Currency Trading
Dalio: Capitalism Needs Fixing, US Dollar Upended In Next 5 Years
In a recent interview with MarketWatch, Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, covered a wide range of topics. These include his thoughts on capitalism, China, the US dollar as the world reserve currency, and much more.
Three Problems
Dalio says the US is facing three distinct problems and is losing ground to China in many ways.
“There are three problems that are coming together,” said Dalio. “So it’s important to understand them individually and how they collectively make a bigger problem,” said Dalio.
“There is a money and credit cycle problem, a wealth and values gap problem, and an emerging great power challenging the existing dominant power problem. What’s going on is an economic downturn together with a large wealth gap and the rising power of China challenging the existing power of the United States.”
“It’s a fact that there has been a weakening of the competitive advantages of the United States over the last couple of decades. For example, the United States lost a lot of the education advantage relative to other countries, our share of world GDP is reduced, the wealth gap has increased which has contributed to our political and social polarization.”
Challenges the U.S. Face
To illustrate the challenges that the US faces as it attempts to stay ahead of China and remain a world power, Dalio says we need to look at Britain and how they eventually lost their position as the world’s reserve currency.
“If you look at British history, the development of rival countries led them to lose their competitive advantages. Their finances were bad because they had accumulated a lot of debt. So, after World War II those trends went against them. Then they had the Suez Canal incident and they were no longer a world power and the British pound is no longer a reserve currency. These diseases almost always play out the same way.”
“The United States’ relative position in the world, which was dominant in almost all these categories at the beginning of this world order in 1945, has declined and is exhibiting real signs that should raise worries. There’s a lot of baggage. The U.S. has a lot of debt, which is adding to the hurdles that typically drag an economy down, so in order to succeed, you have to do a pretty big debt restructuring. History shows what kind of a challenge that is.”
“The United States is a 75-year-old empire and it is exhibiting signs of decline. If you want to extend your life, there are clear things you can do, but it means doing things that you don’t want to do.”
Capitalism Needs Improvements
Dalio is a capitalist (he didn’t become a billionaire through handouts). However, he does acknowledge that the system needs to be improved so that everyone has a chance at financial freedom.
“What has been shown is that capitalism is a fabulous way of creating incentives and innovation and of allocating resources to create productivity. All successful countries have uses for it. For example, communist China has chosen capitalism, which has been essential to its growth.
“But capitalism also produces large wealth gaps that produce opportunity gaps, which threaten the system in the ways we are seeing now.
“We have to be in this together. The system needs to be reengineered to do this. But if we don’t do this engineering well, we’re going to spend in an unlimited way and deal with that by creating debt that won’t ever be paid back, and we will risk losing the reserve currency status of the dollar. If we get into that position — and we’re very close — things will get much worse because we are living on borrowed money that’s financing our consumption.”
On Dollar as the World Reserve Currency
Dalio says we could see the US lose reserve currency status as soon as the next five years.
“Within the next five years you could see a situation in which foreigners who have been lending money to the United States won’t want to, and the dollar would not be as readily accepted for making purchases in the world as it is now.”
“The United States doesn’t have a good income statement and balance sheet in dealing with the rest of the world. It is running a deficit to the rest of the world that is financed by borrowing money so that we are producing liabilities.”
There is uncertainty in the markets ahead of the November election. With this, Dalio says there are two steps investors can take to protect their wealth.
“First, worry as much about the value of your money as you worry about the value of your investments. The printing of money and the debt should make you aware of that. That’s why financial asset prices have gone up — stocks, gold — because of the debt and money creation. You don’t want to own the thing you think is safest — cash.”
“Second, know how to diversify well. That includes diversification of countries, currencies and assets, because wealth is not so much destroyed as it shifts. When something goes down, something else is going up so you have to look at all things on a relative basis. Diversify well and worry about the value of cash.”
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