I'm reading Ray Dalio's "How Countries Go Broke." He is well into retirement now. He's a rare breed, studying lengthy macro-trends in the economic world at a deep, thorough, granular level. He founded Bridgewater Associates and made BILLIONS (with a B) of dollars for himself and his clients. He's just in a different Class altogether, compared with the "experts" that are out there, whom you might see more of. But Dalio has been making the rounds recently. He's everywhere, being interviewed.
In his most recent book which I mentioned above, he references this amazingly extensive international gauge, comparing 35 countries' growth/productivity prospects. There are numerical charts that will make your eyes glaze over, but the text is worth reading, if you just want to ignore all of the statistics. This is absolutely an amazingly deep and valuable resource.
I've just started putting a tiny bit of money into an Exchange Traded Fund concentrated in Singapore, and so I was interested to see what he had to say, there. (Ticker symbol EWS.) ... The document will be regularly updated, but this latest edition is dated from September, 2024--- so it does not yet reflect the very sudden and drastic changes introduced by U.S. President Trump since he took office again, in January of 2025.
THE LINK:
https://economicprinciples.org/downloads/DalioRay_Power_Index_Appendix.pdfThe most recent book, published in June, 2025:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210084984-how-countries-go-broke
Comments
I'll bet not.
Was the country suffering that much under Clinton's tax regime? Business conditions were friendly enough to gin up a major blowout due to irrational exuberance.
"I am confident that the next 5-10 years will be a period of enormous changes... Going from now till then will feel like going through a time warp into a very different reality. Countries and companies that are now up will be down, and vice-versa. How we think and what we do will be very different, in ways we cannot possibly anticipate.
The best way to play this set of circumstances is to play the probabilities, diversify well, and stick with sound fundamentals. The best places to be will be the countries that get these fundamentals right: the ones that educate their people well, so that they are skilled and civil, in an atmosphere of opportunity; with strong national income statements and balance sheets, with internal order rather than disorder... low risk of being in an international war, low risks from destructive acts of Nature, and that will benefit most from changes in technology...
Unfortunately, I believe that the chances of mutual cooperation (between the Parties in the USA) for our collective benefit are not good... We know from history that extreme factionalism kills. .. Hopefully, this picture makes people worry and motivates them to do what is still in their power to improve things.
If you're not worried, you need to be, and if you're worried, you don't need to worry. That's because worrying about the things that can go wrong will protect you, while not worrying about them will leave you exposed".
as a fan of dalio's efforts (but not in agreement with all), i have to point out one thing.
dalio NEVER made an outsized case for gold until well after it climbed above US$2k/oz.
and i listened to a lot of his interviews up until ~2022.
imho, dalio simply considered gold a typical low correlation asset for decades to keep in the 5-10% range , but absolutely nothing special until very recently.
this discredits his claims on avoiding decisions based on very short time periods.
For more than 25 years, I’ve followed the same core approach: concentrate, not diversify, into leading categories or funds. Earlier, I did this with stock funds. Since 2017–2018, I’ve applied the same strategy primarily to bond funds. Flexible thinking is a must.
Two simple examples:
In early 2023, CLOs looked particularly attractive, so I allocated a very large percentage of my portfolio to them and held that position through the end of 2025.
In early 2025, emerging market and international bonds began showing similar strength. For nearly a year now, I’ve maintained a significant allocation there. Prior to these periods, I had never invested directly in CLOs or EM/international bonds.
When risk levels are elevated, I move to money market funds. Capital preservation comes first.
I don’t believe that simply owning 10 different funds and doing nothing automatically protects someone. Diversification alone is not enough.
I’ve also never been convinced by alternative funds based on their actual performance, but in recent years, the results are much better, and you must switch to better funds/categories.
+1
For months now I've posted that Value, and international stocks have been doing better. I also pointed out weeks ago that after 3 bad years for SCHD, it is doing much better.
All you have to do is watch generic indexes and invest there.
https://schrts.co/QMMbSwkZ
i made billions off timing crypto on both long and short sides. no one can do better, because they don't have the volatility.
some of those billions are on a hard disk i lost somewhere after the gfc, but i am still the rightful owner.
although i have my secrets, anyone reading vague hints all over the internet could have done the same.
plus, presidents and other intn'l criminals supporting bitcoin make me rich.
financial laundering is a durable and growthy industry. the more we mix it with traditional assets, the higher it will go and harder it will be to disentangle. and barron hasnt been wrong yet, so i hope he is getting military enlistment advice from dad.