Ray Dalio Warns of US Debt Crisis Within Three Years

Joining us now is Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and one of the world's foremost thinkers on debt cycles, market bubbles, and a changing world order. Ray Dalio, good to have you with us. Good to have you on Insight. It's always a pleasure to be here. Ray, you always talk about the five forces, one of which is the debt cycle. We have a US with a debt of... In excess of $40 trillion. No wonder, not quite surprising, that thirty year yields are headed towards 6%. How are you reading what's happening there? I think it's just important to understand the mechanics. That's why I wrote the book, how countries go broke, because there's a mechanical process and people don't understand it. And it's really quite simple. The way it works for countries is the same it works for individuals except countries can print money. Okay. But one man's debts are another man's liability. So what happens is when debts accumulate faster than they're paid back, then debt service costs grow. And so that becomes a higher and higher percentage of one's cash flow. And when that happens, it starts to squeeze out spending, and so then you have a problem. So in the United States, so we have that dynamic as it squeezes it out. Then also one man's assets or another man's liabilities for debt. And so you have to think about what are they holding, and is it holding wealth, and is it effective? So those are the two drivers. And so what we're seeing now, for example, on the US debt is that we spend about 7 trillion a year. Think about this like a business or an individual. They spend 7. Okay? They take in 5. Okay? Spending 40% more than they're taking in, and they've been doing that for a number of years. So as a result, debt and debt service payments are building, and as a result, they they are squeezing out the the spending. So we have that kind of a dynamic going on. Then we also have, one man's debts or another man's assets. And so when you see interest rates rise naturally because of this supply demand imbalance, it produces losses in those assets. And so think about bonds as an asset to hold and how bad bonds have been as interest rates rise, and that has an effect. So we have that normal picture from when you were trading. Right? Because, I mean, you benefited from investing in government debt for a very long time, for fifty years. Yeah. Would you do it differently this time around? There's always a long and short depending on the nature of the cycle. Right? When things get worse. But what we have now is a situation where there's the rate at which it's compounding, the size of it. Well, you know, why does market go down? The market goes down because there's too much debt, and we're adding to it at that rate. So... And then we're approaching our limits. Okay? And then there are geopolitical changes. You know? The United States could run large deficits. But now because of conflicts, we also have a dynamic in which those who wanna hold US debt, they're holding too much already. So we have that dynamic going on. And you could see it. If you were to just calculate, which is in the book I wrote, you know, how countries go broke, the big cycle. It it shows how that debt service payment then is squeezing out spending, and so you can see that dynamic work. So is a debt crisis imminent in the US with yields... Thirty year yields headed towards six. Yes. In other words Within the next twenty four months, thirty six months? I think within the next three years. What what we have is that issue of, that squeezing it out. And, so when you take a look at literally what that means and then what the impact of that is gonna be on asset prices and, interest rates matter. So you have a a boom which is concentrated in one area, really, that is heavily, debt finance didn't used to be. But you could see as that debt cycle happens that what happens is increasingly where it used to be equity, now you have to go to debt, and, that plays a bigger role. Ray, you gotta wonder if 6% is just a psychological level, or would 6% carry a lot of macroeconomic risk? How might that play out if we get to six? And is six actually the ceiling? Might we see six and a half? I think I think that, you don't look at the interest rate. It'll have an effect. Of course, you look at the interest rate. But what I mean is you look at what is the amount of savings, what is the total amount of capital, and what is the demand for capital. And when you get that imbalance, that supply demand imbalance, then you have to have the price of it go up until you ration that demand. So you have to ask yourself, what is it that's going to be rationed in in that? And and so then we're dealing with... It's not gonna be government deficits because they're inelastic. In other words, in fact, if you had a worse economy, they would increase. So then you find out who are the sectors that are squeezed out. Is it housing? Housing would be quick. But with such a large difference in financial conditions of the wealthy and the poor, you're going to see that happening more at the lower end of that spectrum. So is it auto loans? Is it, those kinds of loans then get squeezed out first, and, something like data centers, come later. And so that's why you start to have more of a wealth conflict because, then the the people who have get squeezed the most in that part of the cycle. Given the current environment, you have said before that capital isn't necessarily gravitating towards he US anymore. Where is it going, instead? Well, the magnitude. We're talking about the the enormous magnitude. So, yes, the United States now is running large deficits, and it is receiving a lot of capital. However, that because of the changes, foreign capital represents about a third, almost a third in the amount of money that we're relying on in terms of debt. And that is also then coming... Has been coming from the Chinese and the Japanese. They've constituted a high percentage of that debt. And so... And then there were other countries, the Middle East, and so on. But they're starting to get squeezed. And also, there are these geopolitical issues that enter into the bit. So the Chinese don't want to continue to accumulate. There are geopolitical issues as well as economic issues. When you have a debtor creditor relationship and you have an adversary relationship, that's a very difficult dynamic, particularly the sizes. And then Japan, Japan has lent a lot of money because of, other, desires to change their economic policies in ways that I would describe. They've lent a lot of money. Now they want to take back some of that money, a lot of that. So not only do you have the total size being very large, the size of our deficits are very large, and and total financing needs is very large Because it's not just the fist... The fiscal deficit of the government, it is also the AI and other large expenditures. So where does that saving come from? That comes from those sources which are tightening. And that's why you're seeing the changes in interest rates. In other words, the interest rates change. It's like the... It is the cost of money. And when there's a supply demand imbalance, you see then interest rates rise to ration credit, and that's what we're seeing.