In Episode 296 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Chuck Klosterman, a bestselling author and essayist whose work focuses on American popular culture. His most recent book about the 1990s describes a decade that happened long ago, but not nearly as long ago as it seems. The 1990s happened between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers. During that time, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. At the start of the decade everyone’s name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines. By the end, exposing someone’s address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their cell phone. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a 1990s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture. What is it about the 1990s that makes it feel this way? “The feeling of the era,” writes Chuck Klosterman “and what that feeling supposedly signified, isolates the 1990s from both its distant past and its immediate future. It was a period of ambivalence, defined by an overwhelming assumption that life, and particularly American life, was underwhelming.” That was the thinking at the time. It is not the thinking now. Now the 1990s seem like a period when the world was starting to go crazy, but not so crazy that it was unmanageable or irreparable. It was the end of the twentieth century, but also the end of an age when we controlled technology more than technology controlled us. It was as Chuck Klosterman writes “a good time that happened long ago, although not nearly as long ago as it seems.” This episode is part of a larger series that we’ve published over the years on television history and culture, technology and the human experience, and the transformation in our perceptions of the world and what it means to be a human being. You can find these and other related podcasts on this week’s episode at Hiddenforces.io, where you can also access to the second part of today’s conversation by joining one of our three content tiers. This gives you access to our premium feed which you can use to listen to the second part of today’s conversation on your mobile device using your favorite podcast app just like you are listening to this episode right now. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 01/31/2023

In Episode 295 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Shehzad Qazi, the Managing Director of China Beige Book, which provides institutional investors and corporate decision-makers with market-leading insights derived directly from their nationwide proprietary data on the Chinese economy. China Beige Book CEO Leland Miller was previously on Hidden Forces to talk about the impact of Covid-19 on China’s economy and banking system, the latter of which has been a persistent source of weakness for the country’s growth prospects. He and Demetri also discussed some of the geopolitical consequences that could potentially flow from the ongoing global disruptions caused by the pandemic and the effects on China’s highly levered real estate market. Today’s conversation with Shehzad Qazi picks up where that conversation with Leland Miller left off. With the Chinese economy’s long-awaited reopening potentially picking up steam and the US and Europe possibly teetering on the edge of recession, the health of the Chinese economy remains the predominant demand variable driving the market’s expectations for inflation and commodity prices globally. Shehzad shares with us what he and his team are seeing in terms of growth expectations for 2023 and why markets seem to be having such a difficult time pricing the risks associated with China’s covid re-opening and its effect on the prices of key commodities such as oil, copper, and iron ore. He and Demetri also discuss the ongoing impact of geopolitical tensions on global supply chains and the effect of recent export controls on China’s semiconductor industry. This is the latest in a series of episodes that we have published over the years on China’s economy, its political system, and the challenges to US-China relations. You can find other such related podcasts on this week’s episode page, where you can also access to the second part of today’s conversation by joining one of our three content tiers. This gives you access to our premium feed which you can use to listen to the second part of today’s conversation on your mobile device using your favorite podcast app. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 01/24/2023

In Episode 294 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, Barry Eichengreen. In his first appearance on this podcast nearly five years ago, Dr. Eichengreen discussed the legacy of the Great Moderation, a multi-decade period of low inflation and positive economic growth that lasted between the mid-1980s and the onset of the Great Financial Crisis. Since then, developed economies have experienced a period of lackluster growth known as “secular stagnation,” characterized by historically low-interest rates, persistently low inflation, and growing levels of social and political instability. The question that Dr. Eichengreen and Demetri wrestle with in this conversation is whether the current period of higher inflation and rising interest rates is a temporary phenomenon or if we are entering a new economic paradigm where sovereign debt levels become unmanageable, multilateral cooperation breaks down, and state power grows at the expense of capital and labor. Their conversation includes a discussion about the future of the US dollar, the potential internationalization of the Chinese Yuan, the crisis brewing in the Japanese bond market, and the role of gold and other commodities as potential reserve assets in a world where fiat-based collateral comes increasingly under stress. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 01/17/2023

In Episode 293 of Hidden Forces, Agathe Demarais, the Global forecasting director at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and author of Backfire, joins us for a discussion about the ripple effects of US sanctions and export controls, how they are reshaping the global economy by weaponizing trade and finance, and the steps that countries are taking to insulate themselves from the US Dollar-based global financial and trading system. This episode is part of a series of conversations that we’ve curated on the role and future of the US dollar, the reorganization of international trade along geopolitical lines, and the evolving impact of great power competition on global trade and finance. In the first hour of their conversation, Agathe and Demetri discuss the origins and evolution of US sanctions policy and how it has been applied successfully and unsuccessfully in countries like Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Russia. The discussion on Russian sanctions continues into the second hour where Agathe and Demetri also explore the subject of export controls and the US Commerce department’s recent announcement that it would be restricting the ability of China’s economy to obtain or otherwise manufacture specific high-end semiconductor chips used in many military and commercial technologies and applications. They also discuss what China, Russia, and other members of an emergent “anti-American” coalition of nation-states are doing to try and insulate their economies and financial systems from the US dollar and Western sanctions. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 01/11/2023

In Episode 292 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Roger Hirst and Jacob Shapiro. Roger has spent over two decades on the equity derivative desks at various investment banks and is currently the Managing Editor of Real Vision Creative Studios. Jacob is Partner & Director of Geopolitical Analysis at Cognitive Investments and Founder and Chief Strategist of the business and political risk consulting firm Perch Perspectives. Both Roger and Jacob are part of a small and highly talented team of content creators at financial media company Lykeion, where they co-author a monthly research publication focused on the converging worlds of Geopolitics & Macro. The first hour of today’s conversation is devoted to a discussion about the move from a unipolar world order to a multipolar one. The forces that are bringing that multipolarity about and its impact on global security, international trade and commerce are a key part of that conversation, as is Russia’s war in Ukraine and the future of the European Union. In the second hour, Roger and Jacob give their assessments on what all of this means for the global economy and the market opportunities available to investors. This includes a conversation about inflation, the bull case for commodities, investment opportunities in emerging markets, central bank policy, and much more. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 01/02/2023

In Episode 291 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joshua Landis. Landis is the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and a widely recognized Syria expert. He was last on the podcast over three years ago to discuss the then-ongoing invasion of northern Syria by the Turkish military and the long-term withdrawal of American forces from the Middle East and Central Asia. The background for today’s conversation are the ongoing negotiations between Turkey, Russia, and Syria and President Erdoğan’s desire to expand Turkey’s military presence in northern Syria. Erdoğan’s stated aim is to create a larger buffer zone in which to transfer Syrian refugees and from which to defend Turkey from the threat posed by an independent Kurdish state aligned with elements of The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Ankara’s jingoistic rhetoric may be in part responsible for bringing Russia and Syria to the table and we may be on the verge of a reset in Turkish-Syrian relations and a reproachment between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Bashar al-Assad. The implications of such a reset would be profound for the Syrian people and is further evidence of Turkey’s bid for strategic autonomy. It is also reflective of the emerging geopolitical complexities of the Middle East and Europe, which have only been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. Joshua Landis and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation focused mostly on the historical antecedents of the conflict in Syria and the larger American presence in the Middle East. They devote the second hour to assessing long-term prospects for Turkey as a regional power, the role of the EU and NATO as counterbalancing forces to Turkish aggression in the Aegean, and the prospects for normalization of relations between Turkey and Syria and what this means for the US and Europe long-term. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/29/2022

In Episode 290 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Edwin Dorsey. Edwin is the author of “The Bear Cave,” a financial newsletter focused on exposing corporate misconduct that regularly moves markets and is cited frequently in Bloomberg terminal breaking news alerts. Edwin was recently profiled in Institutional Investor and is part of a wave of new authors on Substack who are changing the landscape of financial journalism. Today’s conversation focuses on Silvergate, a little-known but very important bank that recently found itself under investigation by US Senators Elizabeth Warren, Roger Marshall, and John Kennedy for its role in facilitating the movement of funds critical to the operations of Sam Bankman-Fried's failed crypto Exchange, FTX. Silvergate describes itself as the "leading bank for innovative businesses in FinTech and cryptocurrency," but its main business appears to have been facilitating payments between crypto hedge funds like Alameda and crypto exchanges like FTX. It already faces at least one class action lawsuit, alleging that the company aided and abetted FTX's fraudulent activities and breaches of the exchange's fiduciary duty through improper transfers, and through the lending and commingling of user funds. This evolving story extends well beyond Silvergate and helps you piece together some of the larger story that we have been trying to tell on this podcast in the last few months. If you want to listen to it, you can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/21/2022

In Episode 289 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jeff Snider. Jeff is Chief Strategist for Atlas Financial and co-host of the Eurodollar University podcast where he untangles the inner workings of the global monetary and Eurodollar reserve currency system with implications for policymakers and investors. The public often takes for granted the Federal Reserve’s ability to end economic recessions by engaging in what is popularly referred to as “money printing.” Unfortunately, the reality is much more complicated and Jeff and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation explaining what makes it so and why it matters. They spend the second hour of their conversation discussing what a recession will look like in 2023-2024, how bad it could get, and why it could lead to a monetary breakdown as we transition from a world of perpetual QE to one of permanent fiscal stimulus. What this means for investors and the value of our money is a critical part of their discussion and one you do not want to miss. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and takeaway’s 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. If you still have questions, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/22/2022

In Episode 288 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Renee DiResta about the recent revelations stemming from the Twitter Files, why we should care about them, and what we can do to fix the problems of unaccountable censorship and misinformation on social media. Renée is the technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, where she investigates the spread of narratives across social media and how actors leverage these networks to exert influence. She has advised Congress, the State Department, and other academic, civic, and business organizations, and has studied disinformation and computational propaganda in the context of pseudoscience conspiracies, terrorism, and state-sponsored information warfare, which makes her the perfect person to speak to about this incredibly important and timely topic. For those who are unfamiliar with this story, Elon Musk, who recently purchased Twitter for 44 billion dollars invited Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and several other journalists to look into the Twitter archives. What they found has confirmed many of the pre-existing beliefs of the American right, who see the published internal Twitter communications as evidence that partisan executives took deliberate actions to limit access to information and voices that could damage Democrats. The most salient argument here is that Twitter put its thumb on the scale by removing certain prominent accounts from trending, through suppression of both search and amplification. Even if the intent wasn't partisan, the impact was. At least, that’s the way the right sees it. On the left, the Twitter Files are being dismissed as a “nothing burger,” or at least as not revealing anything that we didn’t already know about for years. Defenders note that Twitter's terms of service say that the company limits the reach of certain posts in select cases and that Musk himself advocates for a similar policy. Indeed, Musk recently suspended the accounts of several journalists on the platform, including Lenett Lopez, whose social media account he raided four years ago. These defenders add further that Weiss provided anecdotes, rather than a comprehensive investigation, so it's impossible to conclude that such limitations were slanted in one direction or another. Demetri wanted to use this opportunity to shift the conversation away from politics and towards something more constructive by speaking to both sides of the political spectrum. In their conversation, Kofinas and DiResta discuss a wide range of social, philosophical, and policy issues related to social media, including ways of bringing more transparency and accountability to these technology platforms. If you want access to the second hour of today's conversation, you can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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 our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can do that through our subscriber page as well. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/15/2022

In Episode 287 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with James Block. James is the author of Dirty Bubble Media, a popular substack account that publishes critical thought pieces about the crypto industry and which was recently featured in an Atlantic magazine article titled, “Crypto Was Always Smoke and Mirrors.” In this conversation, Demetri and James discuss what they believe is a multi-billion dollar criminal conspiracy that involves money laundering, tax evasion, sanctions evasion, and other forms of illicit activity that sits at the very heart of the crypto ecosystem. One of the challenges that comes with trying to cover the seedy underbelly of crypto is that you are forced to wade through an almost infinite amount of evidence, much of which is circumstantial. The bankruptcy of FTX however, has produced new, critical pieces of information that investigators are using to sketch out the contours of this organization, the players involved, and the extent of conspiracy in ways that had previously proven difficult or impossible. It is a story that we have not heard discussed anywhere else, at least not in the framework that you are going to learn about today. It is precisely this framework that Demetri believes will help you better understand what is actually going on here. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. 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 | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/14/2022