“This book is a gift to humanity….Ray provides a solution to what is the biggest and most
certain threat to our prosperity.” —Henry M. Paulson Jr. “An invaluable resource for
policymakers investors and citizens.” —Lawrence H. Summers An urgent warning about the
American economy from Ray Dalio the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Principles .
Do big government debts threaten our collective well-being? Are there limits to debt growth?
Can a big important reserve currency country like the United States really go broke—and what
would that look like? For decades politicians policymakers and investors have debated
these questions but the answers have eluded them. In this groundbreaking book Ray Dalio one
of the greatest investors of our time who anticipated the 2008 global financial crisis and the
2010–12 European debt crisis shares for the first time his detailed explanation of what he
calls the “Big Debt Cycle.” Understanding this cycle is critical for helping policymakers
investors and the general public grasp where we are and where we are headed with the debt
issue. Dalio’s model points toward surprisingly straightforward solutions for dealing with the
debt problems that the US Europe Japan and China face today. How Countries Go Broke also
shows how these debt problems are related to the other forces—political within countries
geopolitical between countries natural (droughts floods and pandemics) and technological
(most importantly AI)—that together are causing what Dalio calls the “Overall Big Cycle”
changes in the world order. By reading this book you will improve your understanding of what’s
happening now and what to do about it.
