You can listen to the Ray Dalio | The All-In Interview using Speak’s shareable media player:
Ray Dalio | The All-In Interview Podcast Episode Description
(0:00) Ray Dalio joins Friedberg!
(0:50) The current US fiscal situation
(6:23) Breaking down “The Big Debt Cycle,” a potential US debt spiral, and the impact on real wealth
(24:54) USD vs other currencies and assets, best hedges against the dollar
(33:20) Portfolio construction, how China increases risk for US AI companies, why this market reminds Ray of 1998-1999
(41:45) How the US can avoid a debt crisis
(53:29) DOGE, Trump, and AI’s greatest risk
(1:05:31) Chances of conflict between the US and China
Follow the Besties:
https://x.com/chamath
https://x.com/Jason
https://x.com/DavidSacks
https://x.com/friedberg
Follow Ray Dalio:
https://x.com/RayDalio
Read Part 1 of “How Countries Go Broke”:
https://x.com/RayDalio/status/1878840018770210979
Pre-order “How Countries Go Broke”:
Follow on X:
https://x.com/theallinpod
Follow on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod
Follow on TikTok:
@theallinpod
Follow on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod
Intro Music Credit:
https://rb.gy/tppkzl
https://x.com/yung_spielburg
Intro Video Credit:
https://x.com/TheZachEffect
Referenced in the show:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp
https://www.crfb.org/press-releases/treasury-confirms-calendar-year-2024-deficit-tops-20-trillion
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61172
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2bstne1l09npgdk1s5yww/corner-office/ray-dalio-makes-his-exit-from-bridgewater
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/outlook/economic-outlook/fed-meeting-september-2024
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertfarrington/2024/11/08/fed-cut-interest-rates-so-why-do-mortgage-rates-keep-climbing
https://www.chathamfinancial.com/insights/fomc-recap-december-2024
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/14/a-global-bond-sell-off-is-deepening-as-hopes-for-multiple-fed-rate-cuts-fizzle.html
This interactive media player was created automatically by Speak. Want to generate intelligent media players yourself? Sign up for Speak!
Ray Dalio | The All-In Interview Podcast Episode Top Keywords
Ray Dalio | The All-In Interview Podcast Episode Summary
In this podcast episode, the discussion centers around the economic insights and warnings shared by Ray Dalio, a renowned thought leader and author. The episode highlights Dalio’s new book, “How Countries Go Broke,” which follows his previous work, “The Changing World Order.” The conversation emphasizes the importance of understanding economic cycles, government expenditures, and the implications of national debt.
Key points include Dalio’s analysis of government spending, where he notes that approximately 70% of expenditures are non-negotiable, leaving a small margin for cuts. He stresses the significance of managing debt and the potential consequences of failing to do so, such as market reactions and interest rate impacts. The episode also explores the dynamics of currency valuation, particularly the strength of the US dollar compared to alternatives like gold and Bitcoin.
Dalio provides actionable insights, suggesting that economic reforms should be implemented swiftly during favorable economic conditions. He outlines four key actions to manage national debt: increasing taxes, reducing spending, restructuring debt, and printing money. The discussion underscores the urgency of addressing these issues to prevent future economic crises.
Recurring themes include the need for proactive economic management and the challenges of political inaction. The episode conveys a sense of urgency and frustration with the current political landscape, urging listeners, particularly those in government, to heed Dalio’s warnings and recommendations.
Overall, the episode serves as a call to action for policymakers and the public to engage with these critical economic issues and consider the long-term implications of current fiscal policies.
This summary was created automatically by Speak. Want to transcribe, analyze and summarize yourself? Sign up for Speak!
Ray Dalio | The All-In Interview Podcast Episode Transcript (Unedited)
Speaker: 0
00:00
It was the government that was the big buyer. Then you get everybody leveraging up. Then you’ve got a problem.
Speaker: 1
00:06
Do you own Bitcoin, Ray?
Speaker: 0
00:07
Yeah. I have some. Not nearly as much as as gold. The AI war, it’s a war that no country can lose. If China or the US really lose this war, it’s more important than profits. We’re at a civil war internally, and we’re at an international war simultaneously. Just have people bathe logically. Maybe that’s too much to ask. We hope.
Speaker: 1
00:34
Ai, besties. I think that was another epic discussion. People love the interviews. Ai could hear and talk for hours. Absolutely. Let me crush your questions a minute. We are giving people ground truth data to underwrite your own opinion. What’d you guys say? That was fun. That was great. Ram, good morning.
Speaker: 0
00:51
Good morning.
Speaker: 1
00:52
I’m gonna start off by sharing a couple stats. Today, the US has $36,400,000,000,000 of federal government debt and GDP of ai trillion, giving a debt to GDP ratio of a 125%. And this ratio has climbed steadily since the pandemic began in 2020 when the federal government debt was 20,000,000,000,000 and GDP was just 21,000,000,000,000.
Speaker: 1
01:15
So since the pandemic, federal government debt has risen by 80%, while GDP’s climbed 38%. And steady inflation from the large stimulus of money from both central banks and the US government caused the Federal Reserve, which is the US Vatsal Bank, to raise interest rates, driving up the cost of borrowing.
Speaker: 1
01:36
And despite recent efforts to cut interest rates again, markets have traded treasuries down, causing the long term interest rates of US debt to spike up to levels that we have not felt since just before the 2008 global financial crisis. To keep the economy growing, the US government’s now running a nearly $2,000,000,000,000 annual deficit, nearly 7% of GDP, while paying over $1,000,000,000,000 per year in interest alone on just the existing outstanding debt.
Speaker: 1
02:05
The congressional budget office, the CBO, projected last week annual budget deficits are expected to be equal to 6.1% of GDP through 2035, which the CBO noted is significantly more than the 3.8% the deficits have averaged over the past 50 years. The national debt slated to rise by nearly $24,000,000,000,000 over the next decade, a sum that does not even include the 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars in additional tax cuts that the current administration may put into place.
Speaker: 1
02:34
Is the US headed for bankruptcy? What are the mechanics of the looming crisis ahead, and can we avoid it? To talk about this, what I consider to be the most important topic in the world at the moment, is Ray Dalio, who I consider to be the preeminent thought leader on this matter.
Speaker: 1
02:52
In 2021, as everyone knows, Ram published the changing world order, why nations succeed and fail. I declared it the book of the year, and I thought it was the most prescient and important thing that everyone should read. And, unfortunately, I feel like many in politics, many in government have largely ignored some of the prescient warnings shared in that book.
Speaker: 1
03:12
This week, Ray is releasing a new book called how countries go broke in which he analyzes and shares his studies on this particular topic. And I’m really excited for Ray to join me here, today. Ray, thanks for being here.
Speaker: 0
03:26
Thanks for having me here to talk about this important issue.
Speaker: 1
03:32
Well, so so let me just start by asking why you wrote the book, why you putting it out now, and maybe we can just talk about the timeliness of all this from your point of view.
Speaker: 0
03:39
Through my roughly 50 years of being a global macro investor, I would, keep to myself. And then now I’m 75 and I wanna pass along the things that have helped me and, the bond markets, global ram markets Ai been involved with all over the world for a long time. And there’s a mechanical process which is not understood about the question, when is enough debt, when does it matter, how does it work mechanistically?
Speaker: 0
04:10
And I feel compelled to get that understanding out now. How do the mechanics work for countries, for the United States, for other reserve countries? I wanna make sure that’s understood.
Speaker: 1
04:25
Thanks for doing it. And the basis of the analysis is your work at Bridgewater and outside of Bridgewater. Is that right? You you’ve kind of gathered quite a bit of material together for this book, and you’ve shown a lot of historical context. Maybe just share a little bit about where the data came from and and how you’ve kind of conducted these studies over what period of ai.
Speaker: 0
04:43
You know, Bridgewater and I, up until my passing along Bridgewater, maybe a little over a year ago, has been indistinguishable, you know, and the sai. And, so and over through that period of time, we’ve been involved in the markets. I’ve been involved in the markets and thinking about such things.
Speaker: 0
05:05
So the data is largely public data that’s available for anybody. We just, you know, collect it from all different spots and go back through history ai I did in changing world order. We we were, in some cases, in the changing world order because we were dealing with data that was 100 of years ago.
Speaker: 0
05:27
We would go through archives and pull data out. The data is all available to everyone.
Speaker: 1
05:34
And so I think that’s really important because this isn’t just an opinion piece you’re writing. As an analyst, you’re sharing quite a lot of empirical data that’s publicly available that anyone can go access, and you’re taking a look at that data and saying, this is the pattern.
Speaker: 1
05:48
This is the trend that we’ve seen historically. It has repeated over and over again. I think you make a really important point at the front of the book. Only about 20% of the 750 currency debt markets that have existed since 1700 still remain, and all of them that still remain have devalued through the mechanistic process you ai in the book.
Speaker: 1
06:09
That’s really important to note. You know, we all think that we have this kind of privileged position in the United States, and the US is different, and this time around is different. But you highlight how sai often everyone thinks they’re in a good place and then the cycle repeats.
Speaker: 1
06:23
You speak about and the and the primary premise of this is what you call the big debt cycle. And you highlight that these big debt cycles typically last about 80 years. They’re more easily forgotten than the short term debt cycles, which last about 6 years on average, plus or minus 3 years, you say.
Speaker: 1
06:39
And we’re now 12 and a half cycles of the short term debt cycle since 1945. So we’ve kind of been in this big debt cycle in the US for about 80 years at this point. But maybe we could start by talking about what the short term debt cycles are that that you highlight make up the long term debt ai. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
06:57
And I wanna ai them.
Speaker: 0
06:59
I wanna emphasize just based on, what you said that they’re mechanical. They can watch you can watch it. You can do the calculations. So if you read the book, you can see these it’ll even make common sense to you. You see the calculations. To me, it’s it’s almost like the circulatory system.
Speaker: 0
07:23
You know, I think that credit is like blood that brings nutrients to all of the parts of the body and it passes through a system that is like arteries, and then credit creates debt. And the key question, if it’s healthy, is does the debt create an income that is more than enough to service the debt?
Speaker: 0
07:54
And that’s ai, I don’t know, eating vegetables or something. It’s a healthy process. And if not, credit begins to build up this debt. It begin begins to become like plaque in the arteries. And you can measure it, just just like you could measure it in the arteries.
Speaker: 0
08:17
And you can see how it constricts that circulatory system because as credit and debt service rise, you see that it eats up more and more consumption because you have to spend that. So you could watch the government do that. You could see that how interest is eating up and debt service is eating up, and that means there’s less money.
Speaker: 0
08:43
And then you also can see how heart attacks take place. And they’re very, you know, economic debt heart attacks. And the way they take place is by looking at the supply and the demand. You if this if you have a lot of debt and then you have a large supply of debt, that has to be bought. Somebody’s gotta buy it.
Speaker: 0
09:08
And so that when you get to the point where there’s debt risks, there’s not only the new supply that has to be offered, but there is the possibility of holders of those debt assets selling those debt assets. And so the supply becomes overwhelming relative to the demand. And then what that means is it’s it’s the same ai as it for the government as it is for an individual or a company, except the government can print money.
Speaker: 0
09:46
So when that debt service burden rise or there’s a big supply demand imbalance, if the government, most importantly, the central bank, doesn’t print money and buy it, then there has to be a rise in the price of the debt to constrict borrowing. And that borrowing constricted, that credit that is not gonna come, will weaken the economy and and cause bad economic conditions.
Speaker: 0
10:17
And so they can let that happen, or they can print money and buy the debt and monetize it. When they do that, that’s inflationary, and it lowers the value of the debt. In either case, you don’t wanna hold that debt because either there’s a debt service problem or there’s a depreciation, you get paid back with a greater supply and cheaper money, and that is the dynamics and that’s the mech mechanism.
Speaker: 0
10:50
And because it can be measured, it can be seen in all countries. You can watch it happen. And sai, like, you’re going to your doctor, you can measure these things, you can see them, and you can know what needs to be done.
Speaker: 1
11:09
So, yeah, I I wanna just talk about 2 things real quick. 1 is just to provide an analogy for folks watching or listening on what it means to have interest levels be so high relative to one’s income. So, you know, the United States this year is expected to service debt with over a $1,000,000,000,000 of interest payments on the outstanding US treasury bonds, and the government’s only gonna bring in just under 5,000,000,000,000 of revenue.
Speaker: 1
11:37
So nearly a quarter of every dollar that’s being collected by the federal government is going out the door just to pay interest on the existing debt. So in order to fund new programs, the government needs to take on new debt. And the folks that are having to issue that cash to the government end up saying, wait. That’s pretty risky now. I need a higher interest rate.
Speaker: 1
11:59
And over time, that interest rate climbs. And then there’s this separate entity called the central bank that comes in and says, well, I’ll buy the the debt ultimately to give the government the ability to continue to operate or give the economy the ability to continue to move.
Speaker: 1
12:14
And the central bank when you say the word monetize, you mean the central bank ends up when you say monetize the debt, that means they’re buying the bonds. They’re buying the debt that’s being issued in the market. Is is that the right way to credit?
Speaker: 0
12:26
Right. They’re ascent they’re essentially making the money up Right. And buying the
Speaker: 1
12:31
So there’s a central in in the US, it’s our Federal Reserve, and the US government are the 2 players here. And the federal reserve ultimately would in this model and historically, obviously, during the pandemic and during 2008, they would go into the market. They would buy bonds by issuing cash that they’re making up effectively.
Speaker: 0
12:50
Very well described. And, you know, a good example was in COVID. Money there were 2 waves. The first wave was the COVID wave in which they put the government wanted to and actually did deliver a lot more money to people, companies than there was a loss of income. So they first waive a lot of that money. Where did they get the money from? They had to borrow it. The central bank then came in and lent them.
Speaker: 0
13:25
That was the primary. Then the saloni, when president Biden was elected, there was a second wave of that after COVID. It was mostly like a universal basic income thing. In other words, hand people money, and we’re gonna be better off. And so they handed people money doing that same exercise again.
Speaker: 0
13:48
And sai, naturally, all these people got a lot of money, and so they put them they deposited them in banks. They went out and spent and so on. And it therefore shouldn’t be surprising that we had a big wave of inflation. And we also had a lot of banks buy government bonds, which they lost a lot of money on, and that was that crisis. So that’s how the mechanics work.
Speaker: 1
14:18
Right. And when that money gets printed, it finds its way into the economy and the money supply goes up. And the way I kinda think about it and you’ve got a nice image in your book that I really appreciate. Here’s a kind of overview of the big debt cycle that you talk about, which is there’s small expansion and contraction waves as as debt comes into the market.
Speaker: 1
14:37
Debt should drive productivity. But at some point, you accumulate so much debt that you can’t drive productivity anymore, and then you effectively have to monetize the debt and everything gets devalued. But as I kinda think about the introduction of money, into the economy, the increase in the money supply, I always tell peep ai everyone screens, oh, the markets are going up.
Speaker: 1
14:57
The markets are going up. But I say, the markets are going up in dollar denominated value, and there’s more dollars. So, you know, the nominal, meaning that the actual, you know, index might go up. The the Nasdaq might go up. The the Dow might go up.
Speaker: 1
15:15
But if you’ve got a lot more dollars, a dollar is worth less. The real question is, has your purchasing power gone up? Have you actually increased your net worth as the markets go up? And when you do the studies, it turns out that inflation goes up, meaning the cost of everything goes up when you pump money into the system.
Speaker: 1
15:32
So, of course, it looks like the markets go up. Of course, it looks like asset values go up. But, ultimately, if everything’s going up, your purchasing power goes down. It’s almost like I tell people you have a 100 ram, and you use, seashells, and you’re using seashells to buy stuff.
Speaker: 1
15:49
And then, you know, there’s only 5 things to buy. Now if you have 500 seashells to buy stuff, the price of the things you’re trying to buy goes up because everyone’s got more seashells. Doesn’t that ultimately kind of describe what happens as the money supply goes up? The inflation drives the the purchasing power down of everything, and everyone kinda gets inflated away.
Speaker: 0
16:09
Very well said, Dave. You can’t get richer by making money. You know? And the val the purpose of
Speaker: 1
16:20
money Purchasing power is what matters at the end of the day. What your money’s worth. What you can actually buy with it.
Speaker: 0
16:26
That’s right. And there are two purposes of money, which is as a medium of exchange and a store hold of wealth. Saving is very important. And if you don’t have savers who has it as an effective storehold of wealth, then you don’t have a viable long term credit market. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
16:51
People don’t understand that the bonds become a bad deal. You need that like any marketplace, you need purchasers and sellers to be able to have an efficient negotiation to achieve a balance without the government coming in and printing a lot of money and meh and make a big meh.
Speaker: 0
17:16
It’s like they made very severe negative real rates.
Speaker: 1
17:21
Right.
Speaker: 0
17:22
And we know what happened with the negative, severe negative real rates. And the government, while they were making the sig significant real rates, it was the government that was the big buyer. Okay? So the government takes it on, and they make negative rates. So what happens is then you get everybody leveraging up.
Speaker: 1
17:40
Yes.
Speaker: 0
17:41
Then you’ve got a problem and so that’s how that’s how it works. And it’s a global issue. It’s not just an American issue. Well, that’s
Speaker: 1
17:49
what Sai wanna get to that in a minute because I wanna talk about the relative strength of the relative strength of the United States and how this plays out globally. Firstly, in your book, you describe the big debt cycle following 5 stages. You call it the sound money stage when net debt levels are low and money is sound and the country is competitive.
Speaker: 1
18:05
And then you talk about the debt bubble stage where debt and investment growth are greater than can be serviced from the incomes being produced. And then you call it the top stage. The bubble pops and the credit and debt and arya contract. And then this deleveraging stage where the central bank comes in and they start buying all the debt and issuing more cash, and the inflation goes up and the value goes down.
Speaker: 1
18:26
And then finally, the debt the the big debt crisis recedes, and we start over again. But you speak about in the top stage a debt crisis. Can you describe the debt crisis? You know, like, how do we talk think about the mechanics of what is a debt crisis? Where are we in the United States today with respect to facing a debt ai? And what are the the red flags that you look for?
Speaker: 0
18:47
1st, when there’s a lot of borrowing to service debt, there’s what’s called, you know, the, death spiral is we typically refer to that when a company has it. The government can have it too. And that is that dynamic where there’s too much debt and you have to borrow to service the debt and then people, investors know that that’s a problem to service the debt sai the credit is worse and that means that interest rates go up, which is the worst thing that can happen to a heavily indebted entity.
Speaker: 0
19:27
And then as they rise, you meh that ai, you need to borrow more and so on. So that is also noticed when then there is, the the key spot is when the debt service becomes large, and then, like, the real red flag, the biggest red flag is when there’s then the selling of the debt beyond the new supply, but the holders of it sell it.
Speaker: 0
19:57
And then you can see it in the market action because you can see that long term interest rates rise while short term interest rates aren’t rising or go down. So it’s the free market losing its ai. You have a balance problem in the free market out there. And then you start to see that when the currency then depreciates particularly relative to gold or Bitcoin or other assets and sometimes other currencies.
Speaker: 0
20:40
But typically, these things happen bryden speaking together in which all currencies go down relative to other things ai gold, bitcoin, or or tangible values. And so that’s what it looks like. That’s that edge. Then you start to see, you know, the ai. So you either see the central bank comes in very quickly and does the ai, and, and when that happens, you see then the currency.
Speaker: 0
21:15
To take a, Japan, for example, if you were a holder of Japanese bonds, you lost about 80% of your money relative to gold and about 60% relative to US bonds because you received an interest rate that was 3% less than the corresponding interest rate in the United States, so you lost the interest rate.
Speaker: 0
21:39
And interest rates in the United States, as you know, were very low relative to inflation for most of that ai. Plus, you had a depreciation in the currency. So you lose, you know, you lost a ton of money in the debt that way because the vatsal bank came in and printed the money.
Speaker: 0
21:55
It’s very bad for holders of the debt. Sai and it’s a basic thing. You don’t have to even get too technical. It’s just a supply demand thing. You know?
Speaker: 1
22:04
Well, so are are we seeing that in the US today? So the Federal Reserve cut interest rates as of a few months ago. As they’ve cut interest rates, the market has sold off US bonds rather than buying them, which is normal when, you know, rates go down, the price of bonds is supposed to go up.
Speaker: 1
22:24
And, we are now seeing rates actually climb in the market relative to where they were while the Meh has been cutting rates. Is is that a dynamic that’s a red flag for you?
Speaker: 0
22:37
While gold has gone up and, the Bitcoin has gone up, and it’s so that is that ai of market action I’m talking about. Yeah. And you’ve seen it in other countries too. The UK, very classic. The dollar has been a relatively strong currency but not measured in gold or Bitcoin. Ai?
Speaker: 0
23:00
So all currencies have gone down and then you’ve had that dynamic you’re talking about and you see it also in ai, Sterling is a good example. Sterling has gone down while UK bond rates have gone up and central banks have held it steady. And so you see it in the market action.
Speaker: 0
23:23
You also see it in terms of who the buyers are and who you’ve seen central banks, for example, and sovereign wealth funds shift to have lesser amounts of, debt, bonds, and so on at the same time as they’ve accumulated gold or hard values. Now gold is the 3rd largest reserve currency, by the way. Dollars, euros, gold, and then yen. So, yeah, you’re seeing that supply demand shift.
Speaker: 0
24:00
And it’s it’s, partially for all the reasons we’re talking about and also partially because of issues like geopolitical issues. Countries sometimes worry about sanctions. Countries, China is worried about holding bonds. You would, US bonds. Japanese bought a lot of bonds.
Speaker: 0
24:23
Even as a percentage of portfolios, the bonds themselves have become such a large US Treasury bonds and US Debt has become such a large part of the portfolio that it’s even from a portfolio rebalancing point of view, you don’t want so much concentration. All of those factors are in play for the supply demand in bonds. That’s why I emphasize you have to look at the supply and demand of bonds.
Speaker: 1
24:54
You’ve got a table in the book where you look at, central government debt level to, deficit level across these, these major markets. So you’ve got the US, Japan, China, France, Germany, and the UK. And the US is running a deficit 7% of GDP. So the federal government is spending more than it makes at a level that’s about 7% of the total size of the economy in the United States, which is the highest of all of these these industrialized markets.
Speaker: 1
25:28
2nd is France at 6%. 3rd is the UK at 6% as well, and then China at 5%. And then these these these countries are all approaching a 100% debt to GDP. Japan, obviously, is at 215%. So from a from a relative perspective, one of the points that I’ve heard a lot of people make is everyone’s got this problem. Everyone’s got rampant spending.
Speaker: 1
25:58
Everyone’s got rising debt levels. They’re increasing their debt levels to pay the interest on their existing debt and to stimulate their economy. The US is the best strongest currency amongst the group that we just showed. Why would anyone trade out of our currency? I guess, from a market perspective, Ray, where else do people go with their worth, their net worth? Where do they transfer their value into if it’s not dollars?
Speaker: 1
26:25
And doesn’t it have to be some denominated currency, and isn’t the US ultimately the best? Maybe you can talk about what these alternatives are, gold, Bitcoin, elsewhere. But is that realistic at scale? Like, is there enough of gold, enough Bitcoin for everyone to transfer all their net worth into those assets versus hold some currency denominated asset?
Speaker: 1
26:46
Maybe we can just talk about that dynamic of how do I make the decision about where to store my value? Where do I store my ai worth?
Speaker: 0
26:52
First of all, the United States and countries like China, you you see vatsal particular ai. China, Japan, they’re all educational. And that means that the bonds, the debt arya bad assets. So then what where you store it is in those assets that benefit rather than suffer from the reduced value of money and the, the buying of it.
Speaker: 0
27:24
So and, obviously, you look at money and what is an international money. That is why gold is in it. And then there’s a question of, you know, Bitcoin or others are a conversation. We can digress into that. But it can be ideally, it’s international. It’s mobile.
Speaker: 0
27:46
Ideally, it’s relatively ai, so it’s relatively secure. Because in history, there’s the value part of it, and then there’s the confiscation part of it too, in some fashion or another. That confiscation can easily take the form of taxing on holding it.
Speaker: 1
28:09
Right.
Speaker: 0
28:09
For example, one of the problems with real estate besides the fact that it doesn’t move, so it’s not internationally you know, you can’t use it, internationally, is it is a readily taxable asset. It’s there.
Speaker: 1
28:27
It’s there.
Speaker: 0
28:27
And therefore, they’re gonna get you they won’t take it, and you can you can get it. So we have to understand that taxes and confiscations are 1 and the sai.
Speaker: 1
28:37
Because during a time of of of a debt crisis and and I I wanna get to this in a minute. You talk about the 4 actions that can be taken, tax or taxation, austerity where governments cut spending, restructuring where the debt gets restructured, and then the central bank buying the debt.
Speaker: 1
28:51
Obviously, this notion of taxation, it’s always played a critical role during these moments, and assets are seized or taxed in different ways and transferred away. What about commodities, and how did commodity markets do non gold? Is there a difference in commodity arya, hard soft, etcetera?
Speaker: 0
29:09
It’s so it’s so interesting. I’ve, you know, studied history, and I’ve and, of course, I’ve been through a bunch of these ai the seventies. Commodities, ideally also those that might do well if the economy doesn’t do well because you’re dealing also with the inflation environment, is, is are always gone to.
Speaker: 0
29:32
You don’t want economically sensitive commodities as meh, but and if unless the sometimes maybe the economy will do pretty well, but there’s usually, it doesn’t. But in ai, in the Weimar Republic, give example, rocks were used to store hold a well. Now that that sounds really funny, but, they were considered building ingredients.
Speaker: 0
29:58
You know, in other words, the rocks were used to build things with, and so they would store the money in rocks. They but they but any asset.
Speaker: 1
30:07
I should go store a bunch of GPU chips in my garage, h 100 ram NVIDIA. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
30:13
Technology devalues them. The new technology devalues them. Right? So that’s the question. What is it it is those things that can’t be devalued. Commodities, by the way, in real terms, all commodities, every single commodity, in real terms over long decline long periods of time have declined because of productivity. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
30:36
But every commodity has declined in real terms because of productivity. So you would like productivity producing assets that cannot be taxed, can move around from place to place. So equities of a certain type tend to do that. That’s why currency depreciations are associated with that combination of things.
Speaker: 0
31:00
Currency depreciation, lowering interest rates, and producing money causes equity assets to go up, not necessarily in real terms ai in the seventies. They didn’t go up in real terms. They went down in real terms. But it is those kinds of store holds of wealth that can’t be taxed as easily, that benefit from inflation rather than not.
Speaker: 1
31:29
Right. Okay.
Speaker: 0
31:30
The purest play is gold because gold can be transferred between countries. It’s used by central banks as a reserve. So central banks will go to it. They are going to it. They’ll hold it. It can be private
Speaker: 1
31:47
Right.
Speaker: 0
31:48
More so than crypto. Crypt is very easily taxed. You know, in other words but the government knows where it is and who’s doing what and saloni. And it’s also an effective asset to tax, but it has, you know, benefits too. It was very interesting when we had negative rates. I was with a group of the central bankers in a discussion of how negative they can have rates, and they ai that they can have negative rates only to the extent that there’s not enough capacity for paper money to be stored.
Speaker: 0
32:25
So they estimated it was funny, actually, for that they could have, over a short period of time, up to 400 basis points negative rates.
Speaker: 1
32:36
That’s crazy.
Speaker: 0
32:37
Because there wasn’t enough they calculated how much vault storage space there was, and then they calculated that they would produce more vault storage space because it would be profitable to do that. And then they that and they said, and the good thing is we can tax it. Okay? Yeah. Because if you have a digital currency, you can tax it.
Speaker: 1
33:03
Yeah. Do you own Bitcoin. Right?
Speaker: 0
33:06
Yeah. I have some. Not not nearly as much as as gold. Ai you know, that’s kinda my diversifier. I I try to find one or the Ai have to have some I’m I’m a but I’m a gold guy much more than I am
Speaker: 1
33:19
a Yeah. Sai I’m like a Ai a productive asset guy. I like owning businesses that make stuff. So in this in in this environment, what do I own that’s a productive asset, that’s a business that can still see its revenue and its incomes grow as this inflationary effect and this devaluation occurs as we get through a debt crisis like this?
Speaker: 1
33:40
What would be the best kind of productive at is it a mining business? Is it a commodity trading business? What’s the right
Speaker: 0
33:46
I’m with you. So, you know, let that chart that we showed in the beginning has this line productivity going up. You know? And I think that we’re in a, yeah, that’s it. And it and it and it tends to compound on on itself. And I think that that’s where AI and that is fantastic. But it it depends where you’re referring to AI.
Speaker: 0
34:10
I think the super scalars in this world have risk issues. You know, you think by, you know, the, the super scalers or video or or, you know, those. I think that the tech war certainly, productivity, I’m with you, meh, but you wanna invest in productivity. But there’s disruption, great disruption Yeah. That’s gonna take place.
Speaker: 0
34:40
And there are gonna be the disruptors and the disruptees, And it’s not necessarily those who are producing the, vehicles, but it’s those who are implementing and changing as a result of having their big impact. I think that, like, the the tech war for the AI war, it easily is I think it is, actually, more important. It’s a war that no country can lose.
Speaker: 0
35:13
Okay? Because it’s more important than profits. If you lose, if China or the US really lose this war, it’s more important than profits. And so you have to play that war that way, and it could be ai electric vehicles or or more in terms of Chinese electric vehicles and the like.
Speaker: 0
35:39
You can produce them. So I don’t think ai I think there’s such expectations. I think we are going to see applications. Like, I think the Chinese are a bit behind in the chips, but they’re ahead in the applications in terms Yeah.
Speaker: 1
36:01
Did you see the DeepSeq announcement Yes. This weekend? And, obviously, markets are reacting. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
36:06
That was known for a little while now.
Speaker: 1
36:10
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
36:10
And so I think you’re going to even see well, the Ai play is going to be chips, very inexpensive chips embedded into Totally. Manufactured goods. You’ll see robotics. So you’re you’re gonna see Chinese are unbelievably in making things inexpensively terrifically. They own 33% of all world manufactured goods, which is more than the combined US, German, and Japanese manufactured goods. Chinese produce more.
Speaker: 0
36:48
So, you know, you’re gonna see that type of competition. And it may be it’s like solar panels or something. You know? Right. It’s profit doesn’t matter.
Speaker: 0
36:59
So you have to go where there’s I I think that where there’s product innovation and disruptors to be essentially long those who are benefiting themselves through usage or creating the applications that are having the big effect is certainly one thing. But you also have to look at different countries and places and things. Most importantly is price.
Speaker: 0
37:25
I think a lot of investors make the mistake of thinking, I wanna buy good things. You know, that’s a great company. But a great company that gets expensive is much worse than a bad company that’s really cheap.
Speaker: 1
37:45
Totally.
Speaker: 0
37:45
So you have to look at pricing. This is all part of the cycle. You know? Everybody says that’s great and it’s gonna be great for the future. And and, like, you know, like the Internet and dotcom, It was it’s great. Okay. But the price has to be paid attention to. And I’m particularly concerned of those companies at a time when we are in a situation with the interest rates operating as we ai.
Speaker: 0
38:13
In other words, this looks quite a quite a lot alike like 1998 or 99 where the assets of the the, you know, the new hot thing
Speaker: 1
38:25
The productivity grow drivers. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
38:28
Meh. So Yeah. Are hot. The prices are ai. Yeah. And you have a rising interest rate environment. That is a classic issue. So we have to pay attention to the interest rates and the pricing of those assets, and you have to think where is next. The other thing is, I think diversification is very, very important because everybody’s leverage long.
Speaker: 0
38:54
Everybody thinks, you know, I’m gonna buy assets that are gonna go up, and I’m and if they’re good, I’m gonna do that in a leverage way. So the world is so leverage long. You have to pay at least as much attention to correlation. So that’s why when I look at, you know, something like gold or these uncorrelated assets, it’s interesting.
Speaker: 0
39:19
As you add it into the portfolio, it reduces the risk of the portfolio. So you have to pay attention to the uncorrelated assets in that kind of an environment, and those could be geographically looked at or but but so that’s part of portfolio construction.
Speaker: 1
39:39
Well, so there’s no simple answer for the audience on what to buy, but I do think this portfolio point of view in the book, you actually talk about having 10 to 15 uncorrelated bets at any given time. And I I would imagine in your context, truly uncorrelated, whereas most folks buy US equities and think that they’re in different sectors.
Speaker: 1
39:56
But, obviously, there’s a great degree of correlation when you’re buying a bunch of US equities.
Speaker: 0
40:00
Equity prices, just to keep in in mind this, many times, equity prices and inflation adjusted, therefore, purchasing power ai have declined 60 or 70%.
Speaker: 1
40:16
Yeah. That’s incredible. That’s an incredible fact for folks to take in. So when you adjust for the the value of your dollar, equity prices have really taken a hit, even though the market’s gone up. And I hear this a lot, everyone.
Speaker: 0
40:28
And ram from 1966 Yep. Until 1984, you had a negative real return.
Speaker: 1
40:38
I think this is super important, Ray. I just wanna double click on this and and then we’ll talk about the US. But a lot of folks talk about markets going up without taking into account what is the denomination that those markets are measured in. In this case, US dollars. And when you look at the value of your US dollar and you look at the market going up, even if you bought equities, what you can now turn that dollar into has actually not gotten much stronger.
Speaker: 1
41:05
Folks have really taken a hit, and I think this is super important.
Speaker: 0
41:09
Yeah. So Ai just I’m glad you’re, bringing it up. Ai I think it’s super important too, and I just wanna sai, you have to look at your returns in real dollars.
Speaker: 1
41:20
What can you buy? Or What can you
Speaker: 0
41:22
any and purchase what can you buy? Yeah. It’s funny because I watch the value go up and down, the even the currency go up and down. And it’s a distorted perspective. It’s like being on a boat that’s going up and down and judging the land to be volatile.
Speaker: 1
41:42
Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. I wanna come back to the United States, and I wanna talk about your point of view on measures that the United States is going to have to take or should take going forward in order to avoid a more cataclysmic debt crisis. In fact, you use this term often, the beautiful deleveraging that’s possible when there’s a great deal of debt and a country faces a debt ai, that there are several actions that can be taken together to try and resolve the debt crisis in a way that is least harmful.
Speaker: 1
42:18
But I first wanna talk about the measure that you share of risks. So first is you you show what you call your risk gauge for US long term government debt. And so you’ve got this risk gauge on the long term and the risk gauge on the short term for US government debt. On the short term, you say US government debt is a 0% risk gauge. There’s no risk in the near term. The economy seems fairly balanced.
Speaker: 1
42:43
But over the long term, your risk gauge is a 100%. And then you follow that up with an analysis of the vatsal bank, and you say the central bank, short term, 0% risk gauge. Long term, 46% risk gauge. Nearly the highest you’ve seen ever. But maybe you can just say what’s the the composition of these risk gauges, and what does this tell us?
Speaker: 1
43:06
And then we’ll come back to the actions.
Speaker: 0
43:07
Just to be clear, a 100% does not mean a 100% probability of it happening. It means a 100%. That’s the highest that it’s ever been. You know, it’s at the ai of maximum. But, yeah, just to describe it, the longer term risk gauge is taking existing amounts, projecting those two things that I’ve described before, the supply demand and the, the debt service creating the squeeze.
Speaker: 0
43:37
So think of it as going into, you you you know, your doctor and having him, give you your test results and how much plaque is in there and what the what it’s looking like and how you did on your stress test and and what your arteries are looking like and what your condition is.
Speaker: 0
44:01
That’s what the first measure is. The second is you’re in a seizure. In other words, now so that second measure of the dead is exhibiting okay. It’s now happening.
Speaker: 1
44:19
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
44:19
And happening means things like you’re seeing the selling, you’re seeing the, the the spreads widen. In other words, the interest rates rising on the long end without the short end, you’re seeing that the central bank is put into that position of being able you know, having to make the difficult choice of coming in there and monetizing everything very and then credit problems and debt monetization because you’re in the middle of it.
Speaker: 0
44:52
That’s what the that’s what the one on the right means. So what we have is, if I’m speaking to you as the government policy makers, your condition is is very bad.
Speaker: 1
45:06
Right.
Speaker: 0
45:06
Okay? You’re not in the middle of it now. You you in other words, we’re not seeing that particular dynamic transpire, but, you have to change your diet. You have to change your behavior. You have to maybe have a stent put into the equivalent. So you asked about what that is. Okay? Okay.
Speaker: 0
45:29
Here’s what it
Speaker: 1
45:30
is. Let let me let me pull up this chart for you real quick, Ray. So I I just wanna highlight the, CBO projection. Right? So this is the US government’s debt as a percent of the US government’s revenue, which you you indicate in your book is more important than debt to GDP.
Speaker: 1
45:48
You’ve gotta look at the actual revenue being generated by the government and how much debt they have. And the CBO highlights this expansion to 700%, meaning the government is gonna have a debt level that’s 7 times the income it’s making every year over the next, I believe this is a 10 year, chart.
Speaker: 1
46:07
And you propose a bunch of actions that can keep it flat over the next 10 years, which is the basis of the book is there’s a series of recommendations in the book. I just wanna kinda voice over again. You highlight that there are 4 actions. 1 is increase taxes. So, obviously, citizens are gonna lose assets and and lose income.
Speaker: 1
46:28
So there’s a loss to the citizens when when this happens. Cutting spending or austerity, and there’s obviously a loss of services by the government provided to the citizens. So the citizens are gonna lose services. They’re gonna lose benefits. A vatsal bank buying the debt, which will typically increase inflation because more money will come to the markets and everything costs more.
Speaker: 1
46:48
So that’s another form of taxation where the value of your dollar, the value of your assets goes down. And then this kind of restructuring of the debt where, again, the currency gets devalued and everyone loses things. And so I I just wanted to kinda walk through that. Maybe you could frame this up for us a little bit.
Speaker: 0
47:05
Sure. Like that chart. If you go back to that chart, think about that chart as being, you know, your your plaque, so to speak, in in the arteries and the dead service. So you could calculate all those numbers and you you know what the picture looks ai. And that is a stability.
Speaker: 0
47:24
And so number 1 is I call it my 3% solution. The solution is you must cut the deficit, which is the equivalent of bonds selling, down to 3% of GDP. And it’s 7 a half percent expected. Now different people have different views as to how to cut it. Forget it. I don’t really care. Just you have to have a unified agreement.
Speaker: 0
47:56
Everybody in congress and the president and so on should pledge to do vatsal, and then the question is how to do it. But they shouldn’t they should know that number.
Speaker: 1
48:07
That’s about 900,000,000,000 a year Yeah. Roughly. And that means cutting it, as you point out, by cutting the deficit by more than half from where it sits.
Speaker: 0
48:17
Yeah. Well, it’s yes. Because it with the continuing the, the tax cuts, strong tax cuts, that’s that’ll be 7 a half percent, and you wanna get it down to 3. And and it sounds draconian, but we did that kind of change from 1991 ai 1997. And the key there are 3 keys to this. Do it soon, fast, when the time is good, when the economy is good. In other words, do it now.
Speaker: 1
48:54
Now. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
48:55
Okay. The temptation is going to say, well, we’re gonna ease into this, and we’re gonna be there, and we’re gonna do it in 3 years from now. But if you have a bad economy, you cannot do it. Okay? And that’s the that’s the worst. So we have the best economy, and the sooner you do it, the more you’re gonna do it.
Speaker: 0
49:14
So 3% solution, do it now, and recognize that you have to deliver it. So if you’re having, let’s say, cost cuts in government, you have to own the number. So everybody’s gotta pledge 3%. Now the the the argument says to how to get there, but you have to own the number, so much so that you’d say, if it’s not 3%, throw me out of office ai I’ve gotta Ai gotta deliver that number.
Speaker: 0
49:47
So if somebody if government cost expense cutting, you know, and the is it really the 2 trillion numbers? Is it the 1 trillion number? Is it a half a trillion number? We all throw those numbers around. You gotta own the number, and you gotta get to 3.
Speaker: 0
50:03
And you can’t make it any one thing. Right. But you also have to realize, like, if you did it, spread out, nothing’s gonna be that big. So, I mean, nothing’s gonna be insummountable. That that would mean I I go through the numbers in the book.
Speaker: 0
50:25
By the way, this book is online free, and everybody everybody can get it.
Speaker: 1
50:31
I read it this weekend. I have a I and I and I used a highlighter for the first time in a long time, Ai. So there was a lot of great content to pull out of there.
Speaker: 0
50:39
But
Speaker: 1
50:39
I might, use AI
Speaker: 0
50:41
This is this is being put out not to sell books. Anyway, it’s all free sai everybody can go through the mechanics. But the main thing is you take the things you can cut from or build from. So what can you cut from? And you look at government’s expenditures, roughly 70% of government expenditures are you can’t cut.
Speaker: 0
51:03
So so it comes down to a small percentage that you can cut, but you you find out how much can you cut. So the important thing is 3%. The other thing about it is to realize that if you make those moves, the bond market and what it will benefit. You sai, this and so interest rates
Speaker: 1
51:28
Interest rates will go down.
Speaker: 0
51:30
Ai. And interest rates going down, interest rate expense is most important.
Speaker: 1
51:37
So when the president does a interview the other day and he says, we need to get them to cut interest rates by 1%, and he’s speaking about the vatsal bank, he’s effectively trying to force the central bank or coerce the central bank to take rate action when if we were to cut spending I think this is so important. If the federal government were to cut spending significantly and quickly, the market would naturally react to lower rates.
Speaker: 0
52:04
That’s right. Okay.
Speaker: 1
52:06
I think that is so important for everyone to hear.
Speaker: 0
52:08
He’s right. If you look at the my calculations, you need a 100 base if if you get a 100 basis points cut in rates, that’s equivalent to significant cutting in spending. So he’s ai, but you but if you do that without the other parts, you’re gonna take money away. You’re gonna make it less desirable to own these things, these ai. And because that’s that’s gonna be a problem.
Speaker: 0
52:37
Where if you do these things together, they can support each other. So in other words, fine. Cut it from spending.
Speaker: 1
52:45
And ai the way, Ray, the longer we wait, the more interest accumulates because it’s at a higher rate, the more the debt accumulates. And, ultimately, this is the arithmetic depth spiral that you get into. The longer we wait, the more you have to cut in the future to get out of the hole. It’s not linear.
Speaker: 1
53:02
It’s a nonlinear cutting that’s needed to get so the faster you do it, the less you have to cut.
Speaker: 0
53:08
Right. Ai think
Speaker: 1
53:08
that is so important. Let me just sai that again. The for any person in government listening, the faster you cut, the less you have to cut.
Speaker: 0
53:17
Yes. And you can do it in a manageable way. You know, a bit here, a bit there, these bits add up. And and if you don’t, you’re gonna have this arc of compounding.
Speaker: 1
53:29
So let’s talk let’s talk politics for a second. Is Doge and the concept of Doge enough, or do we need legislative action here? And then I wanna talk about the politics of the legislative action needed given, like, the election cycles.
Speaker: 0
53:43
There’s a combination of a question. It’s not just Doge. It’s a matter of less regulation, productivity changes that might come from Sai, which then have translate to profits. That might be capital gains profits. They might be profits and all of that. And so but it really you know, when I look at it, it looks it looks very tough. And and but there’s also, you know, revenue also. Tariffs produce revenue.
Speaker: 0
54:25
So but, yeah, people think, on the on the tariffs, people don’t think of taxes as inflation, but taxes are inflation.
Speaker: 1
54:36
Right.
Speaker: 0
54:36
Because you it costs you more. So the real question as you play with the numbers is it’s very, very difficult to know and be precise about how much is gonna come from productivity and profit increases, from the efficiencies gained by AI and new technologies, how much do they come from this and that.
Speaker: 0
55:01
We don’t honestly know. But the important thing is not to we’re at the edge and not to make it a crapshoot. So Right. And and to get the the number must be 3%. And so you should have handle not Hail Mary passes, but, a clear passage to that 3% number.
Speaker: 1
55:28
Are we better off with Trump as president versus if Biden had won in this context?
Speaker: 0
55:35
Yes. I do believe we arya, ram the financial context. Because in terms of profitability and the likelihood of cutting, I think the the republicans are probably more likely to make these moves than the democrats. But you also have to take into consideration the impacts, the social impacts and
Speaker: 1
55:55
Right.
Speaker: 0
55:55
The other impacts that are going to come from this. We’re at a civil war internally, and and we’re at an international war simultaneously. So there are saloni order effects. I think the main thing is, take those numbers and make them real at at 3%, not speculating. I I worry honestly about the gap, like the idea of when profits kick in from AI.
Speaker: 0
56:26
I’m worried
Speaker: 1
56:28
ai shah. Ask you next. So AI AI takes off. We lose a lot of jobs. We have a 1,000,000, 5, 3,000,000, 5,000,000 people that become unemployed that work in call centers, that work on automotive lines, etcetera, etcetera. They lose their jobs and but ai before the productivity kicks in from AI that creates new markets and and new parts of the economy, we have a lot of unemployed people and the government representatives, the politicians raise their hands and sai, we have to support these people.
Speaker: 1
56:57
We have to introduce stimulus. We have to introduce new support programs. And is it not likely the case that with AI coming online, we are going to see a fairly significant demand for, you know, public support on this transition that’s coming.
Speaker: 0
57:14
That’s right. But there arya 2 dimensions. The near term is what will the prop I don’t think the profit impact and the financial impact on productivity is going to be nearly enough near enough to deal with the supply demand issue that we now have. So let’s sai, we is it this year? Is it next year? Just imagine you are at risk of a heart attack. You know?
Speaker: 0
57:39
And then I say, someday, we’ll have the productivity conveyed to profits that will cover the budget deficit. Okay. It may be out there, but it’s not as immediate as it needs to be. And then we have the other aspect of it, which is how is that pie divided, which is gonna be very political because the disruptive effects will be enormous.
Speaker: 0
58:03
And we’re really all guessing on how those disruptive effects will be. It’s it’s too much of a but you’re you’re absolutely right. Lots of jobs are gonna be lost. Lots of change is gonna happen in terms of turbulence. And, how do we have a plan?
Speaker: 0
58:22
How could we even agree on a plan of how to deal with that? I don’t think we’re in a time, maybe in the rest of our lifetimes, that agreement is going to be easy. I think we’re gonna see fragmentation of states from from the central government. I think you’re gonna see big fragmentation in the world, not just in the United States, on the failure to agree on most things.
Speaker: 0
58:50
And so Ai worried about, the ai. Think of the timeline as this way. There’s the first 100 days. We’re in a honeymoon period. I’ve been through I’m old.
Speaker: 0
59:03
You know, I’ve been through this a long time. I know what the honeymoon is like right afterwards. There’s a 100 days that you can change legislation. You move quickly and everybody’s there. Then there’s the next important time horizon is 2 years to the midterm elections.
Speaker: 0
59:18
You get in about years, you know, 18 months after the election, and now not everybody goes everything goes as anyone expects. You could have the supply demand situation. And think of our cycle. I mentioned, you know, the average cycle is about 6 years, give or take 3 years. And so we’re gonna be later into the ai.
Speaker: 0
59:39
We have this supply demand situation.
Speaker: 1
59:42
Right.
Speaker: 0
59:42
Are things going to stay good into the midterm elections and and and that mandate? I think there’ll there could be a lot of fighting in the midterm elections.
Speaker: 1
59:52
Let me ask you 2 questions. The first, if we do significant cuts, there will be a lot of job loss. If AI is successful and moves quickly, there will be significant job loss. If there is significant job loss, does that not fuel the rise of socialism in the United States?
Speaker: 0
01:00:12
I think that we can do it. When I talk about the 3% solution, I think that we can cut and make the adjustments in a few percentages to be able to do this without great trauma. So we can get to having that limitation done without great ram, and it will be supported by interest rate moves. So that’s first. We can get this thing done.
Speaker: 0
01:00:42
We must get that thing done. And if we don’t, then, of course, I think we are in an era that, of course, we’re going to have great conflict in the United States. This is not a run to nirvana. This is, you know, the the moment There you’re gonna have legal challenges. 1 state, the democrats, you know, the blue states, the red states, and within the states, you’re going to have a lot of disruption and you’re going to have a lot of dissatisfaction, and it’s gonna be about money and power.
Speaker: 0
01:01:23
And so that’s ahead. And so ai you say, there’s the socialist, the left, the right, and that’s why you’re going to this type of civil war or internal conflict is gonna be with us. This is not a straight race to nirvana and prosperity. And and you have that at the same time as you have the other elements.
Speaker: 0
01:01:49
You know, they’re the 5 big forces. So what I’m calling so you have the debt money we talked about. There’s the internal conflict that is we’re gonna test the legal system and, you know, and we’re in an environment now that might is right. Internationally, you arya going to have the same kind of conflict. We touched on China. We’re going to have conflict.
Speaker: 0
01:02:12
You no longer have a a cooperative even an attempt at a cooperative world order. Things like the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, all of those are obsolete. And so we’re going to have again, might is right. And so it’s gonna be a period of greater conflict. You’re going to have a technology war.
Speaker: 0
01:02:34
You can have increased military spending in this kind of environment. That’s that creates a budget issue. And climate will have, it will be an economic issue as well as a, environmental issue. So these things these expenses are gonna go up. So all of those coming together so you’re meh. Left, right, and conflict will be ahead of us.
Speaker: 1
01:03:03
Is this a hot civil war? Do people take to the streets? I mean, how does this resolve? Obviously, we’ve got historical context for social ai, but what happens in the United States over the next 10 years?
Speaker: 0
01:03:14
I think 2 important aspects of it is, does the legal system work well sai that the supreme court, you know, you asked me about the independence of the vatsal bank. You know, did the does law work? And I think there’s gonna be a lot of challenges. I’m not saying it doesn’t work.
Speaker: 0
01:03:40
I’m saying that’s the question, and that’ll be very much state by state. You’re going to see conflicts between the states and the central government. So how does that decision making system hold up? Is it might is right, you know, sanctuary city issues and such? How is or is that going to all work well? I mean, that’s, you know, that’s the most important thing.
Speaker: 0
01:04:10
And then we in a time of great stress and challenge, you know, when things get worse. Right now, things are good. This is pretty good. But they’re gonna get worse. And then you have the international going on at the same time. And so internally within countries, we have the same kind of conflict.
Speaker: 0
01:04:34
You’re seeing it happen in Europe. You’re saying the same same dynamic. We talk about the problems that the United States is having regarding debt and so on. You have then the expense sai problem within Europe. You’re seeing greater polarity, left, right. You’re seeing economic problems cause more confrontation. And so you’re seeing this around the world.
Speaker: 0
01:04:57
So you’re coming into an environment that is likely to have, over a period of time over a period of time, not immediately, greater conflict. When you talk about 10 years, there’s gonna be a period in that 10 year period where it’s going to it’s it’s gonna be hellacious in that 10 year period where, you know, the coordination of dealing with our problems, our problems will be greater, and the cooperation for dealing with problems will be less.
Speaker: 1
01:05:31
On that point, talk about the role that you have seen external conflict play in resolving the fiscal challenges internally. So you talk in your prior book, changing world order, about the historical relationship between external conflict as a cycle that seems to follow or flow with this financial cycle.
Speaker: 1
01:05:53
Maybe you can talk a little bit about what’s gonna happen between the United States and China given the condition in the US today. Do we have a higher propensity when things are difficult at home? Folks tend to go to war. War is stimulatory. Is that a driver here?
Speaker: 1
01:06:09
And what’s gonna happen functionally with China over the next decade, do you think, in the US?
Speaker: 0
01:06:15
There’s a cycle that has to do with changes in money and all of these things where you don’t have enough money. You need money to support con international conflict. You need money to make domestic people happy. And then there’s no power you know, there’s no system for making judgments internationally. The, you know, the United Nations doesn’t work.
Speaker: 0
01:06:47
The World Health Organization, they don’t work. Sai there’s no system. So you come into this power. So when so when we’re talking about the financial problems that we’re talking about that we covered and recognize that that’s worldwide. And then you have the polarity worldwide that has to do with well different wealth and values, and you have that problem within the population, and then you have no rule system internationally.
Speaker: 0
01:07:16
So it is a might is right series. You have that confluence of things, particularly now. Then you and then there’s disruptions, big disruptions, technology. We talked about how you can’t lose the technology war because you’ll lose the military war. All of that stress and shortage of what is perceived to be needed is incendiary. You know, it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a risky sai situation.
Speaker: 0
01:07:51
Of course, productivity helps, but it was like you have to understand, put it in its place. The ai twenties leading up to the stock market bubble, that that was a decade that we had the greatest number of inventions, patents, innovation, great productivity increases, while we simultaneously had big debt increases and we simultaneously had these wealth gap and values increases.
Speaker: 0
01:08:22
And so you don’t get away from that. So this is going to be a lot of tension in a world where it’s difficult to get all the parties to cooperate. In wars, if you look at history, when I say wars, there are military wars there, and then there’s less than military wars. And and I can’t tell you that we’re gonna go into military wars.
Speaker: 0
01:08:44
I think, like, the Soviet Union and the United States, because of the risk of mass destruction, was able to avoid those. But it it it in history, it’s going to be it’s gonna be a very it’s gonna be a very difficult period.
Speaker: 1
01:09:08
You describe in your book the difference between how the United States goes to war and how China goes to war. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you speak to the US goes to war head to head open confrontation, whereas China is much more like a Sun Tzu arya of war style. It’s a little bit more tricky, a little bit more careful. They they never let you know what they’re going to do. Is is that a fair characterization? Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:09:37
The the the general belief of, the Chinese on the art of war, and this has existed throughout and it exists today, is that, if if if you’re going into a fighting war, you must not have been smart enough to win without a fighting war. And you win through deception and manipulation because fighting wars are gonna damage you a lot. You don’t wanna be damaged. You you wanna get to your objectives.
Speaker: 0
01:10:11
So that’s how they fight wars. That’s the sounds like a smart way to fight wars. Also international relations, there’s what’s called the tribute system. And the tribute system was your power determines where you are in your hierarchy. If you have more power, you have more hierarchy. You’re higher in the hierarchy.
Speaker: 0
01:10:33
It’s like confusion. And if you are and everybody should know what each other’s power is. And the lesser power should give tribute to the greater power. This is internationally. And the greater power should speak that and treat and they should work and have harmony together rather than to have the conflict.
Speaker: 0
01:10:57
Because it’s all about getting what you want, harmony and prosperity is what you want, and fighting that destroys things is not what you want. Whereas, yeah, the the man who was ai president, great, historian of China, a man by the name of Wang Xishan, described it to me that there’s meh Mediterranean approach.
Speaker: 0
01:11:25
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:11:25
Ai Mediterranean
Speaker: 0
01:11:28
approach, which is a very different approach, really began out of that there were families and there’s no borders. And the way it worked is there were no limitations. In fact, we didn’t have countries with borders and ideas that you don’t cross borders until what’s the piece of Westphalia after 30 in the mid 17th century.
Speaker: 0
01:11:53
I think it was, like, 16 50 something. Up they had 30 years of war, and everybody would fight. So they were fighting experts, and that’s what the norm was. And then after 30 years of war, they decided, okay. Let’s draw a boundary around it and try to see what goes on. And then there’s your business.
Speaker: 0
01:12:15
And and that’s how it came about. So and that’s, by the way, in history, one of the reasons that the Chinese and Japanese lost and they had what they call their 100 years of humiliation when the foreign powers came in in late 18 thirties, and they had a fight, the the opium wars and so on.
Speaker: 0
01:12:38
The western powers were strong at fighting because they were practiced at it. And then there was the 100 years of humiliation, they call it in China, where they they the foreign powers came in. Sai, anyway, I’ve given you too much history, but I’m saying that there’s a whole different attitude about how to play that game.
Speaker: 0
01:13:00
And so that’s what I think you’re gonna see. You you know, that’s when we come back now to the chips war and you took a look at today’s news, you know, there we are.
Speaker: 1
01:13:11
There we are. Well, look, Ram, I feel like Ai always tell people the the kid that stands up at the middle school and ai, I’m gonna make the vending machines free, wins the the presidency of the middle school. And, unfortunately, in a democratic system, the elect election process ai follows a similar pattern. It’s very hard.
Speaker: 1
01:13:37
I watched these hearings this week, and I was deeply frustrated when I hear senators sai, I got this money for my constituents. I got this. Their initiative, their intention is to stand up and say, I’m gonna get you this. They go into congress. They get you that money.
Speaker: 1
01:13:52
And over time, government spending swells, and there is no incentive to reduce it. And we find ourselves now on the precipice of a really difficult crisis. And I really do hope that politicians find within themselves the leadership to stand up and say, we need to do difficult things because 10 years from now or 20 years from now, if we don’t, things are gonna be very bad for all of us and convey that to people.
Speaker: 1
01:14:18
And I really do hope that your message gets to them and that their leadership allows them to stand up and sai, we need to make these really difficult changes deeply and quickly in order to preserve the union. And that they can make those changes and we can move forward and continue to build our lives.
Speaker: 1
01:14:34
And so I really appreciate you taking the time to write this book, share this with us, and I really do hope it’s heard. I think it’s so important. So thank you so much, Rick.
Speaker: 0
01:14:43
We can do this. And if we don’t do this, the power of the United States is going to be greatly diminished. So it’s domestic. It’s international. So I appreciate, shah, I’m appreciate you, Dave, that we can have this kind of conversation. Just have people bathe logically. Ai think that’s too much to ask.
Speaker: 1
01:15:06
Yeah. Well, no. Look. I mean, let let’s not give away the vending machines for a couple years and, you know, kinda think about keeping the school open, for the next generation. But that was great. Thanks, Ray.
Speaker: 0
01:15:17
You know your stuff. You’re great. And this is really invaluable. Thank you for doing that for your listeners.
Speaker: 1
01:15:24
I think it’s so important too, Ray. And I spent a lot of time thinking about it and worrying about it. Your message is so clear and important. I think you present it well and write it well. I read your whole book this weekend and I appreciate you putting it all out there. I really do hope that the folks that listen to our show in DC listen to this.
Speaker: 1
01:15:40
I I I cannot tell you how disappointed I was after I spent the weekend at the inauguration. I met a lot of members of Congress. I met most of the members of the new cabinet. And it’s just not there. I’m just frustrated and I’m disheartened by it.
Speaker: 1
01:15:56
So anyway, I I think I think it’s important to keep harping on it though. We’re not gonna stop and and I’ll keep talking about it and appreciate your efforts here too.
Speaker: 0
01:16:05
We just have to do our best.
Speaker: 1
01:16:06
That’s right. Really appreciate it, Ray. Thank you.
Speaker: 0
01:16:09
Thank you, Dave. Bye ai.
