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Hedge fund founder, author, and one of the top influences in the financial world, Ray Dalio has written about how countries (or, in his parlance, “empires”) find themselves in irreversible doom spirals, covered in depth in his new book, How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle.

So, I wanted to talk to him about the fiscal hot potato being passed back and forth between the House and the Senate that threatens to explode our deficit past the point of no return. His message is clear: “I don’t care who’s right or wrong, but this is what needs to happen now if we want to avoid disaster.”

We covered:

• 🏛️ Why these “big debt cycles” happen repetitively throughout history

• 🤔 What makes him think we’re nearing the end of the “world order” that began in 1945

• 💰 How some debt boosts productivity (and why ours doesn’t)

• 🎓 The critical role education plays in building civil and productive societies

• 📈Why wages and productivity diverged over the last 50 years

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Our show is a production of Morning Brew and is produced by Henah Velez and Katie Gatti Tassin, with our audio engineering and sound design from Nick Torres. Devin Emery is president of Morning Brew content, and additional fact checking comes from Scott Wilson.

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Mentioned in the Episode

• Ray Dalio’s newest book: How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle

• One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Congress.gov)

• Overall government revenue went down from TCJA (CRFB)