Hidden Forces

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

In Episode 140 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Thomas Rid, Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies about active measures, the history of disinformation, and political warfare. We live in the age of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. As a renowned expert on technology and national security, Thomas Rid was one of the first to sound the alarm. More than four months before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was “carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign" to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new. The story of modern disinformation begins with the post-Russian Revolution clash between communism and capitalism, which would come to define the Cold War. In this conversation about active measures, Rid reveals startling intelligence and security secrets from materials written in more than ten languages across several nations, and from interviews with current and former operatives. He exposes the disturbing yet colorful history of professional, organized lying, tracks the rise of leaking, and shows how spies began to exploit emerging internet culture many years before WikiLeaks. Finally, he sheds new light on the 2016 election, especially the role of the infamous “troll farm” in St. Petersburg as well as a much more harmful attack that unfolded in the shadows.   During a period of heightened emotions, extreme politics, and dangerous precedents, this conversation will help listeners to understand how we got here and what we can do in order to make it safely through the other side. 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 05/25/2020

In Episode 139 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. In this nearly two-hour long conversation, we discuss how monopoly, commercial concentration, and regulatory capture drive outcomes in our economy, markets, and political system and what we can do to take that power back. This episode was recorded on Friday, May 29th, amidst the riots that have been unfolding across the country in response to the death of George Floyd, a 46-year old African American man who appears to have been suffocated by Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin. Neither Matt or Demetri are in any position to provide further insight into what is transpiring in Minneapolis, but they do discuss the response by some members of the media, the White House, as well as the President’s statement that he is going to issue an executive order to roll back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act with its legal protections for social media companies.  We also discuss the Joe Rogan-Spotify deal in the context of antitrust regulation and concentration in the podcast industry, the arrest of a CNN crew in Minneapolis, private equity and the regulatory capture of government by the financial sector, and perhaps most importantly a conversation about the future of the Democratic and Republican parties and whether we are living through the early stages of a new political consensus forming in American life. 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 05/29/2020

In Episode 138 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Adam Tooze, professor of history and Director of the European Institute at Columbia University about the German Constitutional Court’s recent ruling. In its decision, the German Court finds that the European Central Bank’s 2015 bond-buying program would be illegal under German law unless the ECB can prove the purchases are justified. The ruling threatens to undermine the very credibility of Central Bank independence, which has always been predicated on a political consensus about what the proper role of monetary policy is, how it should operate, and what its objectives should be.  This consensus no longer holds, not only in Europe but across much of the developed world. Left unresolved, the contradictions between the mandates of central banks and their policy actions will only worsen the type of political dysfunction that threatens the very independence that they seek to protect.  For Hidden Forces premium subscribers, this week’s hour-long episode overtime looks at how our collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic may say more about our own fear of death and disease than about the actual dangers posed by the virus. By calling into question our mastery over life and death the disease shakes the psychological basis of our social and economic order. It poses fundamental questions about priorities; it upends the terms of debate. It’s a conversation about history, philosophy, and the benefits and consequences of human progress. 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

In Episode 137 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with professor of finance at Beijing’s Peking University, Michael Pettis. Profesor Pettis’ research has focused mainly on Chinese financial markets, global trade & capital flows, and central banking. He spent seventeen years on Wall Street running fixed-income trading and capital market desks and has advised governments on privatizations of national banking systems and commercial bank debt restructuring & loan issuance.  In their latest book, “Trade Wars are Class Wars,” Michael Pettis and his co-author Matthew Klein argue that rising inequality within countries heightens trade conflicts between them.   The entire conversation lasts for approximately two hours and we devote the first hour to understanding how balance of payments and capital flows—themselves heavily dependent on the dynamics of wealth and income distribution within a country’s borders—can generate imbalances in trade, asset prices, interest rates, debt levels, and currency valuations, often leading to misallocations of capital for the surplus and deficit countries alike.   The second hour is devoted to applying this balance of payments framework to specific economies—namely, the United States, the Eurozone, and China. Demetri and Michael discuss how the financial instability generated from the sorts of imbalances discussed in this episode are now seeping into our systems of government, turning a financial crisis into a political one. For Super Nerds and Autodidacts, you will want to consult your rundowns and have your transcripts handy for this episode. There are links in the rundown to many of the concepts and theories discussed, as well as charts and images that are relevant to the discussion.  You can access the overtime of Demetri’s conversation with Michael Pettis, as well as obtain copies of 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 May 16th, 2020