In Episode 150 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Rick Rule, President & CEO of Sprott US Holdings and Senior Managing Director of Sprott Inc. a global, alternative asset manager focused on precious metals and real assets with approximately 12 billion dollars in assets under management. After spending most of the last decade in a period of prolonged underperformance, gold has spent the last two years on a tear, up 67% since September 2018. This episode is meant to introduce Hidden Forces listeners to gold, precious metals, and the larger natural resource industry. We discuss gold’s physical qualities as a commodity that needs to be prospected, mined, extracted, refined, and stored, as well as its investment profile in the form of bullion, equities, and derivative products like futures, options, and ETFs. We also spend time in the regular episode discussing gold in philosophical terms. What is gold? What is it that gives gold its value? Is gold a hedge against inflation? Is it insurance, and if so, insurance against what? Finally, is it possible to even talk about gold without discussing the macroeconomy, credit markets, and ultimately people’s faith in the institution of paper money? Other topics include the supply and demand-side drivers of the gold price, what Rick Rule sees in terms of institutional demand for gold, how the mining industry has changed over the last few decades, the relationship of gold to silver and where the silver market is trending, the use of public ledgers and blockchain-related technologies in the precious metals industry, and much, much more. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website 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 Episode Recorded on 08/03/2020

In Episode 149 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Orville Schell, Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society about the implications of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's monumental speech at the Nixon Library, the history of engagement with China’s Communist Party, and what a New Cold War with China will mean for the future of peace and security. Dr. Schell’s career as a China scholar spans the entire arch of US-Sino relations since Nixon’s fateful trip to the Middle Kingdom in 1972 and the opening up of China to the world. The same year (1967) that Dr. Schell earned his master's degree in Chinese studies an astounding 70 percent of Americans agreed on one thing: the greatest threat to U.S. security was the People’s Republic of China. After fifty years of engagement where relations between the two nations would improve dramatically, Americans are now back to viewing China as an enemy. A Pew Research Center poll conducted in March 2020 shows that roughly two-thirds of Americans now say they have an unfavorable view of China, the most negative rating for the country since the Center began asking the question in 2005, and up nearly 20 percentage points since the start of the Trump administration. Positive views of China’s leader, President Xi Jinping, are also at historically low levels. In a recent speech delivered at the Nixon Presidential Library, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared the failure of 50 years of engagement with China and called for the free world to stand up against this “new tyranny” in what felt very much like the beginning of a new cold war.  “It’s true, there are differences,” remarked Pompeo, when contrasting China to the USSR. “Unlike the Soviet Union, China is deeply integrated into the global economy. But Beijing is more dependent on us than we are on them.” “I reject the notion,” he continued, “that we’re living in an age of inevitability, that some trap is pre-ordained, that CCP supremacy is the future. . . . If we bend the knee now, our children’s children may be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party, whose actions are the primary challenge today in the free world. General Secretary Xi is not destined to tyrannize inside and outside of China forever unless we allow it.” In their conversation, Orville Schell and Demetri Kofinas discuss the speech, what it means for US-Sino relations, and the implications of disengagement for the US, China, and the world. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website 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 Episode Recorded on 07/29/2020

In Episode 148 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Anderson and Vance Spencer. Mike and Vance are the founders of Framework Ventures, a thesis-driven venture capital firm whose team of technologists, researchers, and investors partner with founders and teams to build token-based networks and develop the requisite cryptoeconomics, governance, and community to scale.    The team’s focus is on the hot new space of decentralized finance, known as DeFi for short. They are the largest owners outside of the core team & exchanges of both the decentralized oracle provider Chainlink and the derivatives platform Synthetix.  Framework’s investment thesis relies on three assumptions. The first is that (1) financial institutions will realize competitive advantages as smart contract functionality allows them to streamline costs and realize new revenue streams. (2) Permissionless open protocols will provide access to financial services to a wider range of people than is possible today. (3) Token-based business models have a competitive advantage over traditional business models for some technical products. During this episode, we explore a number of use cases and applications that Framework’s founders believe will drive value in DeFi. We discuss cryptoeconomics in the context of how to capture network value, the “chicken-or-the-egg” problem of initializing a two-sided network and consider a new approach to valuation that breaks with some of the models and formulas that were popularized during the ICO craze of 2017.  The team also discusses their investments in Chainlink and Synthetix, including a discussion about the tech, tokenomics, and community of these projects. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website 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 Episode Recorded on 07/20/2020

In Episode 147 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Blockstack, a full-stack decentralized computing platform and app ecosystem that puts users in control of their identity & data.  The two spend the first half of their conversation discussing the recent twitter hack and what lessons can be drawn from the attack. The rest of the episode (including the overtime) is spent on Blockstack and how protocols like it offer solutions for problems of security and privacy on the Internet today. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website= 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 Episode Recorded on 07/19/2020

In Episode 146 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Irshad Manji, a public intellectual, best-selling author, and Emmy award nominated documentary filmmaker whose latest book “Don’t Label Me,” attempts to educate readers on how to have conversations about politically sensitive subjects without inflaming the culture wars. It should not surprise anyone to learn, therefore, that today’s conversation with Irshad is one of the most pleasant, honest, and meaningful that we have ever had on this podcast.  Unlike this conversation, public discourse today often feels like a series of battles and skirmishes between two monolithic view points. Discussions likewise, are often seen as opportunities to try one another in the court of public opinion. If we accept that a pluralistic, democratic society is the best way to safeguard the values and freedoms that have allowed us to manifest our individual identities, then how can we be told that in order to protect those identities we should curtail the very freedoms that gave rise to them in the first place? We are living through a very dark period in American life. Diversity has become a sort of “rallying cry” whose champions espouse exclusively in terms of race, gender, and sexual orientation. When it comes to opinions, values, and beliefs, tolerance for diversity of opinion is nowhere to be found. And yet, a pluralistic society demands that its citizens are granted the freedom to express themselves and their beliefs without fear or reprisal or condemnation. Those who seek to silence us therefore are not champions of liberty. They are tyrants masquerading as victims who seek to exercise power over the very people who they label as their oppressors. Today’s conversation should serve (hopefully) as an inspiration for the types of discussions and free exchanges of ideas that we should all strive to have and which we need to have if we want to make it through this difficult period in our history. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website 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 Episode Recorded on 07/15/2020

In Episode 145 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Camila Russo, the host of the Defiant podcast and author of “The Infinite Machine,” the first official account of the rise of the Ethereum blockchain. The first 25 minutes of this conversation explores Camila’s experience working as a journalist in Argentina, how she got interested in covering cryptocurrencies, as well as her process for writing such an ambitious book. The rest of the episode deals mostly with the book itself, including a discussion about the ICO craze of 2017 and the impact that it’s had on Ethereum, it’s developer community, and investor appetite for funding new ventures and initiatives in the space. This part of the conversation continues into the overtime, where we also debate whether or not the ICO model itself is the ideal mechanism by which to fund early-stage, open source innovations. We also discuss what it’s like to be a journalist covering crypto today, how the media industry in crypto has changed in the years since the onset of the 2018 bear market, and the opportunities for more sophisticated, high-quality journalism in the space going forward. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website 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 Episode Recorded on 07/06/2020

In Episode 144 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with philosophers Brandon Warmke and Justin Tosi about the phenomenon of grandstanding, which they define as “the use and abuse of moral talk for the purposes of self-promotion.”  Although moral grandstanding is a spectacle most commonly associated with those on the political left, the practice of grandstanding is an entirely bipartisan phenomenon. Its increased prevalence in public discourse has dangerous implications for politics and society. For grandstanders, it isn’t the pursuit of virtue that motivates them. They aren’t concerned with doing good; they’re concerned with looking good; they want others to think that they are morally superior, and they’re willing to go to great lengths in order to do it, including using moral talk as a tactic for punishment and intimidation.   The irony is that grandstanders accomplish all of this by free-riding on the moral behavior and good intentions of others. They turn civil discourse into a moral arms race, weaponizing language, and silencing their enemies with threats of doxing and humiliation. Our society is currently going through a seismic transition. Norms are being radically upended and Americans are experiencing levels of political polarization arguably unseen since at least the 1970s. If we want to make it through this period in one piece, as one nation, undivided we need to reclaim the moral high ground in our discourse. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’re in danger of losing control of our country to the darker forces of our nature, and this would not bode well for the future of our republic. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Become a premium subscriber, which gives you access to our episode overtimes, as well as transcripts and rundowns to each week’s episode. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website 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 Episode Recorded on 06/30/2020

In Episode 143 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Vivian Lee, President of Health Platforms at Verily Life Sciences (an Alphabet company) about America’s broken health system, how to fix it, and why it’s been so difficult to do until now.  According to an Institute of Medicine 2012 study, we waste 30 cents of every dollar we spend on health care. That’s over $1 trillion per year. Nearly one-fifth of the US economy goes to pay for health. That’s two to three times more than other high-income OECD nations where health coverage is universal. And yet, our life-expectancy statistics place us 26th out of 35 among those same OECD countries. How is this possible? What you are going to learn today is that while the solution to America’s broken health system is complicated, the problem is rather simple: our incentives are totally “out-of-whack.” Our fee-for-service system rewards action, not better health outcomes. It encourages overtreatment and specialty care at the expense of prevention and primary care. This is the fundamental flaw of American health care. But this isn’t the entire story. How we pay for healthcare is equally important. Most Americans don’t buy health care. They buy health insurance. This incentive structure often puts insurers and doctors at odds with patients’ interests. Insurers who pay doctors and hospitals for care are incentivized to spend as little as possible on a patient’s health. The less they payout, the more profit they make. Conversely, in a pay-for-action model, most doctors and hospitals are incentivized to spend as much as possible. This means patients (or more precisely, their premiums) are the rope in an annual trillion-dollar tug of war. Doctors and hospitals pull by ordering more tests and operations; insurers yank back by denying those services or adding restrictions like “prior authorization” paperwork for expensive medication and tests. When hospitals or doctors charge more than insurers are willing to pay, patients can get caught in the middle and be asked to pay the difference, leading to those so-called “surprise bills” that we all love so much. Normally, we could expect market forces to drive costs down in such a highly inefficient system, but the model of buying insurance (not health care) means not only that customers are price inelastic, but that they are actually incentivized to consume as many services as possible since they have already paid for them in the form of a monthly premium. Everyone is shooting in a different direction. In today’s conversation with Vivian Lee, you are going to learn how America’s health system became so dysfunctional (e.g. defensive medicine, poor primary- and self-care, astronomical end-of-life costs, etc.) and what we can do to fix it. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Become a premium subscriber, which gives you access to our episode overtimes, as well as transcripts and rundowns to each week’s episode. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website 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 Episode Recorded on 06/24/2020

In Episode 142 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Tony Greer, editor of the Morning Navigator and founder of TG Macro. This episode begins with a clip from David Portnoy (a.k.a Barstool Dave or Davey Daytrader), in what is probably the most epic hype video ever created for stock trading.  Portnoy has come to personify not only the recent rip-roaring retracement in equities, but also, the philosophy that the stock market no longer bears any relationship to the real economy. “It took me a while to figure out that the stock market isn’t connected to the economy,” according to David Portnoy. “I tell people there are two rules to investing: Stocks only go up, and if you have any problems, see rule No. 1.” Extraordinary monetary interventions remain the single most important causal factor for explaining this phenomenon (what we have referred to on this show as “market nihilism”). Whether investment flows are coming from passive funds or “passive people,” what’s important is that the allocators invest indiscriminately. As the popular fraise goes: “Always buy the fucking dip” (#ABTFD) In our past episodes with Mike Green, we have explored the role of systematic passive investment vehicles in driving markets higher. With the recent return of the retail investor an additional layer of passivity has been added. Not only are these investors seemingly “price inelastic,” but they also exhibit a disturbing level of indifference to fundamentals that is qualitatively different from anything seen in past generations. Unlike the Gen-X and Boomer cohorts of 1999 who felt that they could see a future that others could not yet perceive, this generation of zoomers and millennials seems to feel that they have figured out something far more fundamental about how things work today. In their view, the notion that the stock market has any relationship to economic reality is laughable. Fundamentals can’t hold a candle to Jay Powell and his money printer. Along with this realization comes a mocking, self-deprecatory celebration of aberrance. Indeed, going through r/WallStreetBets or wojack images on crypto subreddits exposes you to imagery that is reminiscent of a scene from the Island of Dr. Moreau. In their 90-minute conversation, Tony and Demetri explore all of these themes. They discuss the recent rip-roaring retracement in equities and how the Federal Reserve, with its relentless money-printing has broken the economy, turned the stock market into a casino, and sown the seeds for a political crisis unlike any we have seen in more than a generation.  You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. This week’s rundown is particularly helpful for anyone trying to follow along or who has not been properly exposed to the subjects discussed in today’s episode. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. 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 Episode Recorded on 06/15/2020

In Episode 141 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joseph Nye, the co-founder of the international relations theory of neoliberalism who is credited with developing the concept of "soft power."  In his latest book “Do Morals Matter?,” Dr. Nye meticulously weighs the ethics of the foreign policy decisions of American presidents from F.D.R. to Donald Trump. He argues that good moral reasoning should be three-dimensional, weighing and balancing the intentions, the means, and the consequences of a president's decisions. “A moral foreign policy is not a matter of intentions versus consequences but must involve both as well as the means that were used,” professes Joseph Nye.   In this conversation, Demetri and professor Nye discuss the presidencies of Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Nye compares and contrasts the various presidents, their tenures, policy challenges & opportunities, as well as the moral dimensions of some of their most consequential decisions. The second hour of today’s episode, which is available to our premium subscribers, deals primarily with the Obama and Trump presidencies, including a detailed discussion about the contemporary challenges facing the United States in a multi-polar world. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. 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 Episode Recorded on 06/08/2020