I'm joined by @biancoresearch to discuss why he's turned bullish on bonds after six years of warning they were overvalued, how mounting fiscal pressures in developed economies will reshape the investment landscape, the two-tier stock market, and much more. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/ret…

I'm joined by @RanaForoohar to discuss why the Arctic is becoming the most contested, consequential, and least understood geopolitical theater in the world, with the great powers competing over trade routes, resources, and military dominance. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/how…

What if China's economic troubles aren't cyclical but structural — the product of the largest credit expansion in history? That's the argument made by Logan Wright in this episode of @HiddenForcesPod. We discuss how Beijing's official GDP figures obscure what is actually happening to Chinese households, local governments, and the property market, why the renminbi is overvalued and capital flight persists, and what it means for the West if China is a declining power rather than an ascending one. The first hour focuses on Logan's central argument: China's economy is in structural decline not because its leaders chose austerity or an unwavering commitment to chronic trade surpluses, but because the largest single-country credit expansion in over a century has exhausted its financial system's capacity to generate growth — leaving it unable to ignite the domestic demand needed to rebalance both the Chinese and global economies. We discuss why optimism about Beijing's reform prospects was once rational, how China's official GDP data obscures what is actually happening on the ground, and why the prevailing narrative that Chinese policymakers retain the capacity to engineer a recovery is fundamentally mistaken. The second hour turns to the consequences of China's credit bubble and property market collapse for ordinary households and local governments, the similarities and critical differences between China's predicament and Japan's lost decades, and the striking parallel between the CCP's political choices and those of Soviet leaders during the USSR's era of stagnation under Brezhnev. We also discuss how demographic headwinds are compounding the collapse in Chinese demand, why Logan believes the RMB is overvalued and poses no credible threat to the dollar's international role, and what America's strategic competition with the PRC looks like when viewed through the lens of a declining rather than a rising power.

Inigo Jenkis of @AB_insights joins me to discuss portfolio construction, governance, and asset management when investing across ultra-long time horizons in a world shaped by AI disruption, climate risk, & the breakdown of the post-WWII rules-based order. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/how…

I'm releasing another great episode on portfolio construction tomorrow. This is a topic I've spent the last five years obsessing over. The first hour covers: ✅ The structural forces that made the post-1980 period of falling inflation, negative stock-bond correlation, and strong real returns so exceptional ✅ Why recency bias remains the most dangerous assumption embedded in institutional portfolios ✅ How the convergence of AI, climate change, and geopolitical upheaval has widened the range of possible futures in ways that challenge conventional diversification frameworks. The second hour examines the specific portfolio implications of a hundred-year mindset (i.e., investing for the ultra-long term), including: ✅ Why equities should remain the core allocation, even in a lower-return environment ✅ The diversifying role of private assets, including early-stage venture ✅ Direct ownership of income-generating real estate, including farmland ✅ The case for a meaningful gold allocation as a zero-correlation hedge against inflation, fiscal instability, and systemic risk. We also discuss the primary drivers of wealth destruction over time — from inflation and punitive tax regimes to confiscation and behavioral risk — before turning to the current macro landscape, including: ✅ The shift in Treasury ownership from price-insensitive central banks to price-sensitive funds and households ✅ Why US equity exceptionalism may prove more durable than dollar or bond exceptionalism ✅ The growing tension between global fiscal deterioration and the capital demands of the AI investment cycle

I'm joined on @HiddenForcesPod by @mariekeflament and @Nicolas_Colin to discuss why the global financial system may be on the cusp of a structural transformation comparable to the Nixon shock and the end of Bretton Woods. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/the…

Who else find Ed's takes ridiculous? Yes, CAPEX booms create bubbles, but AI isn't a Monkey jpg. It has generated more business value in four years than the Web managed in its first decade. And yes, existential AI risk is being played up for financial reasons, but comparing Anthropic to 'cloud software' just because it runs on servers is so absurd that I can't believe Ed actually means it.

Eisman is correct that frontier labs are trying to use this moment to enter into partnerships with each other and the government on terms favorable to ownership. The power grab feels similar to those in 2008 and 2001, except this one is premised on preempting a crisis. Where he's wrong is that the crisis is "manufactured." The strategy at the leading labs has essentially been to spend as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, in the hope of reaching superintelligence and recursive self-improvement before they go bankrupt. Concerns that they may run out of money before they reach superintelligence are prompting the leadership at these companies to enter into some form of partnership with the government. I think what we are witnessing and seeing in the last few days through some of these public statements and proposals, like Amodei’s “We Must Pace the Frontier,” is evidence of a negotiation over the terms of that partnership, in which there appear to be four main counterparties: (1) the new monied interests, made up mostly of financial and tech elite who built their fortunes over the last 30 years through multiple expansions of the Internet revolution, including Web 2.0, Crypto, and A.I. (2) the national security state, which is primarily concerned with maintaining American primacy and technological and military superiority over China and the rest of the world. (3) the political class, which has become increasingly corrupted and beholden to the monied interests that hold the purse strings. (4) the citizenry, which has been dumbed down by an adversarial and poorly incentivized media environment and disempowered through a multi-decade erosion in civil liberties and through the maldistribution of national wealth via corporate and elite welfare. Concerns around A.I. risk are warranted, as were concerns about a deflationary depression in 2008 and further acts of terrorism in 2001. AND those concerns are being exploited to crystallize an oligopoly, neo-feudal economy, and security state in which the gains of the last 30 years of technological disruption, free trade, and financial engineering are protected from further disruption. People with modest or even substantial wealth tied up in the stock market are expected to passively consent, even if the prospects for their children, who will live out their lives in a plutocracy and patronage state, are pretty dire, because the alternative has immediate material consequences. The public (we) appear to be largely absent from these negotiations. Again, NONE of this should be grounds for complacency. I think the advancement in capabilities we are seeing is alarming. In many ways, what has come out of the reporting over the last few months confirms many of the thought experiments around the alignment and AI control problems put forward by the AI risk community going back a very long time.

I'm joined by @yarotrof to discuss CIA Director John Ratcliffe's recent visit to Moscow amidst concerns about a NATO-Russia confrontation, and how deepening fractures in the alliance, coupled with Washington's open-ended war with Iran may factor into it. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/are…

I'm joined by Henry Farrell to discuss why the infrastructure underwriting America's empire is buckling under a compounding series of domestic and foreign policy errors and what that means for the global economy and international security. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/why…

I'm joined by @MarkGaleotti, one of the most informed and provocative voices on modern Russia to discuss the war in Ukraine, the risks of NATO escalation, and the deepening dependencies on Beijing that will define Russia's place in the new global order. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/the…

I'm joined by @doctorow to discuss why he believes the AI bubble will prove more damaging than the GFC, why the companies leading it are dependent on a runaway growth narrative, and where the value may actually accrue once it bursts. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/the…

I am not a Fed watcher and didn't even watch the press conference until this morning. But for what it's worth, it sounds to me like Warsh wants the bond market to do the tightening for him. This has many benefits. It begins to reintroduce some disciple into credit markets, it creates political cover for Warsh to keep a lid on inflation without being blamed for raising rates by the president, and it allows the Fed to continue to accommodate new issuance for as long as the federal government relies on the short end to fund itself. Again, I haven't been paying attention AT ALL to what is going on at the Fed, so maybe I am missing some important context.

I'm joined by trade economist and a former chief economist at the U.S. State Department @ChadBown to discuss what's at stake in America's trade war, what victory looks like for the various parties involved, and most importantly, how to win. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/how…

Historian Mary Bridges joins me for a discussion about America's financial empire—its origins in the Spanish-American War, the international rise of the dollar at the turn of the 20th century, and whether it will outlast its competitors in the 21st. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/the…

Jonathan Kirshner and I discuss the origins of the Peloponnesian War, the enduring misreading of Thucydides, and what the arc of the Athenian empire on the eve of the Sicilian expedition reveals about the trajectory of American power. bit.ly/4vLCR6x

I'm joined in this timely @HiddenForcesPod by leading scholar of Iranian foreign policy @vali_nasr to discuss Iran's new grand strategy and its implications for the future of the Greater Middle East. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/ira…