Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed or Fail

This is an extraordinary book. Although it’s written by an economist, it is anything but boring. The author does an outstanding job of examining multiple empires across hundreds of years. He analyzes the rise and fall of each empire by segmenting their respective histories into different cycles. He then identifies the various cycles that each empire goes through, from its initial rise to its eventually fall. Each cycle is sub divided into key indicators such as military strength, budget deficits, wealth gaps, education, etc. In the end, the author looks at the United States using this same cyclical methodology. Mr. Dalio’s arguments and analysis are sound and make good sense. His interpretation and description of various historical events, especially those pertaining to the British and Dutch empires, are right on target. Throughout the book, he is consistent in the application of his analytic model. This is noteworthy as I felt his analysis of China to be slightly flawed. The author appears to have omitted certain elements of modern-day China; most notably is the pending population time bomb caused by their previous one child policy. China’s population is now shrinking. In addition, and unlike America, the Chinese seem culturally incapable of using immigration to solve their problem. This opposing view of China, however, does not detract from the author’s overall analysis. He is consistent in his analysis and cites other data which support counter arguments. Bottom line, this book was far more interesting than I anticipated. Even though the author’s analysis is complex, the book is well written and easy to understand. The narrative is both captivating and entertaining. Overall, this is just a great book.

I’m grateful Ray Dalio has shared his world view and his access to leading thinkers and valuable sources of data, to make me more aware and better prepared for what’s coming. I am also friends with Ray, and I trust him. This book offers at least two major contributions. First, the synthesis and integration of economic, social, and geopolitical history that presents a holistic view of how countries rise and fall. Leveraging his relationships with leading thinkers and historians, Ray gives us a way to understand the major forces, cycles, and paradigm shifts that can dramatically change the world around us. You would have to read dozens of well-chosen books to gain such an understanding, and you still may not have a comprehensive theory. Second, the quantification of each major nation’s economic, cultural, and geopolitical health. With the support of Bridgewater’s multi-hundred-million-dollar research budget and team, Ray presents the key determinants of a country’s strengths and weaknesses through time, and relative to other countries. Seeing the most important long-term trends in charts provide useful perspectives that are unavailable elsewhere. Here are some of my biggest take-aways. Disorderly conflict is the pre-cursor to destructive conflict that is likely to be devastating for all of us. Both the winners and the losers of destructive actions are worse off relative to compromise, mutual understanding, and respect. As an American, I should not take for granted that I live in the most powerful country that has seen one of the longest periods of peace, economic growth, and innovation in global history. It’s not the norm, and if we aren’t careful, things could get a lot worse. Invest in innovation. Both as an investor and as a citizen, innovation has been a powerful force for improving lives and driving economic growth. We are likely in for a period of high inflation. The easiest way for the government to deal with high levels of debt is by printing money, using stimulus to spur economic growth, and keeping interest rates lower than nominal GDP growth. That is, to inflate their way out of debt. As an investor, he suggests avoiding long term holdings of cash and bonds. Instead, he recommends diversifying with assets that can do well in an inflationary environment, like highly dependable cash generating stocks, some gold (possibly a little cryptocurrency), and other scarce inflation-protected assets. This book is a major contribution. I strongly recommend reading or listening to it. If you don’t have the time, at least read the first few pages of the introduction, the first chapter “The Big Cycle in a Tiny Nutshell”, chapter 8 "The Last 500 Years in a Tiny Nutshell", and the final chapter called “The Future”. I hope you found this helpful.

In this book, Dalio presents his model of the rise and fall of "empires". The closer it gets to the present day the more interesting the book is. The last three chapters of the book which deal with the rise of China, the current tensions between China and the US, the United States's alleged decline and Dalio's conjectures regarding the future are five stars. The build up to the final three chapters is decent, although only occasionally riveting: The book is only three stars before the strong close. It is hard to evaluate the merits of Dalio's historical model given that he is only presenting it at moderate depths so as to introduce it all in one volume. The model says that empires rise and fall, no surprise, and talks about the interplay of economic, internal, and external factors that take an empire through the cycle. Dalio also mentions that inside the Big Cycle there are other cycles, and inside those cycles other cycles. He does not, however, go into much detail regarding the sub-cycles. This sounds reminiscent of Robert Prechter's Elliot Waves or perhaps, even, pre-Copernican astrology. Is this a model so loose, like Elliot Waves, that it can be found to fit anything that could happen? Is it falsifiable? Along the way was the validity tested by approaching an empire that there was little prior knowledge of to make "forward predictions" regarding what would happen? Has Dalio merely cherry picked the three examples which best seem to demonstrate the soundness of the model while omitting more problematic cases? There is not enough in this book to do a rigorous analysis. The United States Civil War is a good example of something I had trouble thinking about in terms of the model. According to the model the final stage in an empire's breakdown is civil war or revolution. In the case of the United States, however, the Civil War occurred while the United States was still ascendant: in stage 2 out of 6 with stage 3 being the peak. Certainly there was no debt crisis which caused the Civil War and the United States had little going on in terms of external conflict at the time. So perhaps that could have been taken as a "prediction" that the United States would almost certainly have survived the Civil War in tact? The truth, however, is that the South came very close to winning the Civil War, in the sense of being recognized as independent, according to McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Another thing that I am not sure how to evaluate using the model is the United States after the Civil War and after the Revolution. Although these were periods of rebuilding they do not seem to fit well into Dalio's model. After victory in these conflicts Americans were very magnanimous (as it was later after World War II). Far from being purged those who were on the wrong side of history ended up facing rather little in the way of consequences. So how does this fit into the model? Obviously, there will be some "rebuilding" after a Revolution or Civil War so is the model just saying there will be something which could not not happen? Indeed although the United States was vibrant after the Revolution, the period after the Civil War as described in Richard White's The Republic for Which it Standards seems in decline compared to the Antebellum period. According to Dalio's model, however, the United States was stage 2 rising into stage 3 during this period. Regardless of the merits of the model, which would probably require many in depth books to evaluate fully, there is definitely some good high level overviews of Chinese, European, and American history. There are many interesting charts and statistics thrown in. As mentioned, the close of the book is far and away the best part of it. Dalio describes the cultural differences between Americans and Chinese people and their different outlooks toward governing. Dalio does not seem to be pushing any political agenda, at least not too hard, but rather what he has carefully measured to be objectively true. Although clearly an admirer of much about China, he is also willing to criticize some aspects of China. At the same time, his criticism omits its surveillance state. Looking forward Dalio presents some very interesting charts and statistics regarding America's growing internal conflicts. He even has a graph to show how bad it is now compared to early points in history. Dalio is willing to stick his neck out and quantify what his model is predicting as the probability of civil war in the United States and the probability of military war with China in the next decade. Although very thought provoking overall, one particularly persistent problem throughout the book is that many of the charts are very hard to read. There are graphs with eight different lines with some of the colors very hard to distinguish between. The book also almost never references its sources. Indeed, given how much history Dalio has obviously studied, a bibliography, or at least a list of recommendations, would be very nice. Dalio is very repetitive regarding the inevitable death of fiat currencies through money printing. At the same time he also does provide concrete advise of how to prepare. He gives some definite timelines and the dates are very close. To qualify this, somewhat, however, his company Bridgewater Associates has basically had a "lost decade" using his models to generate any kinds of returns since his departure around 2012. Nevertheless it is interesting to think about whether or the US is on the verge of multiple simultaneous crises.

Interesting, learned quite a bit. But the repetitions are incredibly annoying- the whole book could have told in less than halve the pages. In addition the book is also a lot about Ray (I do this, I did that), which could be left out. Remarks like: you may want to read previous section again, slowly. Effing patronizing!

For everybody who would like to learn in which circular structure empires and stock markets rise and fail, this book is the best decision to buy. Honestly. The immense focus on detail offers a guideline with which you can easily work to challenge your own investing ideas. No book has shaped my thinking about financial crises and central banks more than this book! This should be standard literature for every student! Part I is the best part one can wish for. It's about how the machine works. Part II concentrates on the history of the past empires - how they rose, what they experienced on the top and which reasons made them fail Part III is a forecast for future development of the biggest key countries.

One of the best books ever written. It details the historical circumstances surrounding the fall of a reserve currency. The conventional view is that once the US Dollar's hegemony ends so too will the world. Yet, the fall of currencies is something that has occurred hundreds of times in the past. If you're interested in this specific question "What comes after the US Dollar? "- you will enjoy this book.

Es una excelente obra porque con un lenguaje fácil y práctico. Ray Dalio transmite su visión sobre cómo funciona la economía y la geopolítica. Esta es la visión de uno de los hombres con más poder real en este momento y obviamente que se sustenta sobre un sólido estudio, análisis e inteligencia que le ha permitido ser uno de los inversores con más éxito del mundo.

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