Hidden Forces

In Episode 266 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with financial historian, journalist, and author Edward Chancellor. For the last twenty years, Chancellor has been arguably known best for his book, "Devil Take the Hindmost," which is a fantastic history of the last 400 years of financial speculation. Yet, that streak may be soon coming to an end with the publication tomorrow of his latest book, "The Price of Time," an absolutely brilliant philosophical exploration of interest and its essential role in valuing and directing the allocation of capital, labor, and resources in the economy over time.

Interest rates have sometimes been described on this podcast and elsewhere as the "price of money." While this definition is useful, it fails to capture the temporal dimension of interest rates and the role that they play in expanding the continuum of economic activity, cooperation, investment, and consumption beyond the immediate grasp of the present moment. The ability to accumulate capital in the form of money enables us to operate outside of entropy's constraints—we aren't limited in other words by the decomposition or decay of a sack of barley, a barrel of oil, or a concrete building. But in order to value that capital through both space and time, we need something more. And that something is interest: the price you pay to borrow money or the cost you charge to lend it over time.

Over the last two decades the price of time has plummeted to levels never before seen in human history and with it have arrived a multiplicity of asset price bubbles, a reduction in productivity growth, rising wealth and income inequality, a discouragement of savings, a growth in supply chains, and an excessive amount of risk-taking encouraged by the acrobatics of yield-starved investors in search of decent return.

In this excellent and timely conversation, you are going to learn about the history of interest and its historical role in promoting human cooperation, economic activity, and advancement. You are also going to learn about how interest is priced, where it comes from, and the difference between the so-called "natural rate" of interest and what central banks have claimed as their policy lever to control the scale, scope, and distribution of capital in society.

In the second hour of our conversation which is available to premium subscribers only, Edward Chancellor and Demetri Kofinas apply the framework that they develop in the first part of the episode to help you understand where we find ourselves today, whether or not central banks and governments can indeed use their policy tools to fix the very problems that those tools have to help create, what some of those solutions and the path forward could look like, and what all of this means for you and your portfolio.

You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium 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:

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 08/09/2022

In Episode 265 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Howell. Michael is the CEO of CrossBorder Capital, a London-based, independent research and investment company that provides asset allocation and capital markets advice to institutional investors.

This conversation is a natural follow-up to our recent episodes with Lev Menand on the shadow banking system and Eric Basmajian on economic cycles. Specifically, the credit cycle and its leading impact on the economy and asset prices. But this conversation with Michael also pulls directly from other episodes as well with guests like Michael Pettis on global trade and finance, Claudio Borio on financial instability, Brent Johnson on the Revenge of the Dollar, James Aitken on Digital Currency and the Pivot to Asia, Russel Napier on the New Economic Order and the Asian Financial Crisis, and of course, one of my absolute favorites, a conversation with Kevin Coldiron, Tim Lee, and Jamie Lee on the role of the US Dollar as an international funding currency and as the primary driver of recurring systemic crises in the international financial system.

Global liquidity is a term that every single person working in finance and in financial media has not only heard of but has probably used at one point or another. And yet, if you were to ask most people what this term means or what it refers to they would be hard pressed to give you a clear or uniform answer. This is because the drivers of global liquidity, namely the financial and exchange rate relationships within and between countries and the determinants of cross-border flows of money, securities, goods and services, are constantly changing. In the process, they have become, in the words of Michael Howell, "the new weapons in the escalating Capital Wars between the U.S., Europe, and China," the last of which has a vested interest in not only the long-term stability of the international financial system but perhaps even the eventual aim of displacing the Dollar in favor of the Yuan as the fulcrum around which international trade and commerce is eventually invoiced and credited

The goal of today's conversation is not only to help you gain a deeper appreciation for what global liquidity is and the geopolitical and economic forces driving it but to also help you understand how it impacts you and your portfolio directly through the outsized role that it has on shaping economic outcomes and asset prices. This comes at a time when this very liquidity is receding faster than at any point since the Great Financial Crisis and by some measures, even quicker.

You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation, along with the additional material provided by Michael Howell by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium 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 | 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 08/02/2022

In Episode 264 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas publishes the contents of a call that he hosted on Twitter Spaces this past Tuesday evening only hours after Nancy Pelosi, the US Speaker of the House of Representatives arrived in Taiwan.

The subject of the call concerns both the short and long-term consequences of Pelosi's trip and whether or not the US is ready to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese naval blockade or invasion of the island by the People's Liberation Army. Speakers Dmitri Alperovitch, Elbridge Colby, and Jamil N. Jaffer discuss how the US can prepare for this eventuality, the urgency of the task at hand, and the possibility and consequences of the US losing a war with China over Taiwan in the next few years.

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 08/02/2022

In Episode 263 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Eric Basmajian. Eric is an economic cycle analyst and the Founder of EPB Macro Research, an economics-based research firm focusing on inflection points in economic growth and the impact on asset prices. His research has been featured across major financial media outlets and he's been kind enough to provide a sample of his latest cyclical trends monthly update report for premium subscribers to our super nerd tier that you can get through this week's episode page on our website.

This conversation is the latest in a series of episodes on markets and investing, with an especially strong focus this time on the macro economy, and in particular, the secular and cyclical trends in the rate of growth and inflation. Secular forces are things like demographics, debt-to-GDP levels, trends in globalization, and the regular and predictable doubling in computing power commonly referred to as Moore's Law—long-term trends in other words that remain in place through multiple economic cycles. Cyclical trends on the other hand are the 6-18 month fluctuations in growth determined by things like income, production, consumption, and employment. We can anticipate changes in the direction and magnitude of these trends by relying on a variety of what are known as leading as well as coincident economic indicators, things you've probably heard of before like building permits, new manufacturing orders, non-farm payrolls, personal consumption, industrial production, etc. Understanding where you are in an economic cycle and what the long-term, secular forces are that are pulling you or pushing you in any particular direction is as important to investors as the weather and the ocean currents are to the navigator of a sailboat. They inform the allocation strategies and performance expectations for a variety of asset classes, business models, and policy choices over time.

Today's conversation will expose you to a framework for thinking about the macroeconomy that is empirical, data-oriented, and very much based in reality—one that you can use to forecast major economic inflection points and their resulting impact on asset prices, a valuable tool for anyone trying to manage his or her portfolio or make informed investment decisions.

You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium 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 | 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 07/26/2022

In Episode 262 of Hidden Forces, I (Demetri Kofinas) share an interview I recently gave on "The Breakdown" with Nathaniel Whittemore, but not before delivering an important message, which has to do with a new Hidden Forces community tier that we will be launching.

I'm excited to announce that we will be launching a new Hidden Forces community tier where you'll be able to get immediate access to me, my thoughts, special content, etc., along with private events that will include opportunities to ask questions directly to my guests and to me in real-time. We are giving you a preview of that experience this coming Wednesday, August 3rd, from 6:30 PM — 8 PM EST when I will be hosting a live video Q&A over zoom. Anyone can join and ask me pretty much any question they want so long as it is relevant to the podcast. The zoom call is open to anyone but we are limiting the number of people who can join this time just to keep things manageable. You can secure your spot on the list by going to HiddenForces.io/events and registering right now.

The title of the event is "Investing Between the Wars," and while listeners are free to ask any question they like, the focus of the Q&A is on how the changing political and geopolitical landscape is affecting your life and investments. Indeed, this is the subject that Nathaniel Whittemore and I discussed in my recent appearance on "The Breakdown." I shared some of my own views and perspectives on markets and geopolitics as well as how I've incorporated my macro views of the political economy into my own investment decisions.

The Breakdown is a daily analysis podcast that explores themes in macroeconomics, bitcoin, geopolitics, and the big picture power shifts affecting the world. You can find it on any major podcast platform and at coindesk.com/podcasts and you can follow Nathaniel on Twitter at @NLW.

You can access the transcript to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium 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 | 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 07/18/2022