Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order [video]

A lot of videos like this are interesting but I believe are mostly 20/20 hindsight overfitting with a mix of whatever theory of the world is popular.

Right now "printing money" seems to be the theory of choice so everything wrong with the world is because of printing money.

What I've always struggled to understand about Dalio's statements is how does Modern Monetary Theory fit into things? He seems to believe the government bank account works like a domestic household and my understanding is different. For example you can have as much debt as you like but because of inflation those debts will always be repayable as long as you never try to repay the government debt?

I would say inflation has been prevented by Chinese manufacturing and recent inflation is being caused by price rises in shipping and problems with manufacturing (chip shortages), covid, increases in savings from people WFH for two years and not spending as much on going out, Chinese cost of manufacturing going up and obviously Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia.

We seem to be so sure of the causes of things but you can fit theories on top of history with astonishing ease, it's predicting the future that is difficult. Dalio has been saying we are due for a crash due to printing money for 10 years. Eventually he'll be proven right, but will it be down to the US debt pile or some of the other factors at play in the world. Who can say of sure?

What a fun video regardless of whether it's correct or not. It comes across as an asmovian psychohistory and that's a fun lens to play with regardless of its utility.

Assuming it's a useful model, where does that leave us? Basically with nothing. The author suggests "spending less than we make, and treating each other well." Or in other words, fiscal austerity and compromising with non-compromisers. If Dalio has examples of nations retreating from the inevitability of collapse, or engineering soft landings, he doesn't share it in the video. Either way, why should a system which inevitably results in big cycles stop producing big cycles. Of course each empire wants to avoid its demise. Wanting to avoid demise isn't a sufficient condition.

What I hoped Dalio would confront, was the possibility of changing cycle producing machine itself. You can start to see where this is going by identifying the change needed in each of the sub-components. Eliminate economic systems which create wealth gaps. Upend the global reserve system entirely. End Westphalian sovereignty. &c &c. Any or all of these naturally lead to big cycle formation and resistance toward changing the system creating big cycles is a tacit endorsement of the big cycle machine which I fully expect to receive (big cycles are good actually!) :)

Honesty and the Golden Rule are always good principles, and can direct us to other good principles, when properly applied. (Treating other people the way oneself would want to be treated does not eliminate setting appropriate boundaries while still being respectfully kind as far as possible; or farther :) .) To be effective in doing that, yes, one should avoid debt and have a financial reserve, and further, emergency food & water reserves of at least basics for staying alive (wheat/grains, beans, water, salt?).

And I think being honest and good to one's family and others pays long-term dividends that money and government cannot match.

A lot of this feels 'right' and Dalio obviously has proven his investing chops, but I'm a little nervous about the rigor behind these arguments. Can't see any citations in this video - which, fine, most Youtube videos don't - but then the book also lacks citations(!)

Also find it strange that the video references how polarisation is about redistributing vs maintaining the status quo, when we've seen in recent years that both sides are talking just as much about redistributing away from elites, at least in rhetoric

what the article really misses is why this is happening, and it boils down to 3 things: soft power, hard power, and ideal.

The decline of soft power was a direct consequence of Washington moving from a pragmatic good-faith actor to a rhetorical dogmatic broken record. nations increasingly couldnt count on washington to meet them on common ground in a disagreement, and instead saw lawmakers ritualistically park the USS blow-you-up carrier off their coast as a crass enforcement of their capitulation. equally onerous was the famed US economic sanction which showed up unannounced for everything from poorly structured oil sales to overly socialist domestic policy. Countries instead bolstered their anti-ship defenses and turned to alternative markets, leaving Washington hollow. The number of countries we currently sanction yet depend on for financing our debt is practically a boys club nodding halfheartedly to US fist-shaking, and the prospect of parking a carrier outside any country worth the dosh is really only enticing if you expect it to patrol the ocean floor a half hour after its arrival.

Hard power is similar. The soviet union was only ever 5-6 years behind the US at best, and so long as you understand your adversary then its pretty easy to counter them. Russia has fifty years of tailor-made doomsday arsenal specifically purposed for deterring the US, which it openly shares with most nations that find themselves in the crosshairs of the stars and bars. similarly, the US hasnt won any of the foreign excursions its found itself since perhaps the first gulf war. Afghanistan was a black eye, Iraq was a road map to a sectarian holocaust, and the combination of low morale and low recruitment has made the US an almost ghostly figure of what it was in the seventies. perhaps the most damning coffin nail here however is that virtually no one in leadership at any level will admit outright that recent wars failed, or that any lessons could be learned.

rounding third base into home we have ideal; its a little intangible at first. The US is a first world nation that struggles with food insecurity, homelessness, healthcare, and a living wage. it holds the worlds highest prison population, routinely shuffles past the weekly gun crime atrocity, and rarely holds its lawbringers to account. you'd move here, but only if it were your last option as housing is unaffordable at any level. Traffic in major cities is unbearable yet somehow no new works projects can ever commence as the might of singular senators gridlocked in endless partisan debate can be enough to torpedo funding entirely. The iris of government seems hopelessly fixed on a forty year old culture war as the doddering gerontocracy we call a legislature tables such groundbreaking resolution as to affirm 'in god we trust' on the dollar, or advance a ban on critical race theory.