Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Get the edge with Hidden Forces where media entrepreneur and financial analyst Demetri Kofinas gives you access to the people and ideas that matter, so you can build financial security and always stay ahead of the curve.

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517 episodes
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Episodes517

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Jan 29, 2018 · 1 hr 9 min
Chris Burniske | How Do You Value a Cryptocurrency? Cryptoeconomics and How to Build a Financial Model for Valuing Cryptoassets
In Episode 31 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Chris Burniske about how to value a cryptocurrency. Chris is a co-founder of Placeholder, a New York venture firm that specializes in cryptoassets. Before Placeholder, Chris Burniske pioneered ARK Invest's Next Generation Internet strategy, leading the company to become the first public fund manager to invest in cryptocurrency. He then transitioned to focus exclusively on cryptoassets, paving the way for Wall Street to recognize it as a new asset class. His commentary has been featured on national media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fortune, and Forbes. With the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrency having surpassed $800 billion by the start of 2018, it was only a matter of time before Wall Street would stand up and take notice. The establishment of a cash-settled futures market for bitcoin in late 2017 is one of many bullish signs for the long-term viability of cryptoassets. It has also opened the door to further institutional capital and crypto-focused hedge funds with hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy. The opportunities for profitmaking are too lucrative to ignore, but the flood of institutional and private capital into the cryptocurrency space is also fueling a speculative mania. The newness of this asset class and its lack of historical price data make proper valuations even more challenging. So, given these constraints, the question remains, how do you value cryptocurrency? The answer lies at the intersection of macroeconomics and financial modeling. Chris Burniske and Demetri Kofinas start by laying out a taxonomy for cryptoassets that breaks them into three categories: cryptocurrency, cryptocommodities, and cryptotokens. In their conversation, they explore how one can learn to differentiate between the different currencies, DApps, and tokens. How does one judge the merits of a white paper, the seriousness of the dev team, and the enthusiasm of early adopters? How important is governance? How can volatility in the underlying token impact the robustness of the software? How do supply schedules determine future values? What are some of the most reliable, early indicators of success or failure for a cryptoventure? These are just some of the questions that Demetri and Chris address in this highly informative and timely conversation. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Jan 22, 2018 · 1 hr 5 min
Tim O'Reilly | We Can Predict the Future Only by Learning to Map the Present
In Episode 30 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas asks the question, "how can we learn how to predict the future?" According to his guest, Tim O'Reilly, learning how to predict the future starts with building better maps. Tim O'Reilly has played a seminal role in creating the framework through which an entire generation has come to know and understand the modern Internet. If you have ever used terms like "open source" or "web 2.0," you are relying on the language cultivated by Tim O'Reilly, through his innumerable conferences, gatherings, and intimate conversations. His work has reshaped how people in the computer industry think about technology. He is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of O'Reilly Media, and his most recent book, WTF: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us, forms the basis for much of this conversation. The need to explore is a fundamental driver of human progress. Without it, we would never have ventured off the plains of Africa, conquered the seas, or landed men on the moon. How has humanity managed to navigate the unknown? The process of exploration is one of mapmaking. Maps are not some relics of a bygone era. Maps are not artifacts that exist naturally in the world. Maps are products of the human mind. Mapmaking is the process through which our brains structure time and space; they help us put order around experience. Maps are the expression of human perception. If we want to navigate the world better, and if we want to learn how to predict the future, then we need to build better maps. Tim O'Reilly helps us do just that. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Jan 8, 2018 · 1 hr 11 min
The Iranian Protests and the Forces Driving Change Across the Middle East | Hooman Majd
In Episode 29 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Hooman Majd about how to interpret the Iranian protests within the wider political, cultural, and financial dimensions of the greater Middle East. The ongoing Iranian protests have delivered the worst scenes of unrest since millions took to the streets over a disputed presidential election in 2009. During the tensions that occurred a decade ago, protesters claimed that widespread election fraud resulted in the state erroneously reelecting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as president of Iran; however, the most recent protests are about far more than an election — and it is about far more than just Iran. Although many reports have noted that the protests were triggered by growing anger stemming from economic hardships, such as increasing unemployment and income inequality, the root cause of the unrest goes far deeper. The unrest in Iran cannot be entirely separated from the larger forces moving through the Middle East. In order to understand the nature and scope of the present problem, we need to consider the socioeconomic and political forces operating in both Iran and the Middle East at large. Few are better equipped to discuss this topic than Hooman Majd. Hooman Majd is an Iranian-American writer and political commentator. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, as well as The Ayatollahs' Democracy and The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay. He joins us today to discuss how we can interpret and locate the Iranian protests within the wider political, cultural, and financial dimensions of the Middle East. Over the course of the conversation, Hooman Majd and host Demetri Kofinas discuss how the Iranian protests fit within the western-oriented framework of thinking about Iran, and how much of what Iran is experiencing is the result of forces that are reshaping the oil-reliant and politically volatile economies of the region. Ultimately, the conversation investigates the source of the ongoing protests, and what these demonstrations express about the current state of Iranian society, its economy, and its politics, in order to provide a framework for understanding the larger forces operating across the Middle East. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Jan 1, 2018 · 26 min
Industrial Society and Its Future | Machine Intelligence, Encryption, and the Will to Power
In Episode 28 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas lays out his vision for a future driven by the emergent forces we have been covering in 2017. He reads passages from Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and its Future," as well as from Bill Joy's "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us." He plays clips from interviews with Barack Obama, Tim Cook, and Jamie Dimon, as he considers how power, privacy, and control, all factor into the emerging technological landscape. What is the goal of the machine? What do we seek to accomplish with our technologies? What are the benefits and the costs associated with the technological, political, and economic forces of the modern age? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Dec 18, 2017 · 1 hr 4 min
Gary Shilling | Regulatory Reform and the Impact of the Trump Tax Plan on the U.S. Economy
In Episode 27 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with economist Gary Shilling, who famously called the bottom in what has become a 36-year bull market in US Treasuries, about the ramifications of Donald Trump's economic policies, the role of cryptocurrencies, and the prospect for stocks, commodities, and the dollar in 2018. Few would reasonably argue that regulatory reform is not needed in the United States. The issue for politicians and policymakers has always been one of balance and practicality. The turbulence of the 1970's produced a slew of regulatory measures like wage and price controls that proved disastrous for the economy. Likewise, the financial deregulation of the 1980s and 1990s rolled back investor protections that had served to safeguard customer deposits and prevent excessive interconnectivity in the banking system. In the context of the current economic expansion, one must consider the impact that deregulation and higher after-tax income will have on an economy already in its ninth year of economic expansion. With corporations and businesses standing to benefit most from tax cuts proposed by Senate and House Republicans, what do individual tax-filers stand to gain from the Trump tax plan? Are there benefits to rolling back some of the financial regulations passed in reaction to the fallout of the great financial crisis of 2008? What does the employment picture look like for the US economy? How do job prospects and wages fare in the face of rising asset values and growing debt burdens? If Gary Shilling is right and treasuries remain in a bull market, what does this mean for the fate of stocks, commodities, and the US dollar in 2018? Will the price of oil continue its recent rise, or may some combination of weak demand and oversupply hamper prices? How will the Federal Reserve's ongoing tightening affect the economy and are we destined to see an inversion of the yield curve for 10-year US Treasuries? Gary Shilling also gives us his two cents on bitcoin, and why he thinks the cryptocurrency is massively overvalued. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Dec 11, 2017 · 1 hr 12 min
Climate Science, Climate Models, and Climate Change. What Is Driving The Earth's Warming? | NASA's Gavin Schmidt
In Episode 26 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with NASA's Chief Climate Scientist and Head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Gavin Schmidt. The two cut through the controversy surrounding climate change and dive right into the heart of climate science. They parse through the data, explore the climate models, and consider the impact that further warming could have on humanity in the decades to come. What is driving the warming of our planet? What is causing the acidification of the oceans? What is shrinking the ice sheets? What is causing the rise in sea levels, the decrease in snow cover, and the melting glaciers? Is there a causal connection between human activity and the prolonged droughts, intense heat waves, and raging wildfires we have seen in recent years? What are the feedback mechanisms of climate change? How do we measure the impact of losing reflective layers of ice, exposing permafrost, or releasing vapor into the atmosphere? What does the cooling of the upper atmosphere tell us about the cause of global warming? Could changes in solar activity, sunspots and cosmic rays, and their effects on clouds be to blame for climate change? How will humanity respond to more extreme weather events – hurricanes, droughts, floods, and forest fires – as our populations grow and the density of our coastal regions increases? And is there anything we can do, to prepare? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Nov 27, 2017 · 1 hr 1 min
Lacy Hunt | What Are The Global Macro Forces Driving The 21st Century? The Demographics of Deflation and Financial Repression
In Episode 25 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Lacy Hunt, Executive Vice President of Hoisington Investment Management Company. For nearly 14 years, Dr. Lacy Hunt was Chief U.S. Economist for HSBC Group, one of the world's largest banks. He was also Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at Fidelity and held the position of Senior Economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Global Macro is an investment strategy based on the interpretation and prediction of large-scale events. Many such events are driven by chronic conditions, including debt deflation, structural demographics, and low savings rate. What role have governments played in amplifying and perpetuating the impact of these forces by bailing out financial markets and flooding the banking system with cheap money? In order to answer this question, we must rely on a panoply of data, statistics, and econometrics – bank lending, money velocity, monetary aggregates, disposable income, liquidity coverage ratios, and credit spreads. How will we navigate the next recession, having wasted the last 8 years chasing the shadows of wealth through buy-backs, stock appreciations, and financialization? Where will the demand come from in a consumer-led economy still fighting the forces of debt-deflation with diminishing savings rates and rising interest expenses? How will we manage our unfunded liabilities, mortgage payments, rents, and college tuitions, with such poor structural demographics? And how does all of this tie back to the resurgence of populism and the escalation of geopolitical tension in a world bound together by our liabilities but torn apart by the specter of conflict, the failures of diplomacy, and the expediency of war? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Nov 6, 2017 · 48 min
Jeffrey Rosen | Constitutional Law In The 21st Century – Privacy, Personhood, and Freedom
In Episode 24 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jeffrey Rosen, the nation's most widely read and influential legal commentator. Their conversation examines the landscape of constitutional law in the 21st century. How do we interpret a more than 200-year-old document in an age of empire, terror, and technological futurism? How do theories of mind apply to the laws of personhood? How will our criminal justice system evolve along with our notions of agency and free-will? How do we interpret the First Amendment in an age of synthetic news and artificial intelligence? Where do the Bill of Rights and the Constitution stand on the question of genetic engineering and designer babies? Can the Fourth and Fifth Amendments protect our right to privacy and freedom from self-incrimination in an age of mass surveillance? How does constitutional law inform the practices of corporations and publishers? Can this enduring document safeguard our liberty, autonomy, and freedom, in the digital age? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Oct 30, 2017 · 1 hr 11 min
Heather Berlin | a Theory of Mind and the Neural Basis of Consciousness
In Episode 23 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dr. Heather Berlin about the neural basis of consciousness. The two consider a theory of mind based on a materialist perspective on reality. Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions. If this is the case, then where do our thoughts and our feelings, come from? Who is in charge of our volitions and our desires? What is the neural basis of depression, anxiety, and psychosis? What is the substantive source of human creativity, inspiration, and genius? Is there really nothing more to the experience of consciousness – to life itself – than the observable firing of billions of neurons jumbled together in an atomic stew consisting almost entirely of empty space? Dr. Heather Berlin is a cognitive neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Berlin practices clinical neuropsychology at New York Presbyterian Hospital. She is the host of the PBS series Science Goes to the Movies, and the Discovery Channel series Superhuman Showdown. Heather Berlin co-wrote and stars in the critically acclaimed off-Broadway and Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, Off the Top, about the neuroscience of improvisation. She has made numerous media appearances including on the BBC, History Channel, Netflix, NatGeo, StarTalk, and TEDx. Heather Berlin received her Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and Master of Public Health from Harvard University. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Oct 23, 2017 · 1 hr 22 min
Mance Harmon | the Hashgraph Consensus Algorithm: A Panel Discussion With The Founders Of The Future Internet
Members of the hashgraph consensus algorithm's founding team, including the CEO of Swirlds, Mance Harmon, speak with Demetri Kofinas about the future of the Internet. In this blockbuster event, blockchain developers, entrepreneurs, and fans of Hidden Forces ask questions to the founders of hashgraph about their revolutionary technology. Leemon Baird, Mance Harmon, and the rest of the Swirlds team claim to have built an entirely new distributed ledger technology that is better (orders of magnitude more efficient), faster (300,000+ transactions per second pre-sharding), safer (asynchronous byzantine fault tolerant), and fairer (mathematically proven fairness with consensus time stamping) than the blockchain. This is the second installment in a series of interviews, panel discussions, and conversations that Demetri Kofinas has had with the founders of Hashgraph. Hashgraph is a consensus algorithm that appears to have solved the problem of scale in distributed information management. It is a distributed ledger technology that may do for information processing and storage, what TCP/IP and broadband has done for communication. This is a revolution unlike any we have seen since the earliest days of the World Wide Web. This event took place at the Assemblage NOMAD in New York City. It was a packed house with over 200 people in attendance from the blockchain and fintech communities who were eager to learn about how hashgraph is going to change the future of the Internet. You can listen to Demetri's interview with the inventor and founder of Hashgraph, Leemon Baird, as well as read the transcript to that conversation on our website. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Oct 16, 2017 · 53 min
Lemon Baird | the Future Is Not Blockchain. It's Hedera Hashgraph
In Episode 22 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Leemon Baird, the inventor of Hedera Hashgraph, a new, distributed ledger technology poised to disrupt the entire ecosystem of blockchain-based applications and cryptocurrencies. Leemon Baird is the Co-founder and CTO of Swirlds Inc. With over 20 years of technology and startup experience, he has held positions as a Professor of Computer Science at the Air Force Academy, Adjunct Professor at multiple other prestigious universities, and as a senior scientist in several labs. He has been the co-founder of several startups, including two identity-related starts-ups with successful exits. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University faster than any student in school history (2 years, 9 months), has multiple patents and over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals on computer security, machine learning, and mathematics. He regularly keynotes on these topics at conferences. In this conversation, our audience will get a first-hand look at what may become the future of the Internet. Hashgraph is a revolutionary new distributed ledger technology with patented properties. The claims are that it is fast (100,000's transactions per second pre sharding), fair (mathematically proven fairness with consensus timestamping) and secure (asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerant). These properties could expand decentralized use cases to complex markets, auctions, crypto-currency micropayments, live games (even MMOs), and much more. The company has secured early funding and has been adopted by credit unions, payment providers and is currently in due diligence phases with large banks. Demetri will be moderating a panel with the CEO and Founding Team at The Assemblage (114 E. 25th St. New York, New York 10010) this Thursday, Oct. 19, from 7:00-9:30 pm. Seating is limited. You can RSVP here. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Oct 2, 2017 · 57 min
John Borthwick | Design Philosophy, Superintelligence, Relativism, and Simulation
In Episode 21 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with John Borthwick about design philosophy, superintelligence, relativism, and simulation. John Borthwick is CEO and Co-founder of Betaworks, a startup platform that builds and invests in companies across the social, data-driven media Internet. The Betaworks platform combines three areas of expertise. The first is a studio for building products like Giphy, Dots, Bitly, and Tweetdeck. The second is an investment fund for early-stage start-ups related to the areas in which the company is building (investments here include: Tumblr, Kickstarter, Medium and Gimlet). Lastly, there is "camp": a thematic accelerator program for start-ups in frontier technology such as Bots, AI, and Verbal Computing. In this manner, John Borthwick and his team at Betaworks combine art and science in their design philosophy, as they create extraordinary companies and work with exceptional people across the technological landscape. In their conversation, Demetri and John blur the line between man and machine. "Computers are no longer that 'other' thing, that 'other' object. The line between machines and humans is becoming indistinguishable," says John Borthwick. The two reconsider our place as observers and users of technology in this increasingly intermediated universe of digital experience. They reimagine consciousness and explore a theory of mind that questions our notions of humanity, our sense of identity, and our assumptions of free will. How do we develop a design philosophy for our machines without losing sight of our humanity? Who are we designing our world for? And, what do we hope to achieve as we dissolve into this immersive technological future of superintelligence, disembodied consciousness, relativism, and simulation? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Sep 25, 2017 · 55 min
Public Intellectuals, Thought Leaders, and the Marketplace of Ideas | Daniel Drezner
In Episode 20 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with political scientist Daniel Drezner about public intellectuals, thought leaders, and the marketplace of ideas. Dr. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the author of "Spoiler Alerts" for the Washington Post. His latest book, The Ideas Industry, explores the balance that must be struck between public intellectuals and thought leaders in a properly functioning marketplace of ideas. What is the state of intellectual thought in American society? Where does one go in order to find good information? How does one measure the value of an idea if he or she cannot determine its veracity? How have the foundations of Western intellectual development like empiricism and reason been turned into political footballs? Why has trust in institutions eroded? Why has the credibility of journalists, scientists, and experts been brought into question? How has the wealth gap, partisanship, and information overload created a landscape welcoming to thought leaders, but hostile to the very types of public intellectuals that would have been celebrated less than 50 years before? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Sep 11, 2017 · 1 hr 17 min
Geoffrey West | Natural vs. Socioeconomic Systems: a Unified Theory of Sustainability
In Episode 19 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with theoretical physicist Geoffrey West about his work studying biological systems, infrastructure, and the socioeconomics of cities. Dr. West's primary interests have been in fundamental questions in physics, especially those concerning the elementary particles, their interactions, and cosmological implications. Geoffrey West currently serves as distinguished professor at the Santa Fe Institute, where he served as President from July 2005 through July 2009. Prior to joining SFI Dr. West was the leader, and founder, of the high energy physics group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is also the author of SCALE, a remarkable, and timely book, whose substance and theory we explore today. In today's conversation, we explore some of the most remarkable insights coming out of the field of computational biology. This is an interdisciplinary cohort consisting of theoretical physicists, biologists, and mathematicians who are all working together to create models that explain the origins, requirements, and limits of life. What do our models tell us about nature's design for humanity? Are there limits to growth? What accounts for the decrease in metabolic rate as size/mass increases? How do physical systems and networks scale in size within the confines of the Earth's physical space? What are the universal costs associated with our cities and our lifestyles? What accounts for their resilience? What is the significance of our thirst for more power as defined by the amount of work we do over time? What can interest rates and human time preferences tell us about our relationship to nature? What role do we play in the universe's inexorable procession towards entropy? How much time do we have left? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Aug 21, 2017 · 1 hr 1 min
Samuel Bowles | The Origins of Economic Man and the Moral Economy
In Episode 18 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Samuel Bowles, about economic man and the moral economy, exploring some of the latest insights from the field of behavioral economics with insights about how incentives and prices convey information and shape perceptions of value in the economy. Dr. Bowles is a Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program. His studies on cultural and genetic evolution have challenged the conventional economic assumptions of an economic man motivated entirely by self-interest. The author of nearly twenty books, Samuel Bowles has most recently written The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizensand A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution. In today's conversation, we follow the archeological record of economic man. We pursue the path towards rational expectations and utility maximization. We take the road from Aristotle, paying heed to his ethics, and to his conviction that the test of a good constitution, is a good citizenry. But, with the collapse of Rome and Europe's descent into darkness emerge ideas of life as brutish and man, as wicked. Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan and Niccolò Machiavelli's Prince, were written to appeal to the lowest, most unimpressive motives of man's animal nature. Later, political economists like Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith would take this notion further. They sought to harness the industries of avarice, converting man's self-interest towards the public good. The invisible hand emerged, and with it, notions of separability. Homo Sapiens existed in one realm, and economic man in another. The beneficent, moral being on the one hand, and the selfish, utility maximizing agent on the other. Laws were built upon this framework. Ideas of the marketplace were developed. Incentives and regulations were crafted, in what economists call Mechanism Design. What have we learned in the years since that have challenged the foundations of these neoclassical assumptions? What has come of rational expectations and utility maximization? What are some of the insights of behavioral economists, moral philosophers, and evolutionary psychologists that task the fitness of economic man? What types of systems can we design that are better suited towards the citizens of Aristotle's legislator than to the aberrations of modern economic man? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Aug 7, 2017 · 1 hr 11 min
Robert Johnson | Political Economy, Technocracy, and the New Gilded Age
In Episode 17 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Robert Johnson, about the political economy, inequality, and the failings of our technocratic institutions. Dr. Johnson serves as President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Global Finance Project for the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in New York. Robert Johnson served for many years as a Managing Director for George Soros at Soros Fund Management and was part of the famous team of speculators that broke the bank of England in 1992, forcing the pound out of ERM. He served as Chief Economist of the US Senate Banking Committee under the leadership of Chairman William Proxmire, and before this, as Senior Economist of the US Senate Budget Committee under the leadership of Chairman Pete Domenici. Black Wednesday was almost 25 years ago to the day. How has global finance, international trade, foreign exchange, and financial deregulation changed the landscape of speculation in the years since? How has a decline in productivity, a collapse in marginal costs, a rise in total debt, along with an aging demographic laid the groundwork for a rise in populism? What is the role of experts, and how has faith in technocrats and academics declined in recent years? How do we defend our liberal, democratic institutions absent convincing academics, trustworthy politicians, and inspirational leaders? How do we get the money out of politics when politics is so beholden to money? How do we reform a corrupt government that is in bed with Wall Street – a government that is beholden to multinational corporations and co-mingled with industrial military companies whose very profitability is dependent on multi-billion dollar federal contracts? It is time for us to become educated on how our political economy works, because if we don't have the knowledge to call out "the experts," then we are powerless to affect the very changes that we seek to induce. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou Engineer: Ignacio Lecumberi Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Jul 24, 2017 · 58 min
The Chinese Financial System and the Prospects for a Hard Landing in China | Anne Stevenson-Yang
In Episode 16 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Anne Stevenson-Yang. Anne is the co-founder of J Capital Research, which conducts ground-up, primary research for institutional money managers on stocks, the Chinese economy, and the Chinese financial system. She is also the author of the recent book China Alone: China's Emergence and Potential Return to Isolation, in which she sets out her views on the Chinese economy and political system, arguing that China historically repeats a cycle of expansion and retreat. In today's conversation, we take a trip around the world to the land of China. Our conversation concerns itself with the contemporary changes in Chinese society that came after the death of Chairman Mao. What was life like in China before Nixon and Kissinger made their famous visit in 1971? Why did modernization and reform in China begin after 1978? Who was responsible for the opening in China? What was the role of Deng Xiaoping, and why is he remembered as "the architect" of a new brand of thinking that combined socialist ideology with pragmatic aspects of market economics - a system the Chinese call "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics?" What changes did the Chinese experience between 1979 and 1989, during the implementation of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping? How did these reforms culminate into the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989? What was the Chinese government's reaction to the uprisings? The Chinese response differed significantly from the Soviet reaction to the fall of the Berlin Wall in the same year. The Chinese government decided to follow a different path after the massacres in Tiananmen Square, by turbocharging economic development. Explicit targets were set for GDP growth. There was selective liberalization of the Chinese economy, particularly in Chinese real estate. China placed a huge emphasis on building its manufacturing industries and on acquiring hard currency through exports. The Chinese financial system remained highly centralized and China's currency, the renminbi, carefully controlled. All this was used towards re-investment with an almost single-minded commitment to hitting the government's GDP targets. Some have called the rise of China in the late 20th century a miracle. It is more appropriate to call it "the Chinese miracle." The size of the Chinese economy has increased more than 25-fold in the last 25 years. Thirty years ago, the Chinese economy measured in at less than 5% of US GDP in exchange terms (perhaps as low as 2%). By 1992, the Chinese economy was only 6% of US GDP. By 2000 China weighed in at roughly 12-15% of US GDP. Today, China boasts a Gross Domestic Product that is roughly 60% that of United States. Loan Growth in the Chinese financial system has averaged 16 percent in the last 20 years. Loan growth in China reached an all-time high of 35% percent of GDP in June of 2009, amidst the greatest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Total debt in China recently surpassed 300% of GDP. This makes the finances of Western nations like the United States, France, and the United Kingdom seem frugal by comparison. In the first 7 years since the financial crisis, bank liabilities in the Chinese financial system grew by nearly $15 trillion dollars. This is the near equivalent of the consolidated size of all US commercial banks. China has used more cement in 3 years of massive overbuilding than the U.S. employed in all of the 20th Century. Hundreds of thousands of meters of unsold residential real estate sit empty around the country. There is a massive amount of industrial overcapacity in China. Chinese ghost cities have become almost as cliche as the fake Paris', Venice, and Dubai's created within mainland China. The Chinese economy is in terrible need of a recession. But the Chinese government cannot afford the recession that it desperately needs. Nevertheless, it cannot avoid the crisis that has been building in the Chinese financial system. How will the citizens of China, its trading partners, emerging markets and developed economies react when the reckoning finally arrives. How much longer can the Chinese government continue to postpone the inevitable? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Jul 10, 2017 · 1 hr 4 min
Genomics, Machine Learning, and the Future of Big Data in Medicine | Eric Schadt
In Episode 15 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dr. Eric Schadt. Eric Schadt is founder and CEO of Sema4, as well as Dean of Precision Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. During the course of his 20-year career, Dr. Eric Schadt has built genetics and systems biology groups at Merck. He built the computational biology group at Rosetta. He has served as co-founder of Sage Bionetworks and as Chief Science Officer of Pacific Biosciences. He now serves as the founder and CEO of Sema4. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers in leading scientific journals, and he has contributed to a number of discoveries relating to the genetic basis of common human diseases such as diabetes, obesity and Alzheimer's. In today's conversation, we explore the information technology of biology – DNA – the world of genomics, where big data looms large. We begin by mapping the territory of the human genome and exploring the pathways of disease. We look to understand the ways in which complex genetic combinations express themselves as phenotypes such as height, bone structure, intelligence, and personality. How are these traits coded for? What are the instructions our body uses to repair a damaged cell? What blueprint does it consult before trying to grow new arteries? How does it know to regulate our appetite or when start us down the path of puberty? What happens when these instructions are damaged? How can the smallest difference in the order of life's code make all the difference for our success, our happiness, and even our survival? 50 years have passed, between the discovery of the double-helix and the mapping of the first human genome. What progress have we made in the 15 years since? How has our ability to sequence new genomes created a paradigm shift in medicine? What is the role of big data and artificial intelligence in finding the correlations needed in order to treat malignancies and prevent diseases? What is the promise of genomics? What are the perils of big data in medicine? What stands between us and some superhuman future? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Jun 26, 2017 · 56 min
The Measure of All Things: Phenomenology, Design, and the Human Experience | Christian Madsbjerg
In Episode 14 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Christian Madsbjerg. Christian Madsbjerg is the founder of ReD Associates, a consultancy group focused on helping companies bridge the qualitative divide between themselves, their products, and their customers. The anthropologists, sociologists, economists, journalists, and designers who make up ReD employ the methods of social science to study human behavior. Instead of minimizing complexity, they embrace the non-linearities illuminated through human experience, helping companies reinvent themselves and their products from the bottom up. In today's conversation we examine the world from the perspective of human experience. This is what philosophers call "phenomenology." Rather than objectify reality, we will revel in its subjectivity. Rather than discount our senses in favor of hard data, we will discount the data in favor of our experience. Experience matters. Reality is messy. Data is fuzzy. The problem of consciousness is hard. Try as we might to fit the world to our models, reality has a stubborn way of eluding even the most disciplined researcher. The most experienced traders don't make decisions off of a spreadsheet. They use their intuition. The same intuition that you use when deciding who you can trust, if the price you are paying for something is too high, or if there's something off about a room, or a scene, or a story you've just heard. To discount the authoritative wisdom that comes from lived experience is to discount the very question that has lead you down the path of inquiry. It is to discount everything that makes life meaningful. And if we want to understand the world around us – why we do what we do – then that journey must begin and end, with the human experience. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Jun 12, 2017 · 58 min
Jim Grant | A History of Interest Rates and Why They Matter for Your Financial Future
In Episode 13 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with James Grant. James Grant is a legend of the financial newsletter industry. Once the editor of the yield column in Barron's, he would leave in 1983 to found Grant's Interest Rate Observer, two years after the sacred risk-free rate touched just under 20%. This is a level that seems nearly impossible to fathom in today's world of near-zero and even negative, interest rates. Having observed, reported, and opined on markets for almost 50 years, James Grant represents a bastion of experience and wisdom. In this episode, we stop to listen. We stop to remember a time, in which the extraordinary measures and unprecedented actions of our monetary and fiscal authorities would have seemed unimaginable. We take a hard look at money. How does this shadow of wealth find its value? How is the rate of interest determined, and what is the role of financial markets in facilitating the discovery of that value? What happened, in 2008 and what are the consequences, realized and yet to be discovered, of those very extraordinary and unprecedented actions taken by governments around the world to douse the flames of deflation? What was done in order to contain the contraction and to prevent the discovery of prices? What does the future hold in 2017? What investments does one make, and where might one find opportunity in these oceans of uncertainty? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod