Why Japan's Elections Could Blow Up Global Bond Markets | Weston Nakamura

In Episode 429 https://hiddenforces.io/podcasts/why-japans-elections-could-blow-up-global-bond-markets-weston-nakamura of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Weston Nakamura, a Tokyo-based financial analyst and the creator of "Across the Spread," a market analysis and information service that identifies key market developments from the Asia-Pacific trading session, exploring their impact on equities, bonds, currencies, and commodities across global markets. Weston recently spoke with members of the Hidden Forces Genius community, helping them make sense of the Japanese elections that took place over the weekend. He explained what the results mean for what he calls "the world's most dangerous market" and why a new governing coalition made up of Japan's opposition parties could cause significant dislocations in international bond markets, raising government financing costs and inciting further political turmoil in countries already riled by debates about trade and immigration. This is the audio from that conversation. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe https://hiddenforces.io/subscribe. If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe https://hiddenforces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-forces/id1205359334, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8URhgYos5fjHqFSO4RSIEg, Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0TK6u251zGSlMgJKH6cOaP, Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/demetri-kofinas/hidden-forces, SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/hiddenforces, CastBox https://castbox.fm/channel/2629539, or via our RSS Feed http://hiddenforces.libsyn.com/rss Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-forces/id1205359334 & Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0TK6u251zGSlMgJKH6cOaP Joining 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 https://hiddenforces.io/. Join the conversation on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenforcespod/, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenforcespod/, and Twitter https://twitter.com/hiddenforcespod at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas https://twitter.com/kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/22/2025

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Demetri Kofinas?

  What's up everybody? My name is Demetri Kofinas and you're listening to Hidden Forces, a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens to challenge consensus narratives and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world. My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is Weston Nakamura, a Tokyo-based financial analyst and the creator of Across the Spread, a market analysis and information service that identifies key market developments from the Asia-Pacific trading session, exploring their impact on equities, bonds, currencies, and commodities across global markets. What you're about to hear is the audio from Weston's recent Q&A with members of the Hidden

• 0:44Demetri Kofinas?

  Forces Genius Community, where he helped us make sense of the Japanese elections that took place over the weekend, what they mean for what Weston calls the world's most dangerous market, and why a new governing coalition made up of Japan's opposition parties could cause significant dislocations in international bond markets, raising global financing costs, and inciting further political turmoil in countries already riled by debates about trade and immigration. If you're interested in becoming a member of the Hidden Forces Genius Community and participating in live Q&As like this one, gaining admission to our members-only social media platform, discounted access to third-party research and analysis, or attending one of

• 1:26Demetri Kofinas?

  our many in-person events like our intimate dinners and weekend retreats, you can do that on our subscriber page. And if you still have questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected] and I or some of our team will get right back to you. Lastly, because this conversation deals with investing, nothing we say on this podcast can or should be viewed as financial advice. All opinions expressed by me and my guests are solely our own opinions and should not be relied upon as the basis for financial decisions. And with that, please enjoy this incredibly timely and illuminating conversation about the world's most dangerous market with my guest, Weston Nakamura.

• 2:14Demetri Kofinas?

  Weston Nakamura, it's great to have you on the Genes community.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  It is a pleasure, Dmitry Sun.

• 2:20Demetri Kofinas?

  Just a reminder to everyone, questions in the Q and A box, comments in the chat box. And if you have a question, just go ahead and drop it in there. I'm going to do my best to answer as we go along. A lot of our members weren't able to make this last minute because we scheduled this, you know, a day ago or so. And so they've sent me in some of their questions and I've peppered them into my rundown. So Weston, it's great having you on, man. As I was telling you, you've done a great job covering the story being the elections in Japan and particularly their impact, not just on the Japanese economy and the Japanese bond market, but their knock on effect on global bond markets. Before we get into all this, just tell me a little bit about who you are. What's your background for people that aren't familiar with you?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Sure. So my name is Weston Nakamura. So I'm originally from New York, born and raised. I'm currently based in Tokyo. Been here since 2014, currently run across the spread. And so that's basically a platform where I just provide market insights, analysis, commentary out of specifically this, the Asia region that I'm based in. But that which has impact on global cross asset markets and therefore is being largely overlooked. Okay. So it's not about investing into Japan or Asia. It's about investing period globally, global macro. But, you know, insights that I'm trying to provide out of this entire third of the world that largely goes overlooked, especially by US investors who are very kind of

• 3:43Speaker 01

  US centric, you know, in their sort of framework. So background for me, I basically, you know, I'm, I basically got my start in institutional finance very unconventionally late. It was when I moved here to Tokyo with no job, no place to live, no experience, no credentials to work in finance, anything like that. And then I was hired by Goldman Tokyo where I traded listed derivatives on the futures and options desk, you know, mostly index futures, JGB futures, stuff like that. I also worked at Jefferies Japan doing hedge fund sales, hedge fund equity sales. And then I started, you know, publishing my own kind of trade ideas, market commentary as it was. And then I was just doing that on my own. Then I was picked up by Real Vision. So that's when I moved over to from institutional finance into like the, whatever this is, this talking head role.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  And so I was at Real Vision, was making kind of original market. Commentary and content there, then to Blockworks Macro, hosted the Market Death Podcast, and I'm currently just doing the same thing that I've been doing all along, but just doing it independently via across the spread. And I mostly publish on Substack and I also release YouTube videos as well. And yes, I'm a trader at heart, but yeah, again, what I'm trying to do is provide insights that are, you know, that have real market consequences that are being overlooked on like, things like the US equity markets, things like that, DM equity markets, currencies, commodities, all of that. And one of those things in particular is like Japan, the Bank of Japan in particular, it's very outlier policies that have nothing to do with the rest of the world's majors, the ECB, the Fed, the Bank of England, so on and so forth.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  But ultimately, I'm a markets person and I try to figure out and understand market behavior and price action.

• 5:17Demetri Kofinas?

  So one more quick question on background. Is it just my impression or are there really not a lot of analysts, English speaking analysts to follow when it comes to Japan? And if so, why is that the case?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  You are exactly correct, and that hence therein lies my niche, if you will. Japan, and you've used this term many, many, many times as an analogy, and I don't mean this in any sort of like insulting way, obviously, but I call Japan the developed world's North Korea, as in like everyone within Japan, the Japanese community stays within the Japanese community in its bubble, and then the outside world doesn't really even know what's going on inside of Japan. And there aren't that many people on the ground in Japan that can actually speak English to the point where nuances of market, you know, behavior or developments could be communicated effectively. And also, foreign investors are also looked at as kind of a monolith to Japanese investors

• 6:12Speaker 01

  when there are multiple kinds of, you know, and so there are very few people that actually can bridge that, you know? I am, I'm a Japanese American, but I am, you know, a US-based, non-Japanese person at heart, but I'm here with boots on the ground, so I could kind of pick up on a lot of the non, you know, data color, if you will, and nuances that occur. And frankly, it's because at the end of the day, even if you are working at like a foreign institution at JP Morgan. Or Morgan Stanley Tokyo or Barclays in Tokyo or whatever. Those institutions, yeah, they might be have their headquarters in the UK and the US or whatever is. But when you're in Japan, you have to be like a very Japanese organization.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  UBS is like a really Japanese, really domestic. And that means that you fall into that kind of culture, that work culture of, you know, I mean, a lot of this is ridiculous, but like it's a totally different work culture and it's totally different sort of structure and management and who you report to. And don't step on the lines of this person and so on and so forth. And there aren't people who are going to disrupt that. Literally like the act of disruption or falling out of line is frowned upon and could result in a zero slash off your bonus and all of that.

• 7:30Demetri Kofinas?

  I love that analogy that Japan is the developed world's North Korea. I mean, that's just brilliant. Also, like, you know, working in media, I can tell you that's what a brilliant phrase that is. So I know a little bit about this, very little. And most of what I really know about Japanese culture, I learned in preparing for an interview back in 2012, I think it was, on my old television show with the former CEO of Olympus, I think it was of the camera company, who wrote a book about his experience. That's right. And he wrote this great.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  The British guy?

• 7:58Demetri Kofinas?

  Yeah, he was British and he wrote about how they told him he was fired. They didn't actually tell him. They invited him to a board meeting or to some meeting of executives. And there was this illustrious plate of sushi in the middle of the table and then a tuna sandwich off on the edge. And the tuna sandwich was for him. I mean, that is just like an amazing story and apparently it's true. So.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  That guy's story is insane and the Olympus one too. Yeah.

• 8:20Demetri Kofinas?

  It was, it was. So look, as I said, you published several articles in the last few months on your Substack, which as we mentioned is titled across the spread, warning about Japan's upcoming elections and why the Japanese government bond market, the JGB market is quote, "the world's most dangerous market." Lay out your thesis for me that you've been putting forward and explain what you mean when you say that the JGB market is the world's "most dangerous market."

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Sure. So, first of all, the election piece and all of that, those are subcategories within the broader framework of me basically characterizing the JGB market, the Japanese government bond market, as the world's most dangerous market. Okay, so this latest election thing falls within that sort of broader umbrella, if you will. So, just to start, the reason that I'm saying that the JGB market is the world's most dangerous market, first of all, this is not hyperbole, okay? People who have followed me over the years, I've made, you know, a ton of commentary on the JGB market and its influence and impact on things like the US Treasury market, which is what makes the JGB market important. Not because any of us are JGB investors, I'm not talking, you know, like, but because of the fact that

• 9:25Speaker 01

  it impacts the risk-free, global risk-free rate. So, that's why it's important.

• 9:30Demetri Kofinas?

  It's a global yield anchor. It's an anchor for global bond yields.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. And the way that it operates, the JGB market, which is the second-largest, in terms of notional size, government bond market in the world, you know, second to the United States Treasury market, but it is a totally different animal altogether, okay? It's half-owned by the central bank, and until very recently, literally was not able to trade, you know, above, have yields trade above certain defined lines of the sand, or floor on prices, an explicit central bank put, right, in the face of rising yields and all that kind of thing. And so, like, basically, what I talk about the Bank of Japan and their policy is that because Japan as a society is so advanced in terms

• 10:15Speaker 01

  of, like, timing, with its aging demographics and its national debt levels, it forces the Bank of Japan to be in a state of perpetual experimentation. Like, I call Bank of Japan the world's monetary policy experimentation laboratory, because that's where the Bank of Japan has to try out these new radical things that later get adopted by other, you know, major central banks, like, you know, zero interest rates, QE, all of that was, started, really kicked off with the Bank of Japan, who basically normalized it for The rest of everyone else when it's everyone else has started to do QE and so on and so forth. Like literally Ben Bernanke in 2016, summer flies to Tokyo, helps design yield curve control, September of 2016, yield curve control gets rolled out.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Okay, policy experimentation laboratory. So when we talk about the JGB market, we're talking about, first of all, what I also have been characterizing as the largest asset bubble currently, maybe perhaps in financial market history, but certainly currently outstanding because of its notional size and also because of how the level of mispricing that there is. Okay, because you have the world's most indebted nation, 250% debt to GDP, but basically paying about one-third the rate, the market rate, to borrow money for 10 years out, lower than that of the risk-free United States Treasury Department can for 10 years out. So are JGBs like overpriced? Yeah, they're very overpriced. Okay.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  But that's fine. That's fine if they're a bubble, that's fine. And by the way, a bubble that wasn't blown up by market participants and market forces, you know, chasing into a frenzy and, you know, FOMOing in. No, this is like actually orchestrated via policy itself. Okay. So what's the problem? What makes it dangerous? What makes it dangerous is two points. First of all, long-dated JGBs are blasting to all-time record highs this year, in specifically in May and recently as well. And that is pushing up long and US Treasury yields higher, as well as many other DM bond yields higher. Okay, so if like everyone is so focused on the long and 30-year US Treasury yields

• 12:23Speaker 01

  and what it's doing and attaching it to the big beautiful bill passed in Congress, or what CPI print, or what is the, you know, like very kind of US-centric things. When in reality, if you just look at it year-to-date, there have been now four out of four upside moves in the long end of the US Treasury curve that coincide exactly with the spiking of JGB yields at the long end to all-time record highs. JGB yields move US Treasury yields of the long end. And when US Treasury yields move higher, that has real consequences to the real economy into, Across asset markets to tariff policy, Fed policy, budget policy, what have you. So that's one reason, okay, that it's a dangerous market because it's blowing out to the upside

• 13:06Speaker 01

  and how interconnected it is with other very, very critical markets like US Treasuries. The second reason is, this is more kind of shorter term, but it's the severely damaged state of market structure and functionality, or lack thereof, that currently exists with the JGB market and with other GM, you know, global bond markets as well. We're talking about like illiquidity, we're talking about, you know, like very erratic swings and erratic price blowups that kind of happen more and more, like with more and more frequency. That's all kind of a result of just damaged or malfunctioning or, you know, dysfunctional or less than ideal functional market functionality.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  And basically, the Bank of Japan at this moment, and that's also a result of just basically central bank whales who overstay their welcome, if you will, non-economic actors in these bond markets. And when they're there and they're just, you know, the major player, that's when they, as a side effect, they mess up the entire market structure and the market, you know, functionality. And the more intrusive they are, the more that cash bond market, their respective, you know, government bond markets become. And so therefore, obviously, the Bank of Japan has been the most intrusive by far out of any of them. And so the JGB market is by far the most delicate, the most sort of fragile, doesn't take much to move cash JGB yields.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  And the scary thing is that it can have like pockets of illiquidity where you just get massive blowups of, you know, 50 basis points in a day or two higher on long end, you know, JGB yields, or even to the downside. And that translates again into these other government bond markets as well. So there is that illiquidity and damaging function that occurs. And so those are why the JGB market is dangerous. And now what makes it a dangerous moment for the most dangerous market is that this time is different part is that for once, finally, the Bank of Japan, who has been basically monetizing the Debt of the Japanese government, the Ministry of Finance, who's been issuing just ever more JGBs.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  The Bank of Japan just would buy up in the secondary market, indirectly funding the government as many JGBs as necessary. But from July of 2024, they started tapering their JGB buying. Why? Why are they tapering? It's not because of inflation, it's not because of anything like that, it's because of this market functionality problem. They need to basically get out of the market or stop damaging the market with their still ongoing QE. Okay, the world has never left the QE era, just so you know, okay? It's still ongoing, but they're trying to taper out of it. But what they're finding is that when they taper out of, especially the long end of the JGB yield curve, there's no demand from the private sector, okay?

• 15:52Speaker 01

  But the dilemma is, if the Bank of Japan reverts back to QE to try to cap long end yields from going higher, then they will further damage market functionality such that they can't even effectuate or enact their QE, their own QE program, okay? So that's one side of it. The other side of it is that if they do continue to taper, well, long end yields are going to blast higher. And that comes with a lot of, you know, those sort of consequences. So you now have the Ministry of Finance also stepping in, getting the baton handed off of yield management from Bank of Japan over to the Ministry of Finance. Now we're talking about elected officials holding that yield baton.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  The Ministry of Finance came out recently in May and announced that their issuance of JGBs, they did a little twist in which they're going to reduce the long end issuance for fiscal year 2025 down to zero. But they're going to increase the issuance at the shorter end, you know, just to kind of balance out the supply-demand irreconcilable imbalance that occurs. So basically what I'm saying is that those two authorities, the Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance, are currently working in clear coordination together. And this is the best that they can do in a very precarious state of long end yields as it is, not just for JGBs, but for the world. And then you have this election come in, and this is a potential catalyst to have yields blow out potentially to like, who the hell knows, levels?

• 17:18Speaker 01

  And that is not going to happen in a vacuum, should that happen. So we're already at that very precarious state, and then now we have this catalyst.

• 17:25Demetri Kofinas?

  So a lot to unpack here, and the elections are certainly the timely news story that I absolutely want to get into. Before we do that, let's just double back here and make sure that we cover some of our bases and so that members also have a better idea of what we're talking about. First of all, just real quick, what percentage of the Japanese government's outstanding debt does the Bank of Japan actually own? And what does that duration look like?

• 17:52Speaker 01

  It's about 50%. You know, it hovers like, you know, above, you know, below like

• 17:57Demetri Kofinas?

  About 50%? Is more of that weighted towards long-duration bonds versus bills? Or what does that look like?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  So average duration, so before this era, we could say started with abonomics in 2013. Okay, so pre-2013, average duration of BOJ balance sheet, JGB balance sheet holdings, something around like, I think it was like around five, five and a half years, something like that. Currently, it's closer towards eight years.

• 18:23Demetri Kofinas?

  Okay, got it.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  And also, over that time period, the average duration of Ministry of Finance issuance of JGBs had also gone up as well. And so that's at like around nine or 10 years.

• 18:36Demetri Kofinas?

  All right, there's one more thing I want to clarify with you before we continue, and that has to do with what, when you were talking about the transmission mechanism between the Japanese bond market and global bond markets. The issue that you're identifying there is a problem of insufficient demand for government bond issuance, in this case, JGBs issued by the Japanese Ministry of Finance, and what those would do to Japanese bond yields and how that would reduce demand for things like US government bonds, therefore driving Treasury yields higher, correct? Is that the transmission mechanism that you're identifying?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  So, yeah, so at the heart of what the problem is with the long end of the JGB market is a massive, massive imbalance of supply and demand, literal pieces of JGB, pieces of paper, okay? By the way, I also want to make clear, I'm not calling it dangerous. This is not a matter of default. This is not a sovereign default that we're talking about, okay? The Bank of Japan or the Ministry of Finance will always be able to pay its principal And it's coupon payments on time in fall, probably with worthless ever worth to the end, but we're not talking about default risk, but we're literally talking about too many, like, like you're saying, supply of JGB pieces of paper. Now mechanically, the way that it works is what you're saying, like, how does it spill out to the rest of the world? Like, why do US Treasury yields rise when they do?

• 19:54Speaker 01

  It is what you just said on a more of a fundamental basis and a longer term basis, but we're talking about like even on a intraday basis, like we're talking about having a horrible 20 year JGB auction and having, you know, 30 year JGB yields blast through the 3% handle and into all time record highs. And then that then translates into a move for 30 year US Treasury cash yields to blast through into the 5% handle on that same sort of move intraday, right? So what that is, that's not necessarily, you know, capital allocations, reallocations and things like that. That's more so, I mean, these are, first of all, like I said, they're very illiquid markets as it is. So a sharp spike in one will trigger a sharp spike in another.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  And a lot of them are just because of the fact that most markets these days, even OTC markets, like government bond markets, a lot of them are systematic. A lot of them are, you know, kind of algos, bots, if you will, that essentially just glue everything together or strategies.

• 20:54Demetri Kofinas?

  But just to be clear, just to clarify something, because investors, the capital is global and investors in US Treasury securities are going to look at the yield that they could get on Japanese government bonds. And they're going to say, you know what? That's more attractive. Let me move some of my capital there. That's going to take capital away from US Treasuries, causing yields in US Treasuries to go up, which is how these are all interconnected.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  But then I would also say that the largest investor into US Treasuries, foreign investors to US Treasuries are the Japanese. So if they see a lot higher, you know, yields in the US, and if they want to go on currency unhedged, then that will also push that flow back over that way, right?

• 21:28Demetri Kofinas?

  Absolutely, absolutely. And I want to point listeners to numerous conversations that I've had with Russell Napier, where we've talked about the risk to European and US sovereign bond markets stemming from a reallocation of capital domestically by Japanese investors who had been previously allocating some of it overseas. So the repatriation of capital can have these types of impacts. So let's get into the election results here. First of all, just summarize for me what actually happened and then talk to me about how it aligns with the thesis that you had been putting forward in the weeks and months prior.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Sure. So Japan just had its upper house elections. Nobody cares about the upper house elections in Japan ever before, but this was really, you know, a front center thing globally in terms of, you know, news headlines. And so the reason is because basically, Prime Minister Ishibro, the current Prime Minister, at least as far as at the time of this according, the current Prime Minister of Japan. So this is a guy who he was named Prime Minister. By the way, Japan does not, the population does not directly elect the Prime Ministers. They are chosen by like the party heads, if you will. So he was chosen to be Prime Minister of the LDP, the Liberal Democratic Party, which has basically had like single party rule in the entirety of the post-war era, except for like, you know,

• 22:49Speaker 01

  two occasions, latest being about 15 years ago, which ended with Prime Minister Abe coming back with Abeonomics and the LDP and its coalition partner held a majority, that ruling coalition held a majority in both the lower house and the upper house of parliament for Japan for the last like decade and a half. So last September, Prime Minister Ishiba is named Prime Minister. This was his fifth attempt at being Prime Minister. He has tried to be Prime Minister of Japan for 40 years. Okay. That very day when that happened, I said, like, and there's a video of me talking to Michael, Michael Guyat about this. And I said, because the Nikkei futures crashed like 5% on his, you know, getting named Prime Minister, I said, this guy is a clown because I don't care what, he doesn't have any ideology

• 23:33Speaker 01

  or policies. If you're trying to become Prime Minister, if this is your fifth attempt, you're trying to do this for 40 years, this is a guy that must remain or become Prime Minister at all costs, period. That's the only thing that matters to him. And this is certainly showing up, you know, these days after these sort of elections. So right after he gets named Prime Minister in October 2024, he thinks that he has momentum and the populace behind him and he calls for a snap election. He dissolves the lower house of parliament and that was a massive misread of what was the reality. And he lost the majority for the lower house, you know, which is like the House of Representatives. The LDP and its ruling coalition lost their majority at that time. That was a huge blow.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  That was a massive embarrassment. That was a massive shock.

• 24:19Demetri Kofinas?

  So they were coming into this election already having lost the lower house?

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Having lost the lower house majority, right? And in between this election or that election, this one, there's also a Tokyo election about two or three weeks ago. The LDP also got crushed and lost a lot of seats there, too. So that's a second election that he's now like, kind of messed up under his watch. Then comes this one. And this one is already like expected to be the LDP is going to lose their majority. And indeed, they did. And so they lost the majority and you started seeing like a lot of different, not just like the major opposition parties, but a lot of the smaller quote unquote fringe parties, gaining a lot of, a lot of share and all that. And we're obviously going to get into that with the kind of implications on the JGB markets and all that. But Prime Minister Ishiba, now he's like three for three, oh for three, rather, okay?

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Anybody would be stepping down at this point, right? And a lot of prime ministers previously have stepped down.

• 25:13Demetri Kofinas?

  Stepping down as leader of his party.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  As leader of his party. He doesn't have to necessarily. But Prime Minister Abe actually in his first term, he had a very short first stint as prime minister. He stepped down and at that time, then a younger Ishiba was criticizing Abe, saying, "You need to be stepping down like upon these horrible election results and giving up the majority and blah, blah, blah." Same scenario is now facing him. He is remaining in power. So in power as in like, he is clearly just a sitting lame duck. And we don't know when he's going to be gone. It could be at any moment. But it's really not up to anybody else but himself for now. And also because the ruling coalition has lost their majority in both the upper house and the lower house.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  And now you have this like lame duck hated by everybody, including those in his own party. Prime Minister, who is now presiding over these like, you know, non-majority parties in both houses. Now there's a big question of, you know, these different coalitions. How are they going to coordinate and how are they going to compromise with one another and pass legislation? And so this is when the real game begins. And this elections didn't really do anything other than confirm that, yeah, establishment out. But now is when like the horse trading and all that begins and the uncertainty over the bond market overhangs.

• 26:32Demetri Kofinas?

  Okay, so before we get into the specific policy changes that the opposition parties have been proposing and the effects that they could have on the Japanese bond market and further on to other markets as well. Let's just clarify a few things here because not everyone listening to this podcast understands how parliamentary systems work. Right now, these parties, including the either the LDP party or the Kometo party, and now everyone's gonna hear how horrible my Japanese accents are and how you pronounce these words, but these two parties which combined to form a governing coalition, now one of these two parties, or both, will need to seek opposition party support in forming a new coalition government. And a number of these opposition parties have been advocating for policies that you

• 27:16Demetri Kofinas?

  deem to be very dangerous for the world's most dangerous bond market. What are the prospects of a coalition forming? Let's take this step by step. One, what are the prospects of a coalition forming? And is there a prospect of a coalition forming that would be amenable to some of the previous policies, including potentially trying to "normalize" the JGB market and the BOJ's balance sheet to the extent that that was a policy? And a policy that can even be enacted without further turbulence? Because as you suggested or stated in your series of answers, they're kind of stuck. The BOJ is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. But to what extent can a coalition party be formed that kind of continues business as usual? And to the extent that it can't, what does that mean?

• 28:00Demetri Kofinas?

  Do we go back into another series of elections? And what are the prospects coming out of that? Do you think we're gonna get even more support for opposition parties? Like, break down the sequence of events here.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the question to all those is just, very honestly, I don't know, and nobody does. So the elections were on Sunday, and we got the election results very early AM, you know, Monday morning for Japan. But Monday was a Japanese holiday, so markets were closed. So today, Tuesday, was the first chance for cash JGB markets, cash equity markets to sort of respond. But we didn't really see that much reaction in dollar yen, in anything else. Why? Because nothing has been clarified right now, and because we're in this state of like, I don't know, to all of those answers.

• 28:45Demetri Kofinas?

  There was a bit of a move in dollar yen after the elections or right before the elections, wasn't there, in anticipation of the results? But you're saying it's not particularly material?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Well, no, no. So you're totally right about that. So, leading up from July, if you look at a chart from July 3rd, which is when upper house election campaigning began, look at a chart of dollar yen, look at a chart of JGB yields, and therefore US Treasury yields at the long end that are being pulled up by JGB yields, you'll see that prior to that, you know, in June and all that, those things were on a decline and they suddenly had a sharp upwards, you know, sort of move. And JGB yields at the long end, 30-year and 40-year yields back up to all-time record highs. That is because the markets were pricing in that the establishment, LDP party, Liberal Democratic Party, that they are going to lose their majority. And so the opposition, who, as fractured as they may be, they all have one singular

• 29:36Speaker 01

  sort of commonality, and that is what the government response should be to this primary issue of the election, which is the cost of living, the high cost of living, what are you going to do about it? The LDP and Comato Party, the establishment party, they took the approach of 20,000 yen per person, or, you know, like 170 dollars or so of cash handouts. The opposition was, is proposing various forms of consumption tax cuts. And those could be anywhere from, you know, like, just on food, because it's 10% consumption tax on all items, and then on for food, it's 8%. So just on food, down to 5% and then, you know, kept for just maybe one year or something like that.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  And then that would be about, I don't know, like 2 trillion yen in terms of cost to a government. And at the other end of the spectrum is basically cut consumption tax, cut down to zero and leave them there, then do that immediately. And that would be a cost of about 20 trillion yen or more. And to put things in perspective, 20 trillion yen, that figure is about 1/4 of total tax revenue, 80 trillion yen, for last fiscal years. So you're talking about a quarter of government income just gone in that sort of extreme if that particular party got Their way essentially. So the markets are trying to figure out who is going to align with who, how they're going to do it, you know, the horse trading, all that kind of thing.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  And so I don't know, I don't know, Dimitri, what the answer is. I would, and that's what I'm trying to monitor and find out. And that's what we all are very much because that is going to matter. If it's the, let's say this San Sato party, this new party that just, you know, the MAGA of Japan, if you will, right?

• 31:18Demetri Kofinas?

  Are they closer to MAGA or are they closer to the AFD in Germany?

• 31:23Speaker 01

  So they directly talk about the fact that their slogan, Japanese first, is inspired by Mr. Donald Trump. So I mean, I mean, you could take that.

• 31:32Demetri Kofinas?

  And they, they increased their, their seats from one to 15 in this election, correct?

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they crushed it. They crushed it. So they're supposed to be like a fringe right or whatever. What they are is the LDP is basically, if you think about it like the Republican Party, right? Establishment Republican Party. They are like the conservatives who got sick of non-conservative or like, they just got sick of the establishment and they just broke off and they have their own sort of grassroots, very much grassroots sort of driven thing. They were attacked by media. The more they were attacked, they would get more popular and now they have like a serious presence.

• 32:04Demetri Kofinas?

  So let's, uh, let me just, if you don't mind me interrupting you, and I'm probably going to have to do this a few times, just to try and, I just want to try and compartmentalize some of this stuff here, just so we don't get lost. So we'll go back to the extent that we can, we'll get back into the conversation about Japanese far-right populism and, and politics. I also want to understand a little bit better, what are the core issues that animated the support for the opposition party? But real quick, something that, that I want to understand here is, do you think that the current dysfunction, let's forget like, you know, whether or not a coalition government is formed, whether or not some of these policy proposals like a consumption tax cut are implemented, but just kind of the political turbulence that we're currently existing in at this moment, given the election results, do you think that this is what was being priced in with those moves and yields?

• 32:49Demetri Kofinas?

  And in the yen? And do you think that it's priced in at this point? Like, how would you answer that question?

• 32:53Speaker 01

  The information that the public has basically had so far agreed upon and had come to fruition, which was that the LDP was going to lose its majority, that was priced in. So the 3% or 4% move higher in dollar yield in the weeks leading up to that, and the move to higher in long-end yields and all that, that was pointing to, all roads point to a worsening fiscal situation, no matter what the outcome of the elections are.

• 33:18Demetri Kofinas?

  But did this price in fiscal gridlock? Because it doesn't seem that it's priced in stimulus, yet, right?

• 33:24Speaker 01

  No, but what it is pricing in is that, I mean, you can say it's gridlock, but the cost of living, so Japan actually has the highest inflation rate amongst all the major economies, which is an insane thing to say, currently. And so rightly, people are pissed off, and they voted on action to be taken.

• 33:40Demetri Kofinas?

  What is the inflation rate in Japan right now?

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Headline is 3.2, something like that.

• 33:45Demetri Kofinas?

  And how many years have we been around this level?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  We've been about, this is about like the third year now. This is like, what is it, like, something like 30-something months above the 2% Bank of Japan target consecutively, for which the Bank of Japan says that they have yet to reach that target.

• 34:05Demetri Kofinas?

  And the yields on Japanese 10-year bonds are what, roughly?

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Like 1.5, 1.5%. But if you look at yield spread, like a 10s, 30s on JGB yields, those are just blasting massively higher. And that's how you need to look at, you know, like a yield curve steepener in Japan. You have to look at the 10-year yield, because that's the one that was artificially pinned down versus the 30 and 40 years, and so on and so forth.

• 34:27Demetri Kofinas?

  So am I correct to infer that the primary campaign issue that has animated support for the opposition parties has been the cost of living in Japan?

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 34:35Demetri Kofinas?

  And so let's then get into what the specific policy proposals are. I mean, you mentioned, there have been two. The current ruling party has proposed cutting checks and handing them to people. The opposition has proposed consumption tax cuts, and these have varied. I've seen this, you know, there's a whole list, actually, in your blog post that shows kind of what different parties are proposing, how quickly to implement those tax cuts, how long to keep them on, whether to keep them on indefinitely or not. I guess my question is, if we were to see, let's say, some of the more extreme scenarios, if some of these extreme policies were implemented, because a governing coalition came together that... Support of these policies, what would that mean? Can you put a number on that for JGB yields? And what kind of dislocations are we talking about first for the Japanese bond market?

• 35:19Demetri Kofinas?

  And then for global bond markets, not just because of the impact that what's going on in Japan has on demand for other sovereign bonds, but also as a kind of canary in the coal mine? Because like this, I love that you set this up at the beginning, which is that we've been looking at what's been going on in Japan since even before the 2008 financial crisis. In some sense, it's been a leading indicator. And so do people look at, let's say, a potential dislocation in the Japanese bond market and say, yo, this is what's coming for the French government bond market? This is what's coming for the US Treasury market? And so it accelerates the concerns that are already in place and it accelerates dislocations in our own bond market?

• 36:01Speaker 01

  That's actually a brilliant way to think about it because if basically if people do indeed adopt the framework of Japan is a look into the future, then they're going to price that future immediately, right? If should they acknowledge it. So, no, I can't put a number on it because like in terms of like yield levels or anything like that on the most sort of extreme cases of when you were talking about like, you know, issuing 20 trillion yen or when you're talking about getting one-fourth of tax revenue cut, all I can say is that in that scenario-

• 36:28Demetri Kofinas?

  If you can't put a number on it, does it mean we're talking about capital controls? I mean, what are we talking about in terms of additional policy changes that are going to occur as a result of extremely expensive financing costs for the government?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  So I can't put a number on it, but I can tell you kind of the scenario of things like that I would imagine of market behavior despite not being able to say like down to like the exact basis point, right?

• 36:51Demetri Kofinas?

  Sure, let's do that then, yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so some of the biggest winners that unseated the establishment coalition party, ruling party were, were basically that kind of not fringe right, but like the mega Japan, if you will, the Sanseito party, right? As well as the Democratic Party of people of chance, so the DPP, right? So those two are basically in the camp of pretty aggressive concept of tax cuts, okay? So they would be in more so of- That area of having to, oh, by the way, and the thing is, the reason that consumption tax cuts, the reason cutting those down to any amount, the reason that that's controversial is because those are the revenues that go to social security funding. Okay? So what you're talking about essentially is it's not a matter of tax cuts and all that kind of thing,

• 37:36Speaker 01

  like a consumptive tax cuts, like, you know, lower grocery bills, you know, at the register. It's, are you suffering right now? Do you need relief right now? And are we going to take care of that at the expense of the elderly, growing population of elderly? And overwhelmingly, the vote was like, F yes, that is what we want. And what about the state of social security? We're concerned. Sure, that's not a good thing. But enough with like, taking care of just that segment of the population. We need help now. And it's very tough to tell if whether or not those voters are doing so, like, knowing about if not okay with increased JGB issuance, in other words, debt that they have to repay later?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Or if they are doing so, saying, cut like consumer tax cuts down to zero? And if that means that like, social security can't be like properly funded for old people? Well, then too bad for them, because we are suffering now. The rest, they have been taken care of under the establishment system. Okay? So in that scenario, I would think that, look, we had in May, on May 20th of this year, you had one 20-year JGB auction that went poorly. Okay? That took yields on 30 and 40-year JGB yields through, you know, the three handle. It took up, took them up 20 basis points in, in a day. And it also brought 30-year treasury yields well through the 5% level.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  And then after that, a few days, like, you know, about three or 40s after that, the Ministry of Finance came out and said that they're going to potentially do a twist in duration. They're gonna, you know, drop their long-end issuance, therefore like not add to more supply of the long end, down, you know, like, effective immediately. And that re-crushed, you know, long-end JGB yields down another 25 basis points back to where it was, you know, prior to that. Poor auction, the 2020 year JGB auction, and that also crushed 30 year US Treasury yields back below the 5% handle. So that was just from one auction and that was just from one headline of jawboning. Okay. If you actually implement real numbers, real like policy, this is how delicate that the state of this world's most dangerous market is as is.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  If you now want to start talking about, I'm not talking about even like getting a quarter of government revenues, like, you know, just slashed out, but even just like the potential co-mingling of parties that might lean towards that, you might see, you know, a severe effect in bond markets because of that second risk of why the JGB market is so dangerous because of the illiquidity, because of all that. And you could see a sudden jolt that can just, you know, it would be the Japanese Liz trust moment, but the Liz trust moment, you know, like I've always said, it should not be called the Liz trust moment, it should be called the UK LDI crisis. That was not sort of like more so like a response to like a fundamental response to like the UK government state of like the financial, you know, fiscal picture.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  It was maybe triggered by that, but UK 30 and 40 year gilts going up, you know, 100 basis points within a few days. That is a matter of like mechanical, you know, forced deleveraging of leveraged positions and illiquid cash UK gilt markets and bond markets such that the, you know, Bank of England had to step in, conduct yields curve control, you know, temporarily and all that. That is what I'm talking about for happening in Japan. And that could happen for any moment of these headlines and any of these combinations of possibilities that can come out. I don't know what's priced in and what's not because everyone's so different.

• 41:05Demetri Kofinas?

  So we've had a number of listener questions come in, in addition to the ones that I already had. Some of those have been answered already or were similar to some of the questions that I had. I'm going to take one now, but then I want to also ask you about the trade negotiations because we have the August 1 deadline coming up and I want to understand how these negotiations are impacting and have been impacted by the elections. But George has a question about the likely spillover effects of increased yields in the Japanese bond market on the Japanese equity market. And I want to add to that as well, what the implications are for equity markets more broadly. How closely have you been following that story?

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, closely because I keep an eye on just the major cross asset markets. So not really on a stock basis. But if you actually look at a chart of Nasdaq futures and Nikkei futures, okay, they have actually moved percent for percent off of the post liberation day bottom, right, whenever that was, April 9th or whatever, until like sort of recent. And so what's happening is that, yeah, you're actually getting a lot of foreign inflows into Japan equities, institutional inflows, because everybody is consensus, you know, bullish Japan equities. Sort of at the index level, all it is is just following whatever it is that the other DM markets are doing.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  And it's not necessarily like driving it per se, although it will come to that at some point. And the equity markets have been basically just kind of moving in tandem with that, with the exception of this past like few days where you're starting to get some of the election, getting priced in like of a higher yield environment and all that. But that said, we have had this massive spike in, you know, Japanese government bond yields, including front end BOJ policy rate hikes, if you will, if you want to call a hike cycle or whatever. And you've still seen a resilient equity market. It wasn't nothing like 2022 of what the Fed did and what bond yields in the US did and what SPX did, you know, in response of just plummeting in the face of like rising bond yields. That's not really happening in Japan.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Japan is so different because if things are going to normalize, if you will, like if the Bank of Japan is out of the game, if the bond market is going to behave more normal and all of that, then that actually, some people are, would find that to be bullish equities. It's funny because the consensus like viewpoint is a simultaneous Bank of Japan normalizing tightening policy and a simultaneous bullish Japan, right? So those two things don't usually happen, you know, hand in hand. But in this particular case, it is because of how value destroyed Japan has been and the sort of transformational, you know, corporate shareholder governance sort of environment that's, that's already underway, that is happening kind of outside of and regardless

• 43:50Speaker 01

  of who is running the show in, you know, in Tokyo politics.

• 43:54Demetri Kofinas?

  Yeah, I feel like we're living in the age of the sacrifice of sacred cows and the breakdown of correlations that people thought were ironclad laws of physics. That might be one of them. So I want to ask you about the trade negotiations before we talk about implications and lessons for US policymakers, which is something that I think is really interesting. And then maybe we have a little bit of time, we could talk a little bit about implications for investors and the Japanese far-right movement. But just real quick, like, what is the interplay here between the trade negotiations and these elections?

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Sure. So I wrote a Substack, let's see, what's it called? How Japan Screwed Up Dealing With Trump. Okay, so the reason I wrote this was because I actually had written and recorded a whole series of videos upon Trump's reelection, so in November of 2024, and the implications of that. And they're all like playing out right now as we speak. But basically, what I was saying was that Japan is really, under this Ishiba clown, is so screwed with an incoming Trump administration for so many reasons. And it's not really because of the Trump administration, and that's actually the known part, right? Like, we know what his policies are, unorthodox as they may be. He's actually the relative,

• 45:04Speaker 01

  you know, known. The unknown is this guy, this Ishiba guy, who is this, as I identified very correctly, this like power-clinging, self-interested, forget-the-country sort of guy, right? So, basically, Trump hits everybody in the world, allies and enemies and blah blah blah, with tariffs on Liberation Day. And right after that, though, Japan was given number-one priority status for which to negotiate, you know, from, okay? And not just given that status, and not just talked about and explicitly given that, but actually, you know, like, was realizing that, was treated that way, right? You had seven in-person meetings with Japan Trade Delegation, you know, at Scott Besen's office,

• 45:48Speaker 01

  at Jameson Greer's office, at Lutnik's office, and all of them, right? Seven in-person meetings. Nothing had come from that, okay? So, look, like, people, if you want to like blame Trump and this and that, fine, like, I get it, I'm not talking about that, okay? I'm talking about, everyone keeps looking at things that happen as like- What did Trump do or Trump say? There is another side to it as well.

• 46:08Demetri Kofinas?

  Well, Besen was on CNBC recently where he made, he said something, he alluded to the Japanese elections when he was asked about a trade deal. Clearly, the Treasury Department understands that it's been difficult for the Japanese to actually come to the table here because of the elections. Now, I guess the question is whether something changes as a result of these elections, or if like the political gridlock means that we still don't get a deal.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  That's the thing, yeah. So because this entire time, Japan has not really been negotiating in like on good faith. Because Prime Minister Ishiba is not thinking about tariffs and saving the auto industry or anything like that. His first thought is, how do I remain in power and how can I play this for like my election prospects? So when you go to the table like that, you're going to have a stance of what they've been saying. We demand you drop auto tariffs down to nothing. And by the way, we're not going to move an inch on rice tariffs, right? These rice tariffs that have been haunting. The rice tariff thing is the stupidest thing, is the most easy like layup that I personally think that the US government, the reason that they had been talking about Japan being like this, you know, prior number one status, priority country,

• 47:12Speaker 01

  is because they had intentionally set up Japan to like the T-ball, like softball, you know, toss, to knock like a deal, a big deal with a major economy out of the park so they can have that headline. And Japan was going to be that. And it would be easy because they know that Japan is suffering from this severe rice shortage domestically. And so if they just import California rice, as they currently are, and they're paying the tariff anyway, because it's still cheaper than domestic rice, and then they could do, work out some sort of deal on autos and all that. But Prime Minister Ishiba wants none of that, and he's trying to play hardball. I think he's looking at, you know, the carnies of the world in Australia. And he's seeing this like formula of those who are incumbents that have their approval ratings like in the dumpster,

• 47:57Speaker 01

  but who become tough on Trump, they then find themselves in victory. I think he tried to do that. But this entire time, they haven't been, Japan's not been acting in good faith, and they were given a silver platter that nobody else has. So it's on them. So now they're going to scramble around for that. But now that, you know, Ishiba is like a powerless guy, the Trump administration, they're going to be like, dude, what are you talking about? Like a deal in the next 10 days? We don't even know if you're going to be around in the next 10 days.

• 48:23Demetri Kofinas?

  So I have a question, Weston. Again, like there are all sorts of ways in which this can spill over into US markets. We've talked about that a little bit. And of course, we were just talking about how this can impact the trade negotiations, which is important for the Trump administration, both materially and also politically. How do you think that policymakers, like Fed officials, Jay Powell over the Fed, or Besen over the Treasury, are looking at this in terms of like being a premonition, or a canary in the coal mine for the kinds of problems that they're going to have to be dealing with domestically? And do you think that it accelerates the timeline? We've talked about the accelerated timeline, potentially for investors, but does it accelerate

• 49:03Demetri Kofinas?

  the timeline for some policy changes, or coordinated policy changes in Western capitals, to get ahead of something like this happening in their countries?

• 49:13Speaker 01

  You're talking about now, potentially, central bank monetary policy implications from?

• 49:18Demetri Kofinas?

  Monetary and fiscal policy implications. Like, what are some of the lessons that... Look, like, with the Liz Truss moment, I don't know to what degree they heeded the lessons. US policymakers heeded the lessons, or policymakers in other European capitals, but certainly, that was an early quake that officials could look at and say, like, this could happen to us. Maybe we shouldn't pass tax cuts, if people are concerned about our ability to continue financing our deficit. And so, like, I'm just curious, what do you think... Maybe it's too hard to say what lessons they're drawing, but what lessons do you think they should draw from what's going on in Japan right now?

• 49:52Speaker 01

  I'm almost kind of proud of this, of the Japanese electorate, of what they did, because, like, I'm not saying, like, I'm an anti-establishment, like, trash list, I leave personal politics out of this, but what you saw was a rejection, a rejection, finally, from the Japanese people of handouts from government. And one of the major reasons that they lost, so, like, a lesson is, no, you cannot just bribe your way to 20,000 yen per voter for a vote. They are actually going to turn on you for that. A lot of that, you know, was happening. And so, like, it's a matter of, like, are you listening to our, like, actual concerns, or are you not? And are you just trying to, like, give temporary ad hoc sort of responses or not?

• 50:36Speaker 01

  And if you are, you, the establishment, whoever you are, you need to reinvent yourselves. If you just keep going on with the way that it is, the voting public is going to shake things up for you. If not like the bond markets sort of themselves, right? And you know, as it relates to like, you know, central bank policy, well, I mean, what I was saying about the Bank Japan is like, Bank Japan rate hikes for this cycle, those are done, right? Those are like basically, those are done in kind of all scenarios, right? Like it basically, if you have a 25% tariff on Japan coming, you know, in a few days, because the Trump administration is not going to do anything with this government, then you're going to have not just GDP get destroyed in Japan and not just like,

• 51:17Speaker 01

  uh, corporate international multinational corporates no longer just keep increasing wages and pull real wages out of the, you know, from deeply negative territory. But as that happens, okay, therefore Bank Japan like rate hikes are done. If we're going to be stuck in some sort of potential tariff, you know, coming or not coming, you know, just kicking that like, deadline down the road thing, then that's going to keep central bankers frozen or the Bank Japan frozen in place. Cause we're not going to make a move before we have any clarity. And so therefore the longer that continues, that means that the rate hike cycle is done. You know, if you're going to be tariffed and you're going to see government officials go from literally fighting with the interventions,

• 51:57Speaker 01

  fighting downside on the end to now almost embracing it to kind of balance out tariffs on imports. Then you're going to see the Bank of Japan no longer hiking rates because they are not incentivized to, support the end, incentivized to weaken it. And also if these auto tariffs remain as is, then Japan Inc. is the king of doing what? Cutting consumer prices to make up for things, right? And so that's why you saw like a 20% drop in prices for Japanese autos that were shipped to the US for the month of May. It's a combat like, you know, the increased tariffs. So if that keeps happening, then you have suppliers of those auto companies, get asked by the Toyotas and the Hondas to also lower theirs prices.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  And then we fall back into this corporate deflationary thing and the Bank of Japan is done hiking their interest rates. And so on and so on and so forth. Like all of these sort of scenarios like kind of end up there. The only thing is if you get yen. Weakness without tariffs somehow to the point where it gets to like 160 plus, then you might have, you know, Bank of Japan policy enter the picture. But otherwise, I would say that the BOJ side of it is pretty much done with. I would think that anything that Powell does or doesn't do is going to be looked at through a political lens, sucks for him. And so I think he's just going to ride out the rest of his tenure as like appearing as apolitically as possible, as opposed to anything that is what is best for the economy.

• 53:20Demetri Kofinas?

  So we're, we're up on the end of our time here. I want to encourage our members to check out your Substack across the spread, which they can find at westernnakamura.substack.com. And check out those last three articles because you go into so much detail there, Weston, and I found it to be extremely helpful. Like, as I mentioned, there was a bunch of other stuff that I had written out here that I wanted to talk to you about and ask you questions about, in particular, the far right politics in Japan, but that'll have to wait for another time. Thank you so much for coming on the Genius Community and talking with our members today, Weston.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  It's been an honor. Thank you so much, Dimitri.

• 53:53Demetri Kofinas?

  If you want to listen in on the rest of today's conversation, head over to hiddenforces.io/subscribe and join our premium feed. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius Community, you can also do that through our subscriber page. Today's episode was produced by me and edited by Stylianos Nicolaou. For more episodes, you can check out our website at hiddenforces.io. You can follow me on Twitter at @Kofinus and you can email me at [email protected]. As always, thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.