of the economy, the fiscal doomsday machine in the form of Germany’s debt brake, a radicalizing electorate, and a political mindset among German elite that treats geopolitical risk as an economic externality to be safely discounted or ignored entirely.

You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

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Episode Recorded on 11/19/2024

In Episode 390 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Rupa Subramanya, a journalist at the Free Press, about the de-banking of political dissidents, censorship, and the “right to die.”

Rupa first came on Demetri’s radar for the work she has done writing about what is known as “de-banking:” the closure of people's or organizations' bank accounts by financial institutions that perceive the account holders to pose a financial, legal, regulatory, or reputational risk to the organization.

They speak extensively about her work in this area, along with her writings about political censorship of conservative voices and the right-to-die movement in the Netherlands and Canada, between the first and second hours.

You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 10/30/2024

In Episode 389 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Andy Constan, the founder and proprietor of Damped Spring Advisors about why he believes the Federal Reserve is at risk of losing the long-end of the bond market, which would lead to a reacceleration of inflation and a hard landing for the economy.

Andy and Demetri spend the first hour discussing the subject of a recent letter he published in which he warns that the Federal Reserve, by continuing to lower interest rates and ease monetary policy, could cause a sell-off in long-bonds and a rise in term premia, paradoxically tightening financial conditions while intending to ease them. They further discuss Treasury issuance, management of the Fed’s balance sheet, the weighted average maturity of assets in the central bank’s portfolio, and how conditions in the U.S. economy measure against the Fed’s summary of economic projections.

In the second hour, Kofinas and Constan dig into the government’s finances, its fiscal picture, and how Trump’s election may exacerbate or alleviate trends that have been in place for decades. They also discuss equity markets, the broadening of the equity rally beyond the Magnificent Seven that’s been underway this year, earnings expectations for these companies, whether they’re elevated or conservative, and how we should go about valuing them.

You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 11/11/2024

In Episode 388 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with semiconductor expert Chris Miller about the state and future of the semiconductor industry in the context of Trump’s 2024 U.S. electoral victory, with all its implications for industrial policy, defense spending, tariffs, export controls, trade wars, and much more.

This conversation is a deep-dive into the semiconductor supply chain. Kofinas and Miller discuss how money is currently being allocated under the CHIPS and Science Act, the progress being made in domestic U.S. semiconductor fabrication, the challenges facing TSMC’s Arizona facility, and the troubles at Intel.

They also take a hard look at the outcomes resulting from the U.S. semiconductor export and end-use controls implemented against China, how effective or ineffective they’ve been, and ways to improve them. They also assess China’s own efforts at building out its domestic chip ecosystem and some of the loopholes that Chinese companies are systematically exploiting in order to become fully independent of and eventually overtake Western chipmakers and equipment manufacturers. They discuss the three largest limiting factors to scaling AI data centers, the national security threat posed by Chinese companies leapfrogging their U.S. competitors in the race toward AGI, and much more.

You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 11/06/2024

In Episode 387 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with political analyst, author, and host of “Beyond the Polls,” Henry Olsen about the state of the 2024 presidential race and what to expect from what could be the most contested election in American history.

Henry tells us how each candidate is performing in the key swing states and districts that will determine this election, the frequency of early voting and how it compares to 2020, and shares his views on other predictive metrics that he is paying close attention to.

Henry believes that this election could be even closer than the one in 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore, an election that was ultimately determined by a narrow margin of 537 votes, along with a ruling by the Florida Supreme court to suspend any further recounts. The country is in a very different place today than it was two decades ago, and how any remotely similar scenario would play out this time is truly anyone’s guess.

Olsen and Kofinas also discuss the economic repercussions of a Trump victory, the role of J.D. Vance as a potentially transformational figure in Republican politics, the effect that a loss on the part of the Democrats would have on their party’s realignment, and much more.

You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 10/31/2024