0:10

Before we get going, here's the bit

0:12

where I remind you that nothing we

0:14

discuss should be considered as investment advice. This

0:16

conversation is for informational and hopefully

0:18

entertainment purposes only. So while we

0:20

hope you find it both informative

0:22

and entertaining, please do your

0:25

own research or speak to a financial advisor

0:27

before putting a dime of your money

0:29

into these crazy markets. And now,

0:31

on with the show. Welcome

0:42

everybody to the first episode of

0:44

The Hundred Year Pivot. Joining me

0:46

as co -host on this is

0:48

my great mate and podcaster supreme,

0:50

Dimitri Kofinas. Mate, how are you? I'm

0:53

so happy that we're doing this. Yeah, yeah, we've

0:55

talked about collaborating for quite some time and

0:57

we never figure out what to do, right? But

0:59

this little project of ours is something that's

1:01

grown completely organically. We didn't sit down with a

1:03

pad and pen and come up with some

1:05

kind of great idea we could do. It

1:07

just happened and I think that's such

1:10

an important... of this whole idea. Yeah,

1:12

and I love the name that we've chosen. I

1:14

feel like, you know, that name resonated with both

1:16

of us. We threw out a few titles when

1:18

we were storming, brainstorming over it. I think it

1:20

was just the same day, within the same hour

1:23

or so we came up with this name. And

1:25

I feel like it really captures both the secular

1:27

trends that are so powerful, the forces that I

1:29

use that term for my show, whatever the analogous

1:31

term that you use. You guys obviously talk about

1:33

the end game with you and Bill Fleckenstein. And

1:36

then the pivot, which I think is

1:38

the actionable part. that speaks to investors.

1:40

Yeah, absolutely. And since we came up with the

1:42

idea and the title, I mean, the pivots are

1:44

happening left and right. There's so much to talk

1:46

about. But I think it's worth, before we kind

1:48

of just have a little look at the world

1:50

now, it's worth us talking

1:53

about what we aim to get out

1:55

of these conversations. And the beauty of

1:57

that is, as we set out, nothing, right? That's

1:59

one of the it. We're like the Seinfeld

2:01

of financial podcasts. Right, right. You know, the whole

2:03

idea of this is to, we recognize

2:05

there's something going on. And you know, the conversation

2:08

you and I recorded back in February, I'm

2:10

sure your subscribers are the same, but mine, it

2:12

resonated so strongly with them. And

2:14

in a way that none of them were expecting, you know,

2:16

that a lot of people said to me, I had

2:18

the same paraphrased response so many times, I

2:20

didn't even know that I was feeling

2:22

this way until Dimitri articulated it

2:24

so perfectly. And that feeling, you know,

2:26

that feeling, sometimes you just have to follow those

2:28

feelings and try and understand what's behind them. And

2:30

that I think is really what we're trying to

2:33

do here. Yeah, I

2:35

agree and I told you what I

2:37

love about this also is that

2:39

so many of my podcasts my MO

2:41

is like hardcore prep Structure and

2:43

I love that we're gonna do something

2:45

that isn't that way and quite frankly

2:47

some of the most popular podcasts have ever released

2:49

or the ones that haven't been structured because at

2:51

the end of the day people love people I

2:53

think don't even realize how much they respond to authentic

2:56

conversations where they feel like they're actually in the

2:58

room. So I feel like we're going to be able

3:00

to accomplish that here. And I'm very excited. I

3:03

was telling you this as well, that there

3:05

are people that not only the people that you've interviewed

3:07

that I haven't, that we're going to be bringing on

3:09

the show, but also there are people that I've

3:11

interviewed that I've really enjoyed talking to that I don't

3:13

necessarily want to speak to again, because I feel like I've

3:15

gotten most of what I want. But the

3:18

idea of interviewing them with you

3:20

now makes me so excited to speak

3:22

with them again. Yeah. And I

3:24

mean, the same goes for me. And

3:26

I think the beauty of this is

3:28

that not only can these conversations go

3:30

anywhere and be about any kind of

3:32

subject that crops up, but my questions

3:34

are going to lead to places that

3:36

you want to explore and vice versa.

3:38

And I think having this unstructured idea

3:40

of, look, these people are thoughtful, interesting

3:42

people who have perspectives that you and

3:44

I are both interested in. Where

3:46

do they take us? Because the world is

3:48

kind of unanchored at the moment. to

3:51

have a chance to have these unstructured conversations,

3:53

just explore ideas and try and

3:55

understand not just kind of

3:57

what's happening, but how those shifts

3:59

are happening, why those shifts are happening

4:01

and what it means to people.

4:03

Because I think there's a, you spoke

4:05

about this so beautifully and this

4:08

whole concept of yours of financial nihilism

4:10

captured it so well. There's loss

4:12

of meaning. There's loss of meaning in

4:14

financial markets. There's loss of meaning

4:16

of money, people being unmoored from any

4:18

kind of grounded center. Just

4:20

leads to conversations. I've had plenty of them over dinner in

4:22

the last couple of years for people that, know, you go

4:24

for a quick dinner and you end up three a half

4:26

hours later and two bottles of wine in sitting there, you

4:28

know, with your head in your hands and how many zone

4:31

is conversations and every single one of them has been profound.

4:33

Hmm. Yeah, I can't remember

4:35

the name of the academic who's associated

4:38

with the term the meaning crisis, but this

4:40

is a term that we've heard. bandied about quite a

4:42

bit, especially since the pandemic. And I

4:44

think that sentiment also filters into financial markets

4:46

and to politics. And I think we

4:48

are part of this hundred year pivot is

4:50

about finding a new source of meaning

4:52

and a new organizing principle in society. That's

4:54

what we're sort of trying to figure

4:56

out in real time. Yeah.

4:58

I mean, look, it could come from

5:00

any one of a number of directions. You

5:02

know, I published this piece in March

5:04

with five essays from great friends of

5:06

mine. and many or all

5:09

of whom will hopefully grace this podcast

5:11

with us. And I gave them a

5:13

very, very broad brief. I'd had conversations

5:15

with them in the last year or

5:17

so about the world and their thoughts

5:19

on it. So I knew kind of that

5:21

they were thinking along the same lines as I was in

5:23

terms of trying to figure things out. But I gave them

5:25

a very broad brief. So I'm not going to tell you

5:27

what to write about. I want you to write about how

5:29

you're feeling and how you see the world and how it

5:32

makes you feel, not what makes you think. And,

5:34

you know, it worked beautifully. I

5:36

got five completely different essays back,

5:38

each taking a very different line

5:40

of attack for the problems that

5:42

the world is facing. And when

5:44

you put them together, it was

5:46

an extraordinarily rounded set of ideas

5:48

and also questions that leave

5:50

you thinking, wow, what

5:53

really is going on? And more importantly, how do I

5:55

feel about it? I told

5:57

you that I loved that entire, what

5:59

would you call it? It was a newsletter, but

6:01

they were individual essays. Yeah, just a collection of

6:03

essays. That's all. That was really wonderful. And my

6:05

favorite one was Rogers. And I told

6:07

you that it really spoke to me when he

6:10

quoted Aveda, that line from Aveda, that I still

6:12

need your love after all that I've done. And

6:14

he asks, who's love? Who's

6:16

love do we need after all that

6:18

we've done? And I think

6:20

what he was referring to, if I remember correctly,

6:22

was forgiveness and grace, the grace of God. And

6:25

there is a sense in which we're going through a trial, a

6:27

great trial as a people, as a

6:29

country, as a nation, as a world. And

6:33

it's going to shape the

6:35

future profoundly. in the

6:37

same way that World War II,

6:39

the depression shaped the post -war

6:41

generation and the war itself and

6:43

all of that and the sacrifice, the collective sacrifices,

6:46

something you and I talked about. In fact,

6:48

it's so interesting that you asked this question in

6:50

the conversation we had, whatever it

6:52

was, was it a couple of months ago grant? don't remember

6:54

when we recorded it. And you

6:56

specifically asked, could a drop in the

6:58

stock market cause that collective sense

7:00

of sacrifice? And my initial reaction was

7:02

like, not really, unless... you know,

7:04

cataclysmic. It was so significant

7:06

that it caused it necessitated

7:09

shared sacrifice. And I

7:11

recently had a conversation with James Van

7:13

Galen on the show where we

7:15

talked about the possibility of a wealth

7:17

-driven recession, a recession that's

7:19

driven by a fall in the stock

7:21

market that's so great that it has

7:23

such a substantial impact on consumer spending

7:25

because of the fact that the top

7:27

10 % are responsible for 50 % of

7:30

consumer spending and because also baby boomers. do

7:32

so much to support their children. So there are knock

7:34

-on effects. And then AI

7:36

could accelerate that. So I think

7:38

as I reflected on what you

7:40

said in the last couple of weeks,

7:42

I think there may be more truth

7:45

to that. And we're sort of going

7:47

to see that playing out potentially here

7:49

with these tariffs that Trump imposed. Everyone's

7:51

still trying to figure out how impactful

7:53

they're going to be because we still

7:55

live in a complicated internationalized global trade

7:57

world characterized by global trade. And so

7:59

there are tons of prices that we can't quite

8:02

figure out because it's not as simple as, you

8:04

know, we slap tariffs on China and

8:06

their goods are getting more expensive.

8:08

They're importing parts and pieces and sending

8:10

their goods onto other third party

8:12

nations that are assembling the piece. So

8:15

all of that together is something that

8:17

no one can really quite figure out. There's

8:19

so much uncertainty also in the supply chain

8:21

and the rhetoric and in the policies of

8:23

this administration. And so this feels like COVID

8:25

in a sense, right? In the sense of

8:27

like, this just feels like uncharted territory. You

8:29

know, it's really interesting that that that answer

8:31

you get there was a microcosm of

8:33

this podcast because you started off talking about

8:35

Rogers essay and religion and you ended

8:37

up with tariffs right and supply chains and

8:39

that to me is fascinating because that's

8:41

the strange thing that's happening here and you

8:43

know, I'm as I said in my

8:45

the letter I published and I said

8:48

in our conversation I'm not a

8:50

religious man, but there's a spiritual

8:52

component to this and I've been

8:54

really struck by the kind of

8:56

swell in Talk about religion

8:58

in private emails have had and conversations

9:00

that those letters and our conversation

9:02

sparked It's fascinating to me to see

9:04

that this idea of religion and

9:06

I don't necessarily mean it in the

9:08

form of a God but in

9:10

the form of as you said some

9:12

kind of moral center some kind

9:14

of compass that gives principles and and

9:16

Ethics and morals and guidance and

9:19

all that stuff It feels like people

9:21

are grasping for it and to go

9:23

from there to supply chains in

9:25

the space of a few minutes, just

9:27

shows you how close all this

9:29

is. And I think how at sea

9:31

everybody is in trying to figure

9:34

all this stuff out. And

9:36

some of the people we've got lined up,

9:38

when I went through those five essays, there

9:40

was one thread that ran right the way

9:42

through them, one reference that was made by

9:44

each of the five authors, which didn't come

9:46

as a surprise to me. But I

9:48

think it's very telling. And that was our

9:50

mutual friend, Neil Howes and Bill Strauss's

9:52

book, The Fourth Turning. You

9:54

know, this idea of a fourth turning and all

9:56

that it brings in terms of the things we

9:58

talked about and morals and ethics and principles, that

10:00

kind of stuff. It ran through that

10:02

letter like a seam of gold through

10:04

a rock. You know, it was really,

10:06

really interesting. And we're going to have

10:08

Neil join us on the podcast. That's

10:11

one of our first couple of guests to talk

10:13

about that. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on

10:15

that as a starting point for this kind of

10:17

exploration about. I mean, it's right there in the

10:19

name too, right? Yeah. I think Neil's

10:21

generational cycles are 80 to 100 years

10:23

roughly. I think he's

10:25

a perfect guess to start this,

10:27

because I think when you study enough

10:29

history, and I am by no means

10:31

a historian, there are many people

10:33

who I follow who I would

10:35

consider to be people that actually have

10:37

studied history. But from my

10:39

superficial understanding of history, there

10:42

is so much about this time that

10:44

just feels resonant. it

10:46

feels like we're playing

10:48

out something that's happened many times

10:50

before. And there are many

10:53

shocking similarities to the

10:55

1930s, you know, with these trade wars and

10:57

the potential capital wars and the breakdown of

10:59

the global order. So I

11:01

think having on a historian like Neil,

11:03

who's also developed a framework that

11:05

tries to put some of that

11:07

history into a kind of rhythmic order

11:09

is a very appropriate

11:12

first episode for this series. Yeah,

11:14

I think so too. And it's funny, you know,

11:17

I read that book, I don't know, maybe

11:19

15 years or something like that. And I found

11:21

it profoundly interesting and thought provoking at the

11:23

time. But it's funny with that in the

11:25

back of my mind. There have

11:27

been a few things along the last 15

11:29

years that have, I've kind of

11:31

added and added and added as a way to

11:33

various lenses to look through things. And that has

11:35

definitely been one of them. But I've

11:37

talked about this before, you brought up

11:39

the Great Depression and World War Two and

11:41

all these echoes throughout history around the

11:43

last fourth turning. And what's fascinating

11:45

to me is when I grew up

11:47

in the UK at school, history was

11:50

my favorite subject. And we we learned about

11:52

World War Two and the lead up to World War

11:54

Two. And that was a big focus of history in England,

11:56

obviously, it would have been. And from

11:58

that day to literally a

12:00

few years ago, the piece that I could

12:02

never really understand properly, even though you

12:04

kind of read about it, I could never

12:06

really understand it was you think about How

12:09

could society reach a point where

12:11

someone like Hitler could be elected?

12:13

Elected, you know, this is not

12:15

someone who stole power. This guy

12:17

was elected a landslide. And I

12:19

could never really put myself in that

12:22

place to understand it. And

12:24

I listened to a podcast called

12:26

The Rest is History, which I really,

12:28

really enjoy. And they did a

12:30

little five -part mini series about

12:32

the rise of the Nazi party

12:34

in the 1920s and 30s in

12:36

Germany. And

12:38

that brought this period to life. And

12:41

going into it, not understanding how it

12:43

could happen, I came out of that

12:45

thinking, how could it not have happened? And

12:48

I think that's the important

12:50

thing for all of us today

12:52

is to understand the times we're

12:54

living through are going to be

12:57

written about for hundreds of years to

12:59

come. This is a period of

13:01

time that is changing the entire

13:03

way the world works. It's

13:05

changing every relationship in the world, not

13:07

just between countries, but between generations and

13:09

between classes and between everything is up

13:11

for grabs here. And we talk about

13:13

in our little corner of the world,

13:15

the financial world, we talk about the

13:17

system being reset and all this stuff.

13:19

And it's kind of a throwaway phrase

13:21

because we're talking about the monetary system

13:23

or the financial system. We don't really

13:25

know what we're talking about. We just

13:27

recognize that things are shifting. And

13:30

for me, as we go

13:32

through this journey together, you and I, along

13:34

with our guests, I

13:36

think the things I'm trying to really

13:39

put into place is

13:41

to help people gain

13:43

the perspective that they will get in

13:45

20 years, but try and get it

13:47

now by looking backwards. I think

13:49

with Churchill that said, the further back

13:51

you look, the farther forward you

13:53

can see. And I think that's such

13:55

an important concept. So hopefully in

13:57

these conversations, we can bring ideas and

13:59

bring thoughts and bring perspectives to the

14:01

table that will help people in real

14:03

time. gather a much

14:05

bigger understanding rather than having their heads in

14:08

the chaos and not being able to step

14:10

back far enough to see. Yeah, I love

14:12

that. Actually, I recently stepped away from Twitter

14:14

and it's been so good for not

14:16

just my mental health, but also I

14:18

think also for my ability to do

14:20

exactly what you're describing. Cause it's so easy to

14:22

get caught up in the noise and I'll

14:24

see the big picture. And I

14:26

think, you know, when we were talking with

14:28

Neil about doing the show, we were

14:30

also talking with Russell Napier who you and

14:32

I agree has just been, look, my

14:35

personal perspective is that when it comes to

14:37

finance and political economy, there is no

14:39

one who I have followed these years who

14:41

has nailed it better in

14:43

terms of creating the most coherent,

14:45

complete and accurate framework than Russell

14:47

Napier. And to that point, I

14:49

was saying to both Neil and Russell that when

14:51

I started the Hidden Forces podcast, my

14:54

goal was to try and

14:56

understand the forces. that

14:58

are impacting the epiphenomena of the world. And we

15:00

talk about this all the time in markets, you

15:02

know, what's driving the market. Everyone,

15:04

no one knows and you're always trying to extract. We were

15:06

even talking about this with the case of the supply chains

15:08

and no one, no one knows actually what the impact is

15:10

going to be. The problem is

15:13

very clear. Tariffs rising in

15:15

cost of imported goods. Why

15:17

can't we figure it out? Because it's a complex

15:19

system and markets as a whole are even

15:21

more complex. And I said something

15:23

to you guys in an email, which actually

15:25

I want to give credit to Tim O

15:27

'Reilly. who inspired this with an episode

15:29

that we had done. It was sort of a

15:31

combination of something he had written in his book

15:33

about the future. It was a book about map

15:35

making. And what I said

15:37

was that I feel like, and this applies to

15:39

the series, what I think I hope to accomplish

15:41

with this series is that we are

15:44

able to draw for our

15:46

listeners a map to

15:48

the future by helping

15:50

us all collectively, not just helping them, but you

15:52

and I are trying to figure this out in

15:54

real time and we're never going to quite know,

15:56

we're just kind of trying to figure it out

15:58

by understanding the forces that are shaping the present. And

16:02

I think that's the thing that the people,

16:04

and for me, that means

16:06

developing a framework, developing maps. And

16:09

for me, what that has meant in practice

16:11

is trying to find the people that have developed

16:14

either the most accurate map or

16:16

some map of the territory

16:18

that is illuminating, that creates that aha moment.

16:20

And folks like Neil Howe have done that

16:22

with his generational cycles theory. Russell

16:24

Napier has done that with national capitalism. And

16:27

there are others, many that I've, some

16:29

of whom I've mentioned to you in

16:31

an email. I'll even mention

16:34

one who I don't know if she's necessarily for

16:36

us, but I think it's a great example again

16:38

of this for people to have a sense. When

16:40

I had Shoshana Zubah on my show back, this

16:42

was a long time ago. I think it was

16:44

episode 79. So this would have been 2018 or

16:46

2019 as she wrote her book, Surveillance Capitalism.

16:48

Capitalism. Yeah, that was true. Yeah. At that time,

16:50

nobody, I mean, I had read some folks like

16:52

Sherry Turkle who had done great work. She had

16:54

written a book called Alone Together where she talked

16:56

about what was going on back in 2013 with

16:58

social media. But no one

17:00

had quite nailed it in developing this framework

17:02

that helped to really explain to folks

17:04

what was going on. what were

17:06

the forces that were driving the changes

17:08

that we were experiencing and putting that into

17:10

a coherent framework? And I think

17:12

for our listeners, I'm sure this is true for you

17:14

and I know this is true for my listeners as

17:17

well, my listeners

17:19

enjoy when they are able

17:21

to understand something. I'm

17:23

that way too, right? If you

17:25

illuminate something for me, if I'm staring

17:27

at a problem for whatever period

17:29

of time, a month, a year, 10

17:31

years, and someone comes along and

17:33

they Drop something in

17:36

front of me That suddenly changes

17:38

something shifts in my understanding. It's kind

17:40

of like moving a three -dimensional object

17:42

in space, right? You're seeing only a

17:44

two -dimensional version of that object all of

17:47

a sudden you shift it and You

17:49

see what it is. Yeah, and that

17:51

is such a powerful experience and it's

17:53

not just valuable from an investment

17:55

standpoint but it's also just deeply gratifying.

17:57

And I hope that we can

17:59

accomplish that with the show. In fact, that

18:01

to me is what I'm most excited about

18:03

about this program grant is that you and

18:05

I together will be able to bring on

18:07

the people that we feel are the highest

18:09

signal to noise ratio folks and sit down

18:11

and speak with them. And in a

18:13

sense, through a series, expose our

18:15

listeners to those people who over the

18:17

years, we have found to be the most

18:19

valuable teachers. At least that is how I feel.

18:22

Yeah, the beauty of this for me, Dimitri, is

18:24

that I come into this with Only questions

18:26

i don't have answers you know i have

18:28

thoughts and i have. Perspectives

18:30

but really i just have questions at the moment and

18:32

i think you know that is funny you talk

18:34

about that three dimensional object and i was looking at.

18:37

Thinking about this and i'm what we

18:39

were gonna do over the last

18:41

several weeks and in my timeline popped

18:43

up one of those terrific pictures

18:45

that taken. From the air

18:47

it looks like a drone shot but

18:49

of animals in a desert walking and

18:51

you see. It looks

18:53

like a big shadow and then it says to

18:55

zoom in you can actually see that it looks

18:57

like animals This was zebras in this case. It

19:00

looks like a whole herd of zebras when you

19:02

zoom in and look closely It's the shadows

19:04

of the zebras and the

19:06

zebras are there and It's

19:08

what you just said just brought that back to

19:10

me about reexamining this 3d objects in in space

19:12

and it's that you know, it's I don't even

19:14

know what my questions are at the moment all

19:16

I know is I feel this great sense of uncertainty

19:19

and this great sense of unpredictability

19:21

in the world. And

19:24

everywhere you go, particularly this last week

19:26

has been a perfect example of this. You're

19:29

surrounded by such faux certainty. Everybody

19:31

is certain about everything. Everybody will

19:33

tell you exactly what these tariffs

19:35

are going to mean, exactly what's

19:37

going to happen in markets. And

19:39

it's utter nonsense. From day one,

19:41

we're guessing about the future. So

19:43

you cannot be certain it's a

19:45

physical impossibility. So, you

19:47

know, I think this idea that we

19:50

can just ask questions and just go

19:52

where those answers take us. And that

19:54

could mean with that same guest or it

19:56

might lead us to another guest or it

19:58

might lead us down a completely different avenue.

20:00

And I have no idea where that's taking

20:02

us. And I cannot tell you how thrilling

20:04

I find that idea. Me

20:07

too, man. Like I said, I love, again,

20:09

for me, my podcast so often, not always, but

20:11

so often is this like structured teaching experience

20:13

where I do a deep dive on a guest

20:15

or a topic and I try to extract

20:17

ahead of time what I think the most interesting

20:19

things are. And then I create a kind

20:21

of outline so we can explore those things so

20:23

I can share those things with the audience. In

20:27

this case, what I find especially exciting

20:29

is that I feel like this is gonna be

20:31

a much more inclusive experience. This is gonna

20:33

be much more about like, hey, why don't you

20:35

come and join us for this conversation as

20:37

we all try and figure this out together. And

20:39

the fact that there's gonna be less sort

20:41

of conscious preparation, I think is a big

20:43

part of it. So again, I can't emphasize how excited

20:45

I am, man. This is really gonna be an

20:48

incredible journey. Well, we talked about Neil and the importance

20:50

that he's had for both of us in trying

20:52

to figure this out. Talk a little bit more about

20:54

Russell, because as you said, you and I both

20:56

come at this from the financial world. That was our

20:58

route into this whole podcasting space. You

21:00

touched on it a minute ago. Russell has

21:02

been absolutely spot on in just about everything you

21:04

said. And that's why he's probably going to

21:07

be the second guest in the series to use

21:09

that as a framework. Well,

21:11

I can't bring up Russell

21:13

without first just mentioning that you

21:15

introduced us. And I

21:17

have to say, again, it's just important to

21:19

point out that I think this project is

21:21

possible. because of how generous

21:23

you are. And you are. And I don't want

21:25

to go do the whole congratulating each other

21:28

thing where people do that on podcasts. But you're

21:30

a very generous person, Grant. And you've been

21:32

very generous to not just me, but all sorts

21:34

of folks with your network. So Russell's an

21:36

example of that. I met Russell through you. I'm

21:38

sure what probably happened was I heard him

21:40

on a podcast episode and I reached out and

21:42

said, hey, any chance you can introduce me?

21:44

Because he's just... And he first came on for

21:46

an episode on the Asian financial crisis. He

21:49

had written a book about his experience in

21:51

Hong Kong through the Asian financial crisis.

21:53

And I believe it was, the

21:55

book was diary entries from

21:57

1995 to the height and resolution

21:59

of the crisis, maybe 95

22:01

to 98. And I mentioned

22:03

that first because that was the way

22:05

that I was exposed to Russell. I

22:07

was exposed to his methodology. I

22:10

was exposed to how he thinks. One of the

22:12

things I really love about Russell, and I look

22:14

for this in all the high signal to noise

22:16

ratio people that I identify, there's

22:18

a process. for coming

22:20

to an understanding. And part

22:22

of that process involves a baseline

22:24

level of humility. Now, what

22:26

I also love about Russell, and the reason I bring

22:28

this up actually in the context of the Asian

22:30

financial crisis is because he was looking at his diary

22:32

entries. He went back and

22:35

published and analyzed what he thought at

22:37

the time. Not what he thinks

22:39

he thought now, but actually what he

22:41

thought at the time, what he

22:43

was saying, what he was writing. And

22:46

that is a level of

22:48

accountability. that I think is something we

22:50

should all strive for. And it comes across in the

22:52

quality of his analysis. The other

22:54

thing I love about Russell is that he's a historian.

22:56

Again, I don't think it's a coincidence that we're

22:58

picking two historians. And in fact, you know, I put

23:00

together a list of names that I shared with

23:02

you about some people that I think might be interesting

23:04

guests to have on. And there are certainly historians

23:06

in there. And of course, Russell's

23:09

the keeper of the quote,

23:11

library of mistakes, a

23:13

library of financial mistakes. And

23:15

I can't tell you how much I've, like I

23:17

said, I've gotten so much value from him. I

23:19

also love that. And I think this is really

23:21

important to Grant. I'm trying to think about where

23:23

I recently spoke with someone about this. But in

23:26

any case, you know, let's go

23:28

back to this thing about frameworks. Ah, right. It

23:30

was a conversation I had with George Friedman where

23:32

this came up. So this is the thing

23:34

about frameworks, right? Actually, you

23:36

know that I'm a father. I recently

23:38

became a father. My son's now seven

23:40

months or something. And there's been something

23:42

really magical about watching him awaken. Like

23:45

there's a kind of awakening that happens

23:47

with every day that he grows older.

23:50

And what I also noticed, and I knew

23:52

this already, so I already had a

23:54

quote framework around how this works in childhood

23:56

development, but you can see

23:59

that he went from being born

24:01

where everything is just stimuli, unstructured

24:03

streams of information, colors, light

24:05

sounds. He has no way to

24:07

say that sound, oh, that's an

24:09

elephant, or that's a door. All

24:12

he sees is some sort of like,

24:14

you know, just overflow of information. And

24:16

what I've read about this incidentally is

24:18

that it's somewhat like being on psychedelics

24:20

or having a stroke in your left

24:22

hemisphere. You know, it's like

24:25

you just lose the ability to have any

24:27

kind of, everything just kind of melts

24:29

into each other. And I feel like what

24:31

happens as we get older is we

24:33

bring structure to experience. We structure the world

24:35

around us. And that's what these

24:37

frameworks are about. It's about, we need the frameworks.

24:39

We need frameworks to navigate the world. You

24:41

know, this also brings us back to questions about

24:43

God and all else, which is that reality is

24:45

not as it seems to be, right?

24:47

Because so much of what we do is

24:50

we bring order to experience, we structure the

24:52

reality that this chaotic world of information that

24:54

comes at us so that we can navigate

24:56

it. But the maps we use to navigate

24:58

it should not be confused with the territory.

25:00

And as we get older, we develop these

25:02

maps and some of us get exceptionally wedded

25:05

to those maps. And what I

25:07

think is so special about the series

25:09

is that what we're doing is we're breaking,

25:11

we're acknowledging that those maps no longer

25:13

work and that we shouldn't be attached to

25:15

them as though they are the territory. And

25:17

the people, and this is my favorite quote by

25:19

Russell, is that the worst thing

25:21

you can do, and I'm paraphrasing that, he

25:23

doesn't say this exact thing, he doesn't say,

25:26

he does say the worst thing you can

25:28

do, but the worst thing you can do

25:30

in sort of periods of great change, the

25:32

kind of change that we're talking about here,

25:34

is to ask, to get all the right

25:36

answers, to all the wrong questions. And what

25:38

that really means is what framework are you

25:40

using? What are the sets of questions that

25:42

derive from what framework that you're getting answers?

25:45

And you think you're getting all the right

25:47

answers, but you're using the wrong framework because

25:49

those frameworks are outdated. Your models no longer

25:51

work. Your maps no longer accurately represent the

25:53

territory that you're seeking to navigate. And when

25:55

you go through these cycles, everything has to

25:57

change. Your baseline assumptions have to change. So

25:59

one of the things I really love about

26:02

Russell as well is that he has that

26:04

sort of deep Bottoms up analysis and he's

26:06

not dependent on a framework and those people

26:08

are exceptionally intelligent They tend to have if

26:10

not an academic historical background They should only

26:12

have an appreciation for history because you have

26:14

to be willing to break the old and

26:16

to build something new So that's what I

26:18

love about Grant I love about Russell and

26:21

I think what's great about Neil and again

26:23

Why I think he's such a great person

26:25

to start the episode with is he helps

26:27

his framework and his model helps explain why

26:29

we're going through this transition and then again

26:31

Russell's is about like building a new model

26:33

to understand the political economy of a changing

26:35

global order of a changing economic order and

26:37

What that world looks like what will increasingly

26:40

look like and how to navigate it You

26:42

know I can go so many directions with

26:44

what you just said remind me to come

26:46

back to the fatherhood thing in a second

26:48

Because there's someone there's a component of that

26:50

I want to talk about but the one

26:52

piece of that I would add to what

26:54

you just said there is the

26:57

time element. You have to be

26:59

able to change your framework quickly

27:01

because we've grown up in periods

27:03

of long, slow -moving trends. Globalization

27:05

has been a 40 -year trend that

27:07

has now reached its apogee. And

27:10

we haven't had to really function quickly apart from

27:12

if you've been in the markets, you've

27:14

had the odd day of chaos where you've had

27:16

to react. But you haven't really

27:18

had to completely adjust your framework quickly. You've

27:20

had to deal with a 10 % down day

27:22

in 2008 or deal with whipsaws when the

27:24

markets have rallied in the middle of bear

27:26

markets and stuff. So you haven't

27:28

had to really break things down to their

27:30

roots and then rebuild them again. And that's

27:32

what we're talking about here. We are talking

27:34

about a world that we all believe, to

27:36

your point, we understand how it works and

27:38

we simply don't. And that has already happened.

27:40

The world no longer works the way we

27:42

all believe it does. And so the quicker

27:44

we kind of figure out how it's changed

27:46

and what that means for us and what

27:48

we have to do to adapt to it, the

27:51

better for all of us. But we want to come

27:53

back to that father thing because I know it's been

27:55

such a cool thing to watch you on this journey

27:57

as a father of a young child because I've got

27:59

two grandkids now. I'm at the other end of that

28:01

spectrum. But for me, this

28:04

is such an important part of this

28:06

because I don't really spend much time worrying

28:08

about me and I'm worrying about my

28:11

place in this and how I'm going to

28:13

deal with this because I am far

28:15

enough down the track and I've lived a

28:17

life and I've built a family. I've

28:19

done all those things. The

28:21

thing that I spent all my time thinking

28:23

about and worrying about is how do

28:25

my kids navigate this? And now I look

28:27

at this beautiful six and four year

28:29

old girls who are completely oblivious to this.

28:31

And my questions are all about what's

28:33

the world they're going to inherit like and

28:35

how can we either prepare them for

28:37

it ideally or try and provide some sort

28:39

of haven from it if it's really

28:41

bad. Those are the questions that I really

28:43

want to dig into because if we

28:45

can help the people who are going to

28:47

have to deal with this in ways that

28:49

we aren't. We're simply not going to

28:51

have to deal with it in the way

28:53

that someone who's 15 now is going

28:55

to have to deal with this world. just

28:58

not. We're going to be through

29:00

that stage where it's the kind of

29:02

thing that overwhelms your most productive

29:04

years. So that's a big component

29:06

to me and this fatherhood, the peace,

29:08

and again, through these conversations and through the

29:10

The essays and everything, I keep getting

29:12

that back. People talking about their kids and

29:14

talking about their families and talking about, you

29:17

know, we become a newer to this.

29:19

When you're staring at markets, you

29:21

become a newer to volatility, really, because it's

29:24

part of your job. And for a lot of

29:26

people, it's how they make their money.

29:28

You know, they embrace the volatility. But if

29:30

we take the last couple of weeks, for example,

29:32

out of the way, and I'm sure I won't

29:34

speak for you, but I've looked at this or

29:36

I've been forced to look at it, I should say,

29:39

through a financial lens because the news feeds that I'm

29:41

getting bombarded in the emails and getting it all

29:43

from people who are financial practitioners and trying to understand

29:45

the world through that lens. But

29:47

if you step back for a

29:49

moment and try and imagine the

29:51

last two weeks without headlines about

29:53

stock markets down 20 % and without

29:55

talk about recessions and without talk

29:58

about financial aspects of this, what

30:00

does that world look like to someone

30:02

who's never read The Wall Street Journal in

30:04

their lives, or doesn't have a 401k,

30:06

or if they do it in a company

30:09

pension plan, it's manageable. They don't think

30:11

about the stock market ever, you know, until

30:13

it's front page news or until it's

30:15

on 60 minutes about the crash, you know,

30:17

that's a very different world that those

30:19

people are living in. That's the vast majority

30:21

of people, you know, we are in

30:23

a minority. And so again, there are so

30:25

many different ways that we can take

30:27

this, but there are also so many different

30:29

vantage points that you can stand. and

30:31

look at it from that will, to your

30:33

point, about the wrong questions and the

30:36

right answers, give you a completely different vector

30:38

upon which to travel towards this thing. Yeah,

30:40

well, that also, again, brings me back to frameworks. One

30:43

of the things that I don't know if

30:45

you and I talked about it, but I've spoken

30:47

about in recent episodes is that, you know,

30:49

I feel like we've just gotten to the point

30:51

now where investors have become comfortable with the

30:53

idea of mean reversion. They become really comfortable with

30:55

this idea that, okay, yeah, we had the

30:57

2008 crisis. That was really scary, but the markets

30:59

rebounded. We had COVID. scary, but the markets

31:02

rebounded every time, the markets come back. And I'm

31:04

not saying that markets don't come back or

31:06

that the world's going to end. That's not what

31:08

I'm suggesting. But I think the

31:10

setup this time could be one where

31:12

the markets don't revert back to the previous

31:14

paradigm. And there are a lot of

31:16

reasons to think that that's possible. One is

31:18

the baby boom retirement wall. You

31:20

have people that are going to increasingly be pulling

31:22

their money out. You have this

31:24

tariffs and this intention, at least stated intention

31:26

by the Trump administration. to

31:28

rebalance wealth and income in society,

31:30

which also will change those dynamics and

31:32

will change dollar recycling, which has

31:34

been a big, huge source of asset

31:36

price appreciation. And you also

31:39

have AI, which is something that I

31:41

just don't think is spoken about enough

31:43

in this context. And this is

31:45

again, something that I spoke about recently in

31:47

my episode titled, are we about to enter

31:49

the first white collar recession? And

31:51

I mentioned the wealth driven effect, which

31:53

is that if stock prices go down,

31:56

Substantially down, if one's net worth declines,

31:58

especially if they're nearing retirement age

32:00

or in retirement age, they become much

32:02

more risk -averse about spending. consumer

32:04

spending is so heavily tilted towards

32:07

the higher echelon income brackets, VACA

32:09

driver recession, and inter -recession firms

32:11

that were previously reluctant to experiment

32:13

with artificial intelligence, large language models

32:15

may become more willing to do

32:17

so because they've already let go

32:19

of people and they're cost conscious.

32:22

And so chat GPT went from

32:24

being not good enough to maybe

32:26

just good enough. And so that

32:28

kicks off, that ignites the beginning

32:30

of a multi -year, multi -decade, reordering

32:33

of the economy, a technological revolution

32:35

that's driven by AI. And

32:37

that also has huge political ramifications. Maybe

32:40

that finally gives the Democratic Party, whose

32:42

base consists of white -collar workers who previously

32:44

were organized around the banner of some of

32:46

this woke ideology, to now being focused

32:48

around UBI and the effects of losing their

32:50

jobs and losing economic opportunities. In other

32:52

words, maybe we end up seeing happened to

32:54

the white collar workforce, what happened to

32:56

the blue collar workforce? And that has profound

32:58

implications for politics. Now, I don't know

33:00

exactly how I got on this train, Grant.

33:02

I don't know how, I don't remember

33:04

exactly what your question was and why I

33:06

got here, but I guess that's in

33:08

the spirit of the podcast. Yeah, no, look,

33:10

exactly right. Exactly right. And I, you

33:12

know, I, like I said, this whole thing

33:14

is going to be such an adventure.

33:16

And I'm very conscious of us doing a

33:18

podcast, talking about a podcast. Again, Seinfeld,

33:21

that keeps coming know, right? It's a podcast

33:23

about nothing, podcast about a box. Exactly.

33:25

So we won't make this episode too long,

33:27

but we wanted to share the beginning

33:29

of this journey with you and what we're

33:31

going to do. You know, Demetri and

33:33

I will publish these conversations and we're going

33:35

to make sure that everybody gets to

33:37

hear them because I think these are profoundly

33:39

important questions. We will publish them

33:41

to our subscribers probably a week before they go

33:43

public, just so they get the benefit of that for

33:45

supporting our work. But I think,

33:47

you know, Dimitri, a big part of this

33:49

is going to be the audience out there,

33:51

whether they email you or they email me

33:53

and ask us the questions and suggest people

33:55

that they've heard of that brought an interesting

33:57

perspective to the way they try and order

33:59

the world around them. Because, you know, you

34:01

and I have our networks and the network

34:03

effect of those networks is terrific. But

34:06

I've lost count of how many interesting people I've

34:08

come across over the years that I'd never heard of

34:10

before. And you have these conversations

34:12

with them or you read something they've written and

34:14

to your point, right? It suddenly turns a

34:16

torch on in a corner that you've been trying

34:18

to squint into for quite some time. And

34:20

so, you know, having the audience be

34:22

a part of this and join us on

34:25

this exploration is going to be a

34:27

huge component of it. Absolutely. I couldn't agree

34:29

more. And I'm very excited by the

34:31

prospect of hearing back from people. Again, I

34:33

go back to this thing of like

34:35

there's something really exciting to me about changing

34:37

the format of the show. Again, I'm

34:39

still doing my podcast. You're still doing your

34:41

podcast, but you have actually done series

34:43

like this before with other people. I have

34:45

never done anything like this. I've been

34:47

doing the show for eight years now, roughly

34:49

speaking, and it's been roughly

34:51

the same format. It's been me interviewing

34:53

people, nerding out on their material.

34:55

constructing an outline and sort of quizzing them

34:57

and occasionally more conversational programming and occasionally kind of

34:59

more panel stuff. But it's been more or

35:02

less the same and certainly just me. I'm very

35:04

excited by this idea of doing it with

35:06

somebody else. I can't tell you how excited I

35:08

am and doing it with you of all

35:10

people. Well, I agree. I say we both been

35:12

trying to find a. the right way to

35:14

collaborate for quite some time now, and I'm delighted

35:16

we found it. Well, listen, let's wrap things

35:18

up there. The first episode of this will be

35:20

out sometime in the next couple of weeks

35:22

when we can. Of course, the big problem, Dimitri,

35:24

with doing this with the co -host is you

35:26

have three calendars to align, right? That's the

35:28

single biggest impediment, especially when you're all in different

35:30

time zones. I've recorded podcasts four

35:33

in the morning in Australia and I've done all kinds of things

35:35

over the years. You're lucky because you're right in the middle.

35:37

So you should be fine. So in terms

35:39

of publishing, the plan is to publish this

35:41

to the whole world so that everybody gets

35:43

a chance to join us on this journey

35:45

because we both believe it's profound. Our own

35:47

subscribers will get it first. We'll probably publish

35:49

it a week before it goes public, but

35:51

anyone that's not a subscriber will have the

35:54

chance to listen to these conversations. Absolutely.

35:56

So I think, you know, we were still trying

35:58

to figure out how we would publish the public feed,

36:01

but we're going to both publish this on our

36:03

private feeds branch. So your premium subscribers will get it.

36:05

My premium subscribers will get it. And then what

36:07

we're probably going to do is we're both going to

36:09

publish it on our own feeds publicly. We also

36:11

talked about maybe when we publish it publicly, maybe we'll

36:13

put it on a, on a regular feed, but

36:15

we can hash that out for, figure that out when,

36:17

well, yeah, when Neil's episode comes out, we'll. We'll

36:19

have a lot to talk about, and we'll mention that

36:21

too at the top. Hey, we did tell people

36:23

we're doing this on the fly, right? Exactly,

36:26

it's authentic. It's frozen the pudding. Well,

36:28

listen, we'll reconvene when we can pin

36:30

Neil down, and we'll be back with

36:32

this in the not too distant future.

36:34

In the meantime, Demetri, just let

36:36

people know where they can follow all the great stuff you do at

36:38

Hidden Forces. Yeah, you can go

36:40

to hiddenforces .io to learn more about the

36:42

podcast. I do have a Twitter feed, but

36:44

like I said, I've taken a indefinite

36:46

hiatus from Twitter, but my Twitter handle, if

36:48

you want to go through it, is

36:50

at Kofinas with a K. And

36:52

I also have a Twitter handle at hiddenforcespod

36:54

that you can follow. Yep. And I'm pretty

36:56

easy to find, grant -williams.com. And my Twitter handle

36:58

is at TTMYGH. And boy, did I wish

37:00

I was taking a hiatus from Twitter at the

37:03

moment. It is becoming almost unbearable. It is

37:05

not a very fun place. I also should

37:07

mention, if you want to mention it to

37:09

Grant, I have an email address that you can

37:11

Reach out to info at hiddenforces .io and all

37:13

the emails get forwarded to me, so feel

37:15

free to reach out through there if you

37:17

need to connect. Dashie and the same goes

37:19

for me, info at grant -williams.com and they will

37:21

come to me too. All right, my friend,

37:23

this has been terrific. I look forward to this

37:25

journey with you. I don't know which one

37:27

of us is Sancho Panzer and which one

37:29

is Don Quixote, but I guess we'll figure that

37:32

out as we go along this journey as

37:34

well. I'll talk to you soon. Awesome. YouTube,

37:36

take care of Grant. Nothing

37:44

we discussed should be considered

37:46

as investment advice. This conversation

37:48

is for informational and hopefully entertainment

37:50

purposes only. So while we hope

37:52

you find it both informative and

37:54

entertaining, please do your own research

37:56

or speak to a financial advisor before

37:58

putting a dime of your money into these

38:00

crazy markets.