In Episode 427 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Le Shrub, the author of the Shrubstack Substack who in his previous life was part of a famous team known for putting on “The Big Short” during the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.

This recording is the result of a phone call Demetri made to Le Shrub to catch up on markets and life after returning from a recent trip to Italy where he spent time with some guests of the podcast discussing the effect that rapid technological changes are having on the evolution of human societies, culture, politics, and the economy.

Le Shrub and Kofinas spend the first hour exploring some of these themes and the collective sense in Western countries that our governing systems, societal norms, and democratic institutions are unraveling at a quickening pace, hurdling us toward some inexorable economic and political reset.

They shift their focus in the second hour toward the markets as Le Shrub educates listeners on his investment process and how it has fared in this increasingly chaotic information landscape where signal is often drowned by a cacophony of bad information spread by malicious actors, uninformed clout chasers, and bots. This includes a discussion about how Le Shrub has sought to monetize the second order effects of the most recent Trump tariffs on copper and the Brazilian economy.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 07/10/2025