How to Think About and Respond to Debt Crises
Ten years ago, a financial crisis shook the world. Few saw it coming and fewer were prepared to deal with its repercussions. On the eve of the anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis, Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, will reveal his and his firm Bridgewater Associates’ extensive research on debt crises in a new book, A Template for Understanding Big Debt Crises. To be released on September 10th, 2018, the book will detail Dalio’s in-depth study of how debt crises have operated throughout history, which allowed him and Bridgewater Associates to anticipate and successfully navigate the financial crisis ten years ago.
Dalio is the founder, co-Chief Investment Officer and co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates, which he founded in 1975 out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York and has since grown into the largest hedge fund in the world and the fifth most important private company in the U.S., according to Fortune. Dalio has a unique way of studying and understanding the world, which allows him to see economic events differently than the consensus and foresee coming developments that are often under-recognized and overlooked.
As explained in his New York Times #1 Bestseller Principles: Life & Work, one of Dalio’s core beliefs is that most everything happens over and over again through time, so that by studying the patterns, one can understand the cause-effect relationships behind them and develop principles for dealing with them well. In this three-part research series, he does that for big debt crises and shares his template in the hopes of reducing the chances of big debt crises happening and helping them be better managed in the future.
“At this stage in my life I want to pass along the principles that helped me and can help others,” said Ray Dalio, founder, co-Chief Investment Officer and co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates, and author of Principles: Life & Work. “Since debt crises cause some of the worst human suffering, passing along this template for understanding and dealing with them on the 10th anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis seemed like an appropriate thing to do.”
The book comes in three parts:
- The Archetypal Big Debt Cycle – Dalio’s and Bridgewater Associates’ outline of the major components of debt crises and how they operate
- Three Detailed Case Studies – In-depth experiences of debt crises throughout history including the 2008 financial crisis, the Great Depression and the 1920s crisis in Weimar Germany
- Compendium of 48 Cases – A compendium of charts and computer-generated text summaries showing how the template applies to several dozen other historical debt crises
The book will be available online on September 10th, 2018. Interested readers will have the choice between a free PDF version and a Kindle version, available through Amazon, for $14.99. A print version of the book will be available in mid-October for $50.00.
