One one hand Ray Dalio claims China is the ascendant power. On the other hand Peter Zeihan continues to argue, China's collapse is already under way. I tend to side with Zeihan on the issue, however that does not mean Ray Dalio is wrong about the state of the United States. One 'empire' can collapse without another filling the vacuum right away.
Here's what Peter Zeihan is saying about China today:
Earlier I posted Peter Zeihan's take on the prospects of a transition to clean energy electricity in various places. Here's Ray Dalio on how it gets paid (spoiler, it's not good news):
If you don't know who he is, Ray Dalio is a billionaire investor and hedge fund manager. In 2005, his hedge fund became the largest in the world. He's argued for a tweaking of capitalism since, even though it's the best system out there, it's not working for most Americans; if unchecked, it can have a tendency to increase the Wealth Gap. But where he really has some interesting points to make is about the changing world order.
I've always argued that all things are cyclical; seasons, economic cycles, and empires, among other things. Ray Dalio makes the same argument here, about the changing world order, using 500 years of data to support his macroscopic thesis. He looks at the rise of China and decline of America from that perspective. Thankfully, he like me, believes that the current trend is not an indelible, unchangeable inevitability.
This reinforces the brilliance of the founding fathers in America. They foresaw the need to protect Americans from their own government. Even though the protections they provided have been chipped away and steadily eroded over time, the initial principles were brilliant. They clearly should have been steadfastly maintained rather manipulated over time to suit expedience or the ambitions of individuals or groups.
But the founding fathers focused on governance. They did not do as much good for economics. This is where an economic Renaissance, not in GDP but in economic Enlightenment needs to happen, and urgently, before there is no longer any chance for it. It does not portend a move away from capitalism but a reinvigoration of the greatest economic system devised so far in history. It requires more thought, and a way to ensure more economic opportunity for all rather than a growing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few; for in that lie the seeds of self-destruction.
