In Episode 160 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Tom Burgis, an investigations correspondent at the Financial Times who is also the author of Kletopia, a book that chronicles the world of dirty money, with its complex web of criminals, money launderers, and politicians who enable it.   In recent decades, we have witnessed in the west the rise of a new kleptocracy that knows no boundaries, obeys few laws, and which is enabled by a sort of political consensus to loot. This looting has become so pervasive that the money extracted by members of this cabal is enough to buy the political power, to change the laws, to loot some more, in a self-perpetuating cycle of fraud, criminality, and wide-spread corruption of the system of liberal, democratic capitalism upon which these same kleptocrats depend for their own survival.   Unfortunately, the conduits through which we learn about this phenomenon are themselves often held captive, to one degree or another, by these same forces. The more obvious their looting becomes and the more our elected officials choose to ignore it or divert our attention away from it, the more radicalized and susceptible the electorate becomes to the promises of candidates who seek to fill the vacuum of trust left by our politicians with power.   In their conversation today, Demetri and Tom discuss the nature of this problem and why it poses such a serious threat to the very systems that it seeks to exploit. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Episode Recorded on 10/19/2020