Money is debt, and debt is money. It confuses a lot of people when I say that, but the mechanics are fairly straightforward.

A debt instrument is just a promise to deliver money in the future. What that money is worth determines the value of what you’re holding.

That’s why currency valuation is so critical, and why I think people need to pay more attention to it when thinking about the broader economy. @nikhil.kamath

There are few things that are more important for the health of the world than the health of U.S.-China relations and the health of our oceans. For over 40 years, I have cared deeply about both, so for me this goodwill mission @OceanX just completed bringing together American and Chinese students and early-career scientists has been a dream come true.

At this stage in my life, my main goal is to pass along the principles that I have learned that have helped me. Those principles are especially valuable now because the times we are in are so risky. I’m sharing these principles in a bunch of ways—from writing my books and articles to sharing them on social media—and am excited to be joining the new @masterclass Executive program along with other great instructors. Recording the class was a real kick. The first round of sign-ups closes soon, so if you’re interested you can learn more here: https://www.masterclass.com/executive

Throughout history, all fiat currencies eventually face the same pressures. When debt grows faster than income and money needs to be created to fill the gap, the value of that money changes.

This isn’t a prediction—it’s a pattern that has repeated many times. Understanding how these systems work helps you think more clearly about what comes next.

There’s a stage in life where you compete and build, and a stage where you pass along what you’ve learned – I am firmly in the latter.

I sat down with @DavidRubenstein to discuss how writing has truly helped to decode and refine my decision-making, and how this practice has inspired me to spread the knowledge I’ve amassed over the last 50 years.

I hope these principles help you build your own game plan for the future.

When you’ve been in the markets for as long as I have, you tend to become a hyperrealist.

I’m not idealistic so I don’t get demoralized by things that happen. Instead, I view everything as a learning experience. Things that happen are interesting and informative and can tell you a lot about the various systems at play.

That’s my view in general, and it’s also how I feel about the decisions that continue to raise the US debt.

Over time, wealth has become much bigger than money. Money is just a tool.

What matters is how that tool translates into real outcomes—freedom, resilience, and the ability to make decisions without being forced by circumstance.

That’s how I think about wealth.

When an empire runs out of its own money, it is able to increase the supply of money. However, printing more money causes borrowing to increase creating a financial bubble. I urge you to watch “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order” on my YouTube channel in the comments below to understand how, and what it means for all of us.

If I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be this: Your capacity to learn is far greater than your current knowledge.

Many people let the need to be "smart" get in the way of open-mindedness. But if you can view life as an adventure and approach disagreement with curiosity instead of anger, you’ll find yourself evolving to higher and higher levels.

#principles #raydalio #advice #20s #30s

If you’re interested in learning about my most important investment and economic principles, I designed a course to help you do just that.

It’s called the Dalio Market Principles Online program — a 30-hour curriculum I designed, in partnership with @Wealth Management Institute (WMI).

You’ll learn about the forces that drive markets and asset returns, economic and currency cycles, paradigm shifts, and more. Better yet, you’ll get to test your own thinking in our portfolio simulator so you can learn from your mistakes and be better prepared for the future.

I hope you’ll check it out, if you’re interested here: https://wmi.edu.sg/dmp-online/?utm_source=raydalio_youtube&utm_medium=social_profile&utm_campaign=dmp_program_alwayson&utm_content=channel_banner_link

There are five major forces that together, operate in a big cycle:

– Financial force – money, debts, markets, economy
– Domestic political force – internal order and disorder, wealth gaps, and conflict between the left and the right
– International world order force – great power conflicts as rising power challenges
– Humans’ inventiveness force– Advances in technology
– Acts of nature force – droughts, floods, and pandemics

We can use these forces to understand the reality that we are now living out, and to understand the risks of where we are headed. @allin

#principles #bigcycle #fiveforces

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to distinguish between what you can control and what you can’t.

You’ll lead a much happier life if you’re able to focus your energy on the things you can influence — like how you treat others — and also learn how to adapt well to everything else.

I’ve found that this perspective has provided me with a lot of equanimity.

After studying over 500 years of history, I’ve found there are really only three things you need to do to build a healthy society.

First, educate your young people well—not just to be capable, but to be civil. If you have capable, civil people in a productive society, that’s a big part of the battle. Second, the finances must be sound: earn more than you spend and have more assets than liabilities. And third, don’t get into a war—internally or externally.

If you can do those three things, you can have a prosperous, self-reinforcing society. #principles #us #society

When new technologies emerge, people often assume the winning technology automatically means winning investments. History shows us that’s rarely the case.

Most companies disappear as competition sorts out the winners and losers, but the underlying technology will endure and continue transforming the world.

So are we in an AI bubble? Yes. But that has nothing to do with the lasting power of this innovation. @allin #ai #bubble #raydalio

I’ve found that most wars are filled with surprises, but the stakes of this conflict are obvious: it all comes down to who controls the Strait of Hormuz.

We’ve seen this pattern before—with the Dutch in the 17th century and the British in 1956. When a world power reveals military and financial weakness, the world order shifts.

In my latest article, I look at the mechanics of the current Middle East crisis. You can find it here: https://raydalio.substack.com/p/it-all-comes-down-to-who-controls?r=7i6zcq

I’m at a stage in my life in which I want to pass along the investment and economic principles I’ve learned. That’s why I created the Dalio Market Principles Online program, in partnership with @wealthmanagementinstitute .

This online program is a collaborative experience. In it, you will be part of a community dedicated to understanding the patterns of history and applying market principles to them. And you’ll be able to stress test your thinking across different environments and time periods all while learning my fundamental principles about how the markets work and having a chance to come up with your own principles.

I believe that the times ahead will be radically different from those we have experienced in our lifetimes, though similar to many times in history. This program will

AI shouldn’t be something you just "follow"—it’s a partnership.

The idea that we can make the best possible decisions by just juggling everything in our own heads is becoming obsolete. To really excel today, you need a thought partner. You need a system that can help you process information and logic more effectively than you can alone.

I’ve codified my 50 years of experience into a new tool called Digital Ray to act as your personal thought partner. Try the Digital Ray beta here: digitalray.ai/guest?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=digital+ray+beta

The most important early lesson I learned was to write down my criteria for making investment decisions so that I could turn them into decision rules.

That’s because I discovered I could express my decision-making criteria in the form of algorithms that I could embed into computers. By running both decision-making systems — i.e., mine in my head and mine in the computer — next to each other, I learned the computer could make better decisions than me because it could process vastly more information than I could, and it could do it faster and unemotionally.

That insight helped me get out of my own head and make better decisions over time. @nikhil.kamath

In order to have successful capital markets, you see the same things happen again and again.

Since one man’s debts are another man’s assets, you have to keep interest rates not so high that they crush the debtor, without having them so low that they are bad for the creditor.

That leads to cycles of money creation and borrowing that are predictable.

These cycles must happen, due to the nature of the dynamic around them. Understanding the underlying mechanics driving these patterns can help you understand what is likely to happen next.

Last week, I shared a chapter from my 2021 book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order that details the classic signs to watch for as the world geopolitical order breaks down in a classic progression of events that I call the "Big Cycle." By knowing what this classic process looks like and then comparing it with what is happening, one can better understand what is happening and what might happen. The article was very popular, getting more than 75 million views, and a number of people asked what it all meant for investing.

Because so many people asked, I am now passing along to you the book’s next chapter, "Investing in Light of the Big Cycle." I think that it gives a good perspective on investing at this time. You can read the full chapter here:

In my stage of life, I’m enjoying passing along the principles and thoughts that are helping me in order to help others. I’ve been doing that in my books and videos and here on social media, and I love our back-and-forth exchanges. To build on this, I will also be sharing my articles for free on Substack here: https://raydalio.substack.com/ for those readers who prefer that platform.

These articles will be about principles, tools, and what’s going on with life, work, economics, markets, politics, the changing world order, AI, the Big Cycle, and other such things. I look forward to continuing to get your thoughts and discussing these things with you.

#newsletter #raydalio #principles

At the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, the post-1945 world order was pronounced dead by most leaders. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, “The world order as it has stood for decades no longer exists,” and that we are in a period “great power politics.” French President Emmanuel Macron echoed Merz’s assessment and said that Europe’s old security structures tied to the previous world order don’t exist and that Europe must prepare for war. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that we are in a “new geopolitics era” because the “old world” is gone.

The way I see it, we are in the Stage 6 part of the Big Cycle in which there is great disorder arising from being in a period in which there are no rules, might is right, and there is a clash of great powers. How Stage

The secret to longevity is having meaningful work and meaningful relationships. I’ve found that both are required to sustain the energy to keep operating at a high level.

That’s because you need a genuine, shared passion to make what you’re doing as great as it can be. And you need to pursue that work with people you genuinely care about and who genuinely care about you.

If you have those two things working in tandem, you have the basis for a life of continuous evolution, which is ultimately what longevity is all about.

#longevity #raydalio #principles

Wealth isn’t worth anything unless it can be converted into money to spend.

And when there’s a lot of wealth relative to the amount of hard money available — like we’re seeing today — bubbles are created.
@nikhil.kamath

The changes in the US over the last decade — rising inequality, massive deficits, and a shifting global outlook — are not isolated events. They are all interconnected and part of a dynamic that has occurred many times before for largely the same reasons.

Understanding the mechanics at play matters far more than reacting to any short-term noise.

Studying these patterns can help you understand why populism of the right and the left is rising around the world, and why so many find it difficult to resolve their seemingly irreconcilable differences.

At least, that’s how I see it. I’m curious to hear if you agree.

All empires since the Dutch have used capitalism to create a virtuous cycle that leads to an empire’s demise.What happens when an empire can no longer borrow the money necessary to repay its debts? History shows us that having too much debt during an economic downturn leads to a classic, self-reinforcing cycle where:

1) The empire can no longer borrow the money to repay its debts
2) It prints a lot of new money, which devalues the currency and raises inflation
3) Living standards decline, leading to the rise of political extremism
4) Turbulent economic conditions undermine productivity and there is conflict about how to divide the shrinking resources
5) Populist leaders emerge pledging to take control and bring about order

Ultimately, this failure to control the anarchy is when

All assets are valued in the same way: Their appreciation in price and their yield.

Thinking about assets like this allows you to compare them. That’s important, because when you’re looking at the markets, you don’t want to just think about the absolute return. You want to be short on the assets that will have lower returns relative to those that will have higher returns. @nikhil.kamath

I’ve always tried to systemize everything I did. I wrote down my criteria and decision rules to help me see the bigger picture and make better decisions.

That’s why I’ve used AI to create a digital twin to help me reach people looking for coaching or mentorship. It’s currently in beta testing — sign up if you want to have a conversation to see what it’s like.

Is it harder to start today? 📉

The truth is, the environment has changed. You need more resources for compliance and regulation than I did when I started. But the core principle remains: Money follows talent.
If you have the ideas and can demonstrate the logic behind them, the capital will find you. That’s how I went from playing the markets as a kid to managing an account for the World Bank.

Are you focused on the money, or are you focused on the talent? Let me know in the comments. 👇

How do people make decisions? It works pretty much the same way for all of us.

Your brain takes in information and puts it through a set of criteria that determine action.

Those criteria are the cause-effect relationships that exist all around us. Understanding how they work is critical, because causes lead to effects. And if you understand the causes, you can bet on the effects. @nikhil.kamath