
The Changing World Order - mtm7
https://www.principles.com/the-changing-world-order/#introduction
======
prostheticvamp
I couldn’t tolerate this writing long enough to get through more than half the
article. There’s the “history is cyclical” trope, the “I have learned how to
read history” repeated self-aggrandizement without any specifics, despite
going on long enough to repeat himself, and really obvious statements meant to
read like profundity (“when there’s great inequality of wealth, there will be
social tensions”, paraphrasing only slightly.)

I read a book by him once. It was short and vapid and full of pseudo-
profundity. It was cheap and highly rated on Amazon, so I’d given it a try. I
didn’t realize he was banking on his name as an investor. Now I understand why
anyone would bother reading his writing once, but not why they would read it
twice.

~~~
sameerds
On the flip side, the writing has an increasingly rare property that the whole
article (essay?) is divided into sections with proper titles. More often than
not, I lose patience and give up on most articles these days, simply because
there are no visual markers when scrolling through. I have no way to know
where to stop and scan a few lines as I scroll through ... it's all just a
continuous torrent of words and sentences.

------
eointierney
The world order, in terms of socio-economic and politico-legal structures, is
for sure changing, but it's more a matter of demographics and communication.

We have shattered certain assumptions about the world economy to ensure the
continuing welfare of the oldest of us. This is an unprecedented act of
selflessness by everyone younger than seventy-ish, because we love our elders
so.

The real change in the world order is logistical, which has caused significant
re-pricings of almost everything (even the things that are roughly the same
price are so in a very different set of market conditions).

It is no longer a matter of how nations compete but how they collaborate, and
the markets are adjusting accordingly.

I'm quite optimistic, but then I study Science.

[Edit (apart from mis-spellings)]:

The shattered assumptions pertain to debt management by governments, which are
trivial compared to the volume of daily trading. We are in for a reckoning on
resource measurement hopefully not of catastrophic proportions and this
pandemic is merely a spur. In a nutshell: money fails dimensional analysis.

[Edit the second]:

By the way, if any of you would like to get together and discuss type theory
and dimensional analysis and maybe reach out to the folk on the n-category
cafe and lambdatheultimate and suchlike I'll happily help. We've a problem
needs solving and Hacker News is populated by folk who like solving problems.
I'll end (cheekily, give it a search engine result) with a reference to
Terence Tao: A mathematical formalisation of dimensional analysis. I keep
coming back to this blogpost. The subject kinda weirds me out.

[Edit the third]:

Removed the first paragraph as snarky, mea culpa

~~~
dforrestwilson
Lots of people seem to believe that Ray Dalio knows anything, with anymore
certainty than we do.

In financial circles the man is not taken seriously, and allegations of fraud
have been whispered for years now.

I would be curious to know why anyone believes that Ray Dalio should be taken
seriously here?

~~~
thedudeabides5
I’ve worked personally w Ray and can attest he’s the real deal.

If the “financial circles” you run with don’t respect $100bn+ AUM, there not
really “financial circles,” sorry.

If you want to make up your own mind, take a look at their work on debt
crises. Sometimes hard to see how it connects to day to day trading, but not
the hallmarks of a fraud.

[https://www.bridgewater.com/big-debt-crises/Principles-
For-N...](https://www.bridgewater.com/big-debt-crises/Principles-For-
Navigating-Big-Debt-Crises-By-Ray-Dalio.pdf)

All that being said, still think he’s wrong about China.

~~~
dforrestwilson
Thanks appreciate the perspective. What kind of work did you do if you don’t
mind saying?

------
airstrike
> a rising world power (China) challenging the overextended existing world
> power (the US)

This is a pretty bold claim, at least for now. People have been claiming this
is the case for decades, but I still don't see it.

Western (US / EU) demand is what drives China's growth.

Technology in China is still by and large imported / copied.

The West can move manufacturing back home (or anywhere else with cheap labor)
and China's economic prowess will be severely undermined.

China doesn't have a whole lot of leverage – it's cheap and convenient, but
its cheap labor is easily replaceable, while Western demand (mostly US,
really) and its technology are not.

EDIT: Additionally, the balance of power used to change much more frequently
back when we didn't have nuclear weapons. From the introduction, it seems this
analysis is entirely economic when it ought to also factor in politics
(domestic and international), strategy and military power.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I think at the end of the day if a country's strongest asset is its "demand",
that is, its ability to consume goods and services instead of produce them,
then i think that country is in for a world of hurt.

~~~
magicsmoke
A country's demand is linked to its supply. After all, it has to pay for the
goods it demands with something.

~~~
lonelappde
That's a very loose link in a world where fiat currency and reserve currency
exist for printing money.

~~~
magicsmoke
But not negligible. The USD wouldn't be where it is without the US economy.

------
xiaolingxiao
Highly recommend listening to this full interview:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrxYhv2O3wU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrxYhv2O3wU).
It's long but worth it, and it touches on many of the points he brings up in
the article. In fact, the interview occurred just a week after this article
was published.

------
plainOldText
I'm currently reading _Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an
Ungoverned World_ by Peter Zeihan. [1]

The book discusses the upcoming world order from a geopolitical perspective
and gives original insight into potential developments. For example, I wasn't
aware the US Navy has been securing the maritime shipping lanes, thus boosting
global trade; and if that stops, well, you can imagine the implications.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Disunited-Nations-Scramble-Power-
Ungo...](https://www.amazon.com/Disunited-Nations-Scramble-Power-
Ungoverned/dp/0062913689)

~~~
sremani
Zeihan and George Friedman are really good. After getting perspective from
reading them, prepared to be annoyed by geopolitical commentary on HN.

~~~
dang
Generic dissing of other commenters just adds noise to HN. If you know more
than others, why not share some of what you know so we all can learn?

(Edit: I originally wrote "one of the worst ways to add noise". That was
overkill; it gets worse.)

~~~
plainOldText
I beg to differ. The comment was perfectly reasonable in my view. I also
learned about someone new, namely George Friedman.

~~~
dang
You're talking about a different part of the comment.

------
seibelj
Everything Ray Dalio writes he presents like the prophet come down from high
to give us the Sacred Truths.

Dalio is a successful trader and is beyond wealthy. He’s a smart guy who has a
true interest in history. But he is just one opinion of many and he is
absolutely not saying things that are uniquely known to him.

I read the whole thing and it’s like, “Powerful countries decline! Declining
power leads to social strife!” No shit dude.

~~~
DennisP
It's not just that Dalio is a "successful trader." He runs the world's largest
hedge fund and their expertise is in predicting global macroeconomic trends.
His experience is directly relevant.

~~~
seibelj
I’m just not impressed by what he writes about in regards to “universal
principles of world history”. His credentials don’t make me assume everything
he writes is true and what he writes is long winded and obvious.

~~~
_iyig
Glad it's not just me. I'm halfway through reading the linked post, and it
seems like he hasn't yet gotten to the point.

~~~
namenotrequired
It's the introductory chapter of a book.

------
wcoenen
Chapter 2 doesn't seem to be available there yet, but Dalio did post it on his
linkedin page:

[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/money-credit-debt-ray-
dalio](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/money-credit-debt-ray-dalio)

------
dehrmann
Worth mentioning Pure Alpha was down 20% in Q1. Someone else observed Ray
Dalio has been too busy building his brand as a financial sage (cough cough)
and either not keeping his eyes on the road or he just got lucky in 2008.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-03/bridgewat...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-03/bridgewater-
s-main-hedge-fund-loses-about-20-in-first-quarter)

~~~
astrofinch
Dalio admits in this that he didn't see the pandemic coming.

------
m3kw9
Unless the US losses a major war either economical or physical they are hard
to upend because of globalization. Everything is very dependent on the US
dollar and switching it will take a lot of persuading. Like losing a world war
type persuading.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I think that the “de-dollarization” can happen gradually, with the dollar
slowly becoming a smaller portion of a bucket of currencies used for
international transactions. Even countries that want to get out from under the
dollar tax probably want this to be a slow transition.

That said, I have no idea what the next few years will look like economically.
Probably income inequality will greatly expand and I wouldn’t be surprised if
new national alliances occur.

------
dredmorbius
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------
adaisadais
“The slow one now will later be fast / for the times they are a Changin’” -Bob
Dylan

Loved reading “Principles” by Dalio. Great read.

I find it apparent that the U.S. is declining while China is in a prime
position to reach new heights. The U.S. greatest competitive advantage has
been culture which is quickly being copied by the new middle class in China.

The U.S. has allowed the wealth gap to grow to levels that are pretty scary.
The U.S. has continued to elect inept and crony politicians who wish to look
backward instead of bring the nation forward.

~~~
cscurmudgeon
> The U.S. has allowed the wealth gap to grow to levels that are pretty scary.

China has scary levels of wealth gap too. I think it is probably has more.

[https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2019/04/06/income-
inequali...](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2019/04/06/income-inequality-
is-growing-fast-in-china-and-making-it-look-more-like-the-us/)

> The U.S. has continued to elect inept and crony politicians who wish to look
> backward instead of bring the nation forward

China is perceived to much more corrupt than the US. It is not even a
competition. This index is not perfect but this is the closest we have to
measuring corruption uniformly across different systems.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index)

If the US is declining and China is ascending, why do we so many Chinese PhDs
students (many of them my friends and hate going back) who want to stay back
in the US with many years of wait time?

[https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-
bulletin/](https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-bulletin/)

Let us please stick to facts and data.

(All the falsifiable statements in this parent comment are false but for some
reason it is on top.)

~~~
seibelj
It’s amazing that someone who has a deep nuanced view of American politics and
critiques the minutia of American current events from the inside, then blindly
believes vague propaganda from China (“China united and strong! Great and
competent leader!”). Super common perspective from upper-middle class
Americans who argue on HN and Reddit.

If you don’t live in China, don’t speak Chinese, didn’t grow up in China, have
no Chinese family, then you simply have to idea what the fuck is really going
on there.

~~~
dang
Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? You have a good point
here, and this way of making it just makes everything worse.

We've had to ask you this kind of thing many times:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781294](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781294)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22543721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22543721)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343386](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343386)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740392](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740392)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010638](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010638)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17822100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17822100)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805021)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667959](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667959)

... and that's just for starters. Would you please review
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and use HN as intended from now on? I appreciate the good comments you make
here and don't want to ban you, and at the same time, there is a problem.

~~~
seibelj
Was the problem the class component? I thought it was relevant because there
is a monoculture on HN and Reddit, and most of the readers likely identified
with that.

~~~
dang
Only insofar as it's part of a putdown package. Really it's the combination of
pejorative language (especially when personal), outright insults ("blindly
believes vague propaganda"), putdowns ("super common perspective from
[etc.]"), aggressive argumentativeness (your last sentence). The whole deal.

I'd be careful about perceptions like "there is a monoculture on HN and
Reddit". Trying to pin down anything concrete about that is really slippery.
Such perceptions are notoriously in the eye of the beholder, meaning we tend
to create them without realizing it's we who are creating them, and it leads
us to do battle with our own demons. Large statistical clouds like HN (let
alone Reddit) furnish tons of material to craft demons with, far more than we
need. That makes the pictures extremely convincing—with enough degrees of
freedom you can fit any curve to any picture.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22980339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22980339)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22098687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22098687)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment)

------
tootie
Lost me in the first paragraph. Examining a history of money supply and debt
that predates Bretton-Woods is simply not relevant. Everything I read could
have been lifted from a comment thread in /r/Libertarian 10 years ago. The
last financial crisis was the ultimate test for fiat currency. One that was
pointed at as the moment that debt-driven currency would crash and burn by a
lot of gold bugs.

Instead, a deluge of loose money came and went. Banks recovered. Markets
recovered. Jobs recovered. Everything recovered. Even if the face of continued
fiscal profligacy. There is absolutely no logical conclusion that can be drawn
except for fiat currency being one of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th
century.

~~~
cheez
debasement happens all the time [https://money.visualcapitalist.com/currency-
and-the-collapse...](https://money.visualcapitalist.com/currency-and-the-
collapse-of-the-roman-empire/)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
OK, but what's your point? The US dollar doesn't seem to be debasing too badly
since 2008, despite all the new money created.

