The Changing World Order – Why Nations Succeed and Fail

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, has written several books on the world of investing and the economy in general based on his years of experience as manager of the world’s largest hedge fund. In the latest of his ‘Principles’ series, Dalio applies his quantitative approach of macro investing to analyzing countries, seeking to identify the factors that lead to strength such as education and work ethic, as well as lagging indicators such as a reserve currency that allow a country to spend beyond its means but ultimately presage a fall from dominance. Notably, Dalio sees China’s rise to the top of global power as likely, with America, while ahead, slowly declining. Tonight we debate the merits of his analysis, as well as the overall validity of a global macroeconomic approach that overlooks key factors such as demographics in forecasting long term power status.

Myth of the 20th Century – Episode 249 – The Changing World Order – Why Nations Succeed and Fail

— References —

– America’s 60 Families, Lundberg (1937)

– The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, Glubb (1978)

– Gung Ho, Howard (1986)

– Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options, Taleb (1997)

– The Fourth Turning, Howe & Strauss (1997)

– The House of Rothschild (series), Ferguson (1999)

– The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, Ferguson (2008)

– A Gift to My Children: A Father’s Lessons For Life And Investing, Rogers (2009)

– The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Taleb (2010)

– Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Taleb (2012)

– Cycles in History – The Fourth Turning, Myth of the 20th Century (2017) – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2017/11/15/cycles-in-history-the-fourth-turning/

– Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises, Dalio (2018)

– American Factory, Bognar and Reichert (2019)

– China Factory Blast: Death Toll Rises to 64, Hundreds Injured, PTI (2019) – https://www.thequint.com/news/world/chemical-plant-blast-china

– The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail, Dalio (2021)

– The End of the World is Just the Beginning, Zeihan (2022)

– Zeihan – After Dark – the Collapse of Globalization, Myth of the 20th Century (2022) – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2022/10/31/zeihan-after-dark-the-collapse-of-globalization/

– Train Fatalities, Injuries, and Accidents by Type of Accident – https://www.bts.gov/content/train-fatalities-injuries-and-accidents-type-accidenta