Podcast · 76 episodes
Hidden Forces, page 3
by Demetri Kofinas · English
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.
All episodes, page 3
Diagnosing the Metacrisis: Reality & Meaning in Modern Life | Iain McGilchristIain McGilchrist interviews psychiatrist Iain (Ian) McGilchrist about his “divided brain” thesis: left and right hemispheres attend differently, producing different “worlds” (left: atomistic,…8 Dec 2025 · 1 h 18 min · 34 chapters
China Shock 2.0: State Capitalism at the Frontier | Dinny McMahonDinny McMahon (China analyst, former WSJ Beijing reporter) argues China is in a “transformational” phase driven by the end of property-led growth, demographic aging (working-age shrinking since 2012;…1 Dec 2025 · 53 min · 19 chapters
How to Navigate the New Investment Paradigm | Lawrence McDonaldLawrence McDonald discusses how social-media “gamification” and behavioral biases have reshaped investing, why the post-COVID macro regime forces new frameworks for government-finance/market…24 Nov 2025 · 54 min · 31 chapters
Investment Implications of the AI CapEx Boom | Chase TaylorChase Taylor discusses how electrification (“electric stack”: batteries, magnets/electric motors, power electronics, embedded compute) and the AI CapEx boom interact, and what they imply for US…17 Nov 2025 · 48 min · 20 chapters
Investing on the Front Lines of the AI Arms Race | Nathan BenaichNathan Benaich (Airstream Capital; State of AI Report) discusses recent AI breakthroughs, shifting scaling narratives (from more compute to “inference-time scaling”), reasoning models…10 Nov 2025 · 54 min · 19 chapters
A Practical History of Financial Markets | Russell NapierPromotion of Russell Napier’s course “A Practical History of Financial Markets” (also titled “Advanced Valuation of Financial Markets” at Edinburgh/Harriet Watt University).6 Nov 2025 · 26 min · 12 chapters
What Happens When Social Trust Collapses? | Peter AtwaterSocial trust collapse and how confidence/mood shifts drive compliance, political polarization, nihilism, and potential upheaval.3 Nov 2025 · 1 h 27 min · 39 chapters
Trump's Plan to Remake the Middle East | Kamran BokhariKamran Bahari argues that Trump’s announced 20-point Middle East “peace plan” and a Gaza ceasefire are the start of a new regional security order built on regional “burden sharing,” after two years…27 Oct 2025 · 1 h 45 min · 36 chapters
The "Boomer Blues" and a Return to Faith | Roger MitchellThe “Boomer Blues” and a return to faith. Roger Mitchell argues that Western social and spiritual malaise—loneliness, anger, fear, and “epistemic freefall”—is tied to the fraying of the social…26 Oct 2025 · 1 h 48 min · 35 chapters
China's Quest to Engineer the Future | Dan WangDan Wang’s Hidden Forces episode discusses his book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, arguing that China is best understood as an “engineering state” focused on building big projects…13 Oct 2025 · 50 min · 18 chapters
The End of Neoliberalism and the Coming Storm | Viktor ShvetsViktor Shvets argues neoliberalism has failed and helped produce a “once-in-a-century superstorm” for Western democracies.8 Oct 2025 · 55 min · 17 chapters
Why America Needs a New China Strategy | Kurt Campbell & Rush DoshiThe episode argues the US needs a “new China strategy” built around “allied scale”—competing with China across economic, technological, and military domains by leveraging a network of alliances…29 Sep 2025 · 54 min · 18 chapters
Who Profits in a Post-American World? | Adam PosenAdam Posen argues the post–World War II U.S. role functioned like an “insurance provider” (security, legal standards, safe dollar/treasuries, open shipping and trade rules). He claims recent U.S.25 Sep 2025 · 57 min · 19 chapters
Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity | Paul KingsnorthPaul Kingsnorth argues that “the machine” is a mindset that treats the world as parts to be redesigned, leading to the “death of Western culture” and preparing the way for AI/superintelligence as a…22 Sep 2025 · 54 min · 15 chapters
How the Internet Went From Counterculture to Technofeudalism | Douglas RushkoffHow early internet counterculture (collaboration, “public park” ethos, text-based social spaces) shifted into commercialized, depersonalized platforms and toward “techno-feudalism,” with digital…15 Sep 2025 · 57 min · 24 chapters
How Stablecoins Will Transform Banking | Charles CalomirisCharles Calomiris argues stablecoins will transform banking by replacing checking-account rails with blockchain-based, real-time payments and by enabling a future shift in the unit of account toward…8 Sep 2025 · 50 min · 11 chapters
Thematic Investing in an Age of Global Entropy | Marvin BarthThematic investing framework applied to macro/geopolitics, arguing that technology-driven localization (“global entropy”) and self-fulfilling expectations (“being is believing”) are reshaping growth,…2 Sep 2025 · 51 min · 12 chapters
The Great Rebalancing: Why Debt, Demographics, and Politics Will Crush Forward Returns | Sony KapoorSonny Kapoor argues that global capital allocation has drifted away from productive long-term investment due to passive indexation, benchmarking, and short-term performance incentives.25 Aug 2025 · 58 min · 21 chapters
America Under Occupation: Truth, Power, & Imperial Decline | Jonathan KirshnerThe episode argues that America’s “imperial” order is breaking down due to an epistemic collapse (erosion of truth claims, scapegoating, and shared narratives), weakened political guardrails, and…21 Aug 2025 · 1 h 49 min · 43 chapters
God Mode: The Technological Battle for Global Domination | Bruno MaçãesBruno Maçães’ “World Builders” argues that geopolitics is increasingly a contest over “world building” via technology—states that can change the rules of reality (especially in virtualized systems)…11 Aug 2025 · 1 h 1 min · 27 chapters
Failed State: Inside Britain's Governance Crisis | Sam FreedmanSam Freedman’s Hidden Forces episode argues Britain’s governance crisis is systemic, not just caused by recent leaders.7 Aug 2025 · 55 min · 26 chapters
Investing in a World of Permanent Stimulus | Vincent DeluardA macro-investing discussion arguing the world is shifting from monetary dominance to fiscal dominance, creating “permanent stimulus,” fewer/canceled recessions, and new asset-allocation…4 Aug 2025 · 58 min · 19 chapters
The Final Phase of the Debt Supercycle | Edward ChancellorFinancial historian Edward Chancellor explains how the shift from gold-based money to fiat enabled extreme interest-rate swings, fueling a long “debt supercycle” of speculative excess.31 Jul 2025 · 1 h 26 min · 27 chapters
Stablecoins are Fueling a New Era of Dollar Dominance | Vance Spencer & Michael AndersonStablecoins as the key driver of global dollar dominance, enabled by new US stablecoin regulation (Genius Act) and broader “Clarity” market-structure legislation; plus crypto’s shift toward…28 Jul 2025 · 46 min · 12 chapters