Hidden Forces Demetri Kofinas

In Episode 372 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas tries to make sense of the recent assassination attempt against Donald Trump by focusing on (1) what we know so far about what actually happened on July 13th, (2) the public’s reaction to the events of that day, and (3) the implications of the shooting for the 2024 election and the country’s future. 
This monologue explores (1) deep state conspiracy theories, (2) the role of aesthetics and narrative in rewriting history, (3) dominance hierarchies and capitulation to the authority of the alpha, and (4) alternate reality games.
Demetri also touches on how recent events could influence the election, the impending replacement of Joe Biden, the potential for future attacks, and the economic and geopolitical implications of a Trump presidency.
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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 at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.
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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
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Episode Recorded on 07/18/2024

In Episode 371 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Henry Olsen, author of “Working Class Republican” and host of “Beyond the Polls” about the unprecedented circumstances surrounding Joe Biden’s candidacy for the 2024 Democratic Presidential nomination, who will replace him, and why Donald Trump is well-positioned to win in 2024.
Demetri and Henry Olsen examine the unprecedented circumstances surrounding Joe Biden’s recent debate performance and the pressure mounting on him to withdraw from the race, including rumors that the U.S. President may in fact have Parkinson’s disease or some other type of neurological disorder that disqualifies him from running in 2024. They speculate about who may be making policy decisions in the White House outside of the president himself, why so many Democrats and members of the press appeared surprised by the President’s debate performance, Biden’s potential replacement, and when (and how) his replacement will be chosen.
In the second hour, Henry Olsen offers his opinion, backed by polls and decades of political experience, on what the 2024 election will ultimately be about and how this election will be remembered in American history. He and Demetri discuss the role immigration will play in this election, the possibility of a U.S. withdrawal from NATO under Donald Trump, the evolution of Trump’s foreign policy since leaving office, the people who would staff the Trump Whitehouse and cabinet in 2024, and why Trump’s likely choice for Vice President is so important.
You can subscribe to our premium content and access 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 at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.
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
Subscribe and 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 07/10/2024

In Episode 370 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, the Global Chief Economist at BCG and the author of “Shocks, Crises, and False Alarms,” about how to assess macroeconomic risk without relying on broken models, pervasive doom-mongering, and whipsawing data prints that have little to do with the structural drivers of economic and financial change.
The shocks and crises of recent years are a rude awakening for executives and investors who have spent the last 40 years operating in a relatively benign macroeconomic and political environment. This period of geopolitical convergence characterized by increased trade and capital flows, lengthening business cycles, declining interest rates, and stable inflation is over, forcing corporate leaders and investors alike to recognize that macroeconomic risk is now something that needs to be actively managed.
In the first hour, Demetri asks Philipp to explain his core framework of economic eclecticism, which relies on contextual flexibility, situational judgment, and rational optimism that neither ignores tail risks nor drags them to the center of the distribution.
They examine four case studies and their associated narratives to help us understand why so many predictions fail to materialize and how a more eclectic approach to macroeconomic risk assessment could have helped investors and business leaders avoid these pitfalls and take advantage of the economic and financial opportunities created by these events in real-time. 
In the second hour, Philipp and Demetri discuss the role of government and central bank stimulus as a variable that needs to be actively managed by investors and business executives. They also discuss how to assess the risks associated with a U.S. government debt crisis, the integrity of the U.S. Dollar as a global reserve asset, and how to assess the prospects of technologically induced productivity growth, including AI-driven improvements to a service-oriented economy like the U.S.
You can subscribe to our premium content and access 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 at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.
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
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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
Subscribe and 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 07/01/2024

In Episode 369 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist, bestselling author, and professor at Columbia University, where he was the former director of The Earth Institute. He is also one of the most reputable critics of U.S. foreign policy and the ‘Deep State’, especially as it pertains to the ongoing war in Ukraine and U.S. relations towards Moscow since the end of the Cold War.
Demetri developed an extensive outline for this conversation, the scope of which vastly exceeded the time allotted for it. Dr. Sachs will be coming back on to complete this discussion because it is arguably one of the most important conversations that any policymaker, politician, and media pundit should be having at this moment.
In the first hour of this multi-part conversation, Kofinas asks Jeffrey Sachs about his career in public policy, including his unique experience working directly with the most important foreign policy figures of the late 20th century. These figures include fmr. Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, U.S. President Bill Clinton, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The two have an opportunity to touch on the 'deep state' (or national security state as it's also known), the history of the CIA, including any potential role it may have had in J.F.K.’s assassination, and Jeffrey Sachs’ central critique of U.S. foreign policy, both during the Cold War and after the fall of the U.S.S.R.
Part II of this conversation, which Demetri hopes to release soon, will dig deeper into the deep state and its influence on contemporary U.S. foreign policy. Demetri also hopes to discuss U.S. policy vis-à-vis post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s and the years leading up to both the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine. American policy toward China, America’s Middle East Policy, Industrial Policy, the continued threat of Terrorism, and the steps Jeffrey Sachs believes that we should take to reform the U.S. government, revitalize our economy, and reformulate our foreign policy will be topics of discussion as well.
You can subscribe to our premium content and access 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 at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.
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 and 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 06/26/2024

In Episode 368 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Brian Janous. Brian is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Cloverleaf Infrastructure. With over 20 years of experience in the electricity and data center industries, Brian is the perfect person to talk to about the growth in electricity demand being forecasted by North American grid planners as they try to get ahead of several converging trends in the energy space, including the rapid buildout of AI data centers, the onshoring of new industrial capacity, and the introduction of more intermittent sources of energy like wind and solar onto the grid.
The first hour begins with a conversation about electric power and what we mean when we talk about “The Grid.” What are the important pieces—both in terms of operating concerns, like private utilities and regulatory bodies, as well as physical systems like power stations, electrical substations, and transmission lines—that comprise the electric grid? How do all of these pieces come together to support the functioning of a modern economy and what are the challenges inherent in trying to update and expand such a complex and interconnected system?
In the second part of their conversation, Kofinas and Janous discuss what the planning and procurement process for new data centers looks like from the perspective of tech companies and what sorts of opportunities may exist to invest around this anticipated boom in data center development and operations. We also discuss how a precipitous rise in electricity demand driven by a boom in data center usage without a concurrent increase in new capacity to service it could lead to substantial cost increases for households and a series of hard choices for policymakers and politicians facing angry constituents in the years to come.
You can subscribe to our premium content and access 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 at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.
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 and 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 06/17/2024
You can subscribe to our premium content and access 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 at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.
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 and 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 06/17/2024

In Episode 367 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Spencer Jakab and Andrew Left. Jakab is an award-winning financial journalist who edits the Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Street” column. He is also the author of “The Revolution That Wasn't,” a book about the meme stock craze that overtook the video game retailer GameStop in 2021 and the heroes and villains, like activist short-seller Andrew Left, who made that story so captivating and powerful.
As the founder of Citron Research, Andrew famously bet against GameStop during the mania of 2021, only to get squeezed out of his position as the stock rallied to the unimaginable heights of $483 per share. Last week, amidst the excitement and uproar of Keith Gill’s anticipated return as ‘Roaring Kitty,’ the hero of Wall Street Bets and the face of the GameStop meme craze, Andrew announced that he was at it again, taking a new short position in the video game retailer, albeit at a significantly reduced size from the one he was forced to close three years ago.
Demetri devotes the episode’s first hour to recapping the GameStop meme craze and how it relates to the concept of Financial Nihilism that he developed in 2019 and about which he began publishing episodes in early 2020. He, Andrew, and Spencer discuss the role of narrative investing, the characters that make up a good financial story, and how those character archetypes come together to generate interest and excitement around a given company’s stock or crypto token in the hopes that it could lead to life-changing profits, a communal sense of belonging, and a whole lot of fun.
In the second hour, Demetri asks Andrew and Spencer if they think that this latest resurgence in the price of GameStop is a late aftershock to the 2021 meme stock mania or if it is a sign of things to come as liquidity ramps higher ahead of the 2024 election. Kofinas also asks Left about how this investment philosophy of financial nihilism has impacted the ability of activist short-sellers like him to operate, what he thinks explains this change in attitude towards the stock market among Millennials and Zoomers, and how the forces driving it are impacting our politics and society at large.
You can subscribe to our premium content and access 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 at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.
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 and 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 06/12/2024