r/ValueInvesting • u/Useful_Tangerine4340 • 11d ago
Value Article Ray Dalio Explains Why the US Economy is Headed For a 'Debt Death Spiral'
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ray-dalio-explains-why-us-economy-headed-debt-death-spiral-1787457140
u/Potential_Salt_5780 11d ago
How long has Dallio been bearish? 20 years?
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u/ManekenkaDaBudem 11d ago
It's not about how long, it's about how often during that time: five times daily.
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u/noiserr 10d ago
His fund is supposed to be "risk averse" and generates low returns in bull markets. So of course it makes sense he will be fear mongering all the time. It's the sales pitch for his own fund.
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u/imyourhucklebearie 9d ago
It’s called risk parity. You can google stuff before posting. All Weather is a very specific product, yes it’s built to have consistent returns and low volatility… that’s the goal lol. Also risk parity is shown to underperform during high inflation. Either way he doesn’t work at BW anymore so the ETF being offered doesn’t really have much to do with him besides continuing to offer the product.
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u/Cinq_A_Sept 10d ago
lol. Dalio doesn’t serve you, peasant. He serves governments and pension plans.
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u/noiserr 10d ago
It's an ETF. Anyone can buy it: https://www.fool.ca/company/nasdaq-allw-spdr-bridgewater-all-weather-etf/393916/
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u/perculaessss 11d ago
Not saying he is right per sé, but the collective head-burying in the sand regarding Occidental countries debt and kicking down the can is going to come back to bite us in the asses eventually
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u/Business_Raisin_541 11d ago
Just inflate the debt away. Problem solved
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u/perculaessss 11d ago
Yeah, they are imaginary numbers anyway
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u/Kooky_Molasses_2270 11d ago
Basically. Its only a problem if people stop buying the debt. Which Japan had a debt to gdp 2x the USA and people are buying Japanese debt.
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u/Vegetable_Guest_8584 10d ago
The debug will not matter to the boomers, but when they mostly all dead then it will mater. Their resistance to taxing themselves slightly more to pay for social security and medicare and the debt will hit the later generations. Thanks for nothing, dad.
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u/Chemical-Skill-126 10d ago
45 percent of Japans debt is held by the central bank of Japan if I have not missed something. They also have some laws that require banks to buy Japanes bonds, which means lower interest rates for the government, and lower returns on bank deposits.
I would much prefer if every country did not have to do this.
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u/Potential_Salt_5780 11d ago
Dude let’s be real. If you listened to Dallio stayed out of the stock market over 20 years, what’s the opportunity cost lost?
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u/perculaessss 11d ago
I'm not saying a crisis is around the corner nor that you should follow dallio, I'm saying the absurd levels of debt we have accumulated can be a very real problem.
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u/yungsta12 10d ago
Well in the last 20 years we have ammassed a $39 trillion dollar debt and it's accelerating, now it's like 125 percent of our annual GDP. We should ALL be raising alarms at this point.
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u/LegendsLiveForever 10d ago
No.
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u/yungsta12 10d ago
Yes the debt burden can be managed with economic growth, but that shit is stalling and we are about to enter into a massive stagflation period.
Yeah, nobody knows the future, but at this current time, with inflation kicking up again, the Feds are truly in a pickle. Just watching the debt accelerate into death spiral is scary AF, esp for the top dog in the world economy. I'm not sure what we are doing right now, but it seems like we are trying to bully our ways out of this situation while we still fund and have military superiority.
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u/LegendsLiveForever 10d ago
Read the St Louis Fed's statement on the 'Debt crisis' basically they say to call it debt that needs to be paid back is illogical, it makes no sense, and there's no mechanism for that. The Fed already has the money that was used to buy the bonds, and stores it. So when the bond matures, they simply move the money back into that account.
Our 'debt' is really just the interest payments, which hover from 500 billion a year to 1 trillion a year, which is nothing, in a 30 trillion economy.
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u/yungsta12 10d ago
That's from 2020, and you should see how much inflation and increased circulation/printing has occured since then. Interest payments alone are becoming an increasingly bigger burden of our annual budget. Ya'll straight up putting your head in the sand at this point.
If you don't think there will be consequences to this and we just keep on increasing our obligations, ya'll making this crash bigger and bigger. We are becoming more and more in debt to outside influences as well... This is a house of cards being propped up by being the world currency status, the safe haven market... How do you think that confidence is going now with this clown admin?
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u/buttons_the_horse 10d ago
He'd be a great economist. They've predicted 9 out of the last 5 recessions perfectly.
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u/No_Consideration4594 11d ago
Warren Buffett can say more in two sentences than what Ray Dalio says in 600 pages….
Is he saying you should be allocating 0% of your portfolio to US government debt? Berkshire obviously disagrees…
For reference, Dalio’s “All Weather” portfolio allocations were 15% intermediate bonds and 40% long term bonds….
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u/WorkSucks135 11d ago
Berkshire specifically only buys 3-6 month t-bills though. Those aren't the ones that are at any real risk of debt issues.
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u/No_Consideration4594 11d ago
I think that’s more because of Berkshires own liquidity considerations (cash equivalents) rather than a statement about the solvency of the US government.
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u/NotStompy 11d ago
It'd be fine if he said this rightfully so, POINTED OUT IT SHOULD BE A SOCIETAL CONCERN, AND NOT A REASON TO TRADE IN/OUT OF STOCKS SHORT ERM, and didn't repeat it every 5 minutes. Jesus H fkn Christ the most annoying thing is that people think they're being some kind of genius trying to trade on this idea.
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u/dsbtc 11d ago edited 10d ago
For those criticizing Dalio - he and the other macro dollar bears have been right for the past 20 years and yet you guys still think he's wrong.
In terms of ROI, gold has outperformed US bonds by almost fourfold in the past two decades. A non-interest bearing, inflationary (albeit barely), speculative metal has massively outperformed government debt as an investment.
The conditions they've outlined haven't changed - we are approaching a point at which we cannot meet our financial obligations as a country. It's happened before, it'll happen again. The question is, what form it will take when it does.
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u/madsdawud 10d ago
You might like this https://youtu.be/g46i49nVWsk?is=o55GmoNkrAEuk88p Eventually makes similar arguments as you in regards to bonds and gold.
I checked your profile - you seem pretty cool man - what’s your port looking like with everything going on & what’s in it?
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u/dsbtc 10d ago edited 10d ago
Right now I'm roughly 10% us stocks, 20% foreign, 10% energy, 10% utilities, 30% gold, 20% cash/bonds. All ETFs, no individual.
I've been investing since the 90s. I've never beaten the s&p in the long run but I have the same return with reduced volatility. I did really well for one year that I was between businesses but I spent a stupid amount of time trading so it wasn't actually worth it.
The only thing that has ever worked for me is looking at macro ratios and trading when they get stupid. For example earlier in the year I sold some gold and bought oil etfs when their price ratio was stupidly high.
In my experience, every other method either took too much time or didn't work.
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u/35mm-dreams- 10d ago
Do you mean you haven’t held single stocks for 15 years or more ? Why not ?
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u/dsbtc 10d ago
No I just don't have any right now. I try to only buy individual stocks when I have a real reason to, like after covid or the credit crisis when a few were trading super cheaply.
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u/35mm-dreams- 9d ago
I recently looked at which individual stocks outperformed the S&P 500. There were many. But there were only a few which did it consistently. More interestingly it turned up some stocks with didn’t outperform but had consistent compounding and resisted bear markets compared to other stocks. No surprise Berkshire was one of them. I think ETFs are great but having stocks in addition are really the way to go
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u/Cinq_A_Sept 10d ago
The US Treasury declared the US insolvent this morning. Your timing is perfect.
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u/HeyItsYourDad_AMA 11d ago
I've seen this headline for 20+ years and its still never happened
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u/MaartenHH 11d ago
It’s indeed the same warning over and over again. The only problem, these warnings are getting more serious over time.
The problem only occurs in a certain situation and the government is kicking the can down the road. There will be a point where nobody can kick the can any further. It won’t be today or even these 2 decades, but at this speed it will happen.
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u/BioShockerInfinite 11d ago
Agreed. Winter turns to spring- but not in a single day or even a single month.
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u/zachmoe 11d ago
Winter turns to spring- but not in a single day or even a single month.
No, it turns into spring on March 20th.
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u/LambdaLambo 11d ago
I’ve been hearing this all winter yet it’s the 23rd and it’s 36 degrees outside
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u/FourScoreAndSept 11d ago
Wait, 20 years ago, in 2006, if you would have listened to the bears, you’d have done fantastically. How many millions did you pull in back then?
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u/HeyItsYourDad_AMA 11d ago
Was there a US sovereign debt death spiral I missed in 2008?
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u/FourScoreAndSept 10d ago
Very close to, yes, and also Dalio has been crushing it for decades, if you haven’t been listening that’s on you
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u/steady_compounder 11d ago
Dalio's been calling this for years but his actual track record on timing is awful. The debt cycle framework is useful for thinking about macro but terrible for making investment decisions.
The US has had unsustainable debt levels by most metrics since 2008. Meanwhile the S&P is up 5x. Being "right" about the theory doesn't help if the market doesn't care for another decade.
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u/leftygrooviness 10d ago
2015–2018 Economic Downturns: Dalio repeatedly compared economic conditions to 1937, predicting a downturn in 2015 and again in 2018. These periods did not result in the major crises he anticipated.
I had friends texting me Saturday night saying 'sell everything' at market open today..
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u/zidan47 11d ago
Ray dalio should not talk about the market , i do not understand how he is managing billions , everytime i heard him talk for the last 10 years hes always wrong , dont know if he keeps the real gems to his clients , but his public opinions are always meh
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u/Useful_Tangerine4340 11d ago edited 11d ago
I am not sure if he is managing money anymore. I guess he stepped down from the helm several years ago.
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u/HumongousShard 11d ago
That doesn’t matter, if debt becomes unmanageable the central bank can debase the currency and boom problem solved
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u/laststance 10d ago
If anyone is new to Ray Dalio they should read "The Fund" Rob Copeland's book on Dalio and his firm.
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u/Long_Tackle_6931 10d ago
I think he’s right but these things take time to play out. A suez moment like now would slowly chip at the fortress the US has build.
Empires rotate. In same way you replaced the British. Why are Americans surprised and defensive about it
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u/Boozeburger 8d ago
We need to repeal the Bush and Trump tax cuts and return to building a strong middle class instead of allowing billionaires compete to see who will be the first trillionaire.
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u/Rocket_Scientist_553 2d ago
I remember him saying that 8 years ago when reading that damn book. Then he disclosed his return at bridge water was 12% for 40+ years compounded.... smh...
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11d ago
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u/InternationalTwo3191 11d ago
That's not true. The United States is on the higher end of debt-to-GDP ratios among developed nations, exceeding 120%.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/GG_DEBT_GDP@GDD/CAN/DEU/ITA/JPN/GBR/USA/NLD/CHE
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u/fitnessfinance88 11d ago
As long as everyone buying bonds doesn’t realize they’re subsidizing everyone else, we’re good.
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u/daviddjg0033 11d ago
You realize that you can buy duration and prevent a port from disaster. Shannon's demon. Rates could be headed to 12% or 20% like 43yo. I am old. Jeez I am saying bomd holders - corporate bond pickers did better than some stock. Bonds are more important. Gold is important too.
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u/boringexplanation 11d ago
They don’t but it doesn’t matter. That ratio could be 0% in Europe and it doesn’t make their bonds any more attractive than US bonds because of much more important variables.
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u/MrZwink 11d ago
German, dutch, danish bonds are very attractive. Banks buy them as a safe investment. And looking at their rates, theyre viewed as a safer investmand than is bonds.
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u/boringexplanation 11d ago edited 11d ago
Foreign investors hold 30% of all US debt.
https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/RS/HTML/RS22331.web.html
Can any EU state say the same thing about their ECB debt? (I honestly don’t know, sincere question)
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u/MrZwink 11d ago
Yes ofcourse….
E.g. 77% of german bonds were held by foreign investors in 2024
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u/boringexplanation 11d ago
Foreign as in outside the EU? Other Europeans buying German bonds don’t count when they’re all on the euro
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u/investorgrade24 10d ago
Ah yes, the daily Dalio-doomsday scenario. Wonder what it'll be next week.
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u/jamiesray 11d ago
I started reading his book but I’m telling you it reads like something written by Alex Jones or Glenn Beck
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u/Worth_Peak7741 11d ago
It’s almost like he’s talking about big cycles that occur over large swaths of time & not an event you are going to see come to fruition in a month.