0:00 Ray Dalia, welcome back to the All-In podcast. Third Times the Charm. Thank...

By anon April 11, 2026

Source: 0:00 Ray Dalia, welcome back to the All-In podcast. Third Times the Charm. Thank… Channel: allin⁩ Published: April 10, 2026 | Archived: April 10, 2026

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0:00
Ray Dalia, welcome back to the All-In podcast. Third Times the Charm. Thanks for being here. It’s always a always a blast to be here.
0:06
Thank you for having me. The last conversation we had was so popular and it was so timely because it
0:12
was just a few days actually after the inauguration of President Trump and you
0:18
had provided some very kind of preient outlooks for the administration that I
0:23
think we all thought would be very helpful to get on the record. At the time you had highlighted and and as you
0:30
have been for some time this great debt cycle we’re in the fiscal and monetary
0:36
policy issues that are driving that debt cycle and provided some
0:43
input that if we were able to cut our deficit to GDP to roughly 3%
0:49
we may have a shot at a smoother transition here. Today, the CBO
0:54
estimates that the 2026 deficit to GDP is about 6%.
1:07
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1:12
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1:18
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1:26
Airwallix. Build the future. So the first question I have for you looking back on the past year of the
5 Forces That Will Decide America’s Future
1:32
administration and the actions of Congress and the economy. Are we on a
1:39
good path? Are we on no different a path than we were say a year ago? Are we moving too slowly? I studied these big
1:47
cycles in history going back 500 years and there are five big forces that are
1:52
intertwined to determine the answer to your question which is uh there’s the debt money one and I I’ll take you into
1:59
that in a minute. Um there is the um domestic
2:06
gaps, the wealth and values gaps that are causing irreconcilable differences
2:12
between um the left and the right that is affecting how u taxes, democracy and
2:19
everything works. There’s the international great power conflict, the
2:25
classic rising of a great power, challenging existing great power and changing the international world order.
2:33
Then there’s technology. All through these cycles there have been technology.
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And then there’s uh acts of nature, droughts, floods, and pandemics. So um and when we think of orders, we’re
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talking about there’s always a monetary order. And all monetary orders have broken down for the same reasons. All uh
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political orders, domestic political orders, they all always change in the United States less. So we have 250 years
3:02
here, but um that they always change. There was one civil war in there. And
3:08
then the uh but internationally they always change. All orders change. and the international geopolitical order
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going from a um a unil a multilateral to a unilateral world order is changing and
3:21
certainly technolog is changing. Okay. So getting that fact that they’re all on there now I’ll go down to explain the
3:28
government’s finances and answer your question. The economics of a country are
3:35
basically the same as the economics of a company or an individual except the
3:40
government has a ability to print money. Look at it like a company or like your own. Basically, it’s projected to spend
3:48
about $7 trillion, take in about $5 trillion. So, it’s running a 40% deficit, 40% of its
3:57
spending. It’s been running deficits for a long time. So, it has a debt that is
4:04
600% six times the amount of money that it takes in. And we can project that
4:10
number. Um the problem with debt cycles and you could see them transpire.
4:17
They’re um almost like the circulatory system of the body. the capital markets
4:26
uh bring credit to different parts of the economy and if that credit is used
4:32
to be productive and produces an income that pays for the debt service, it’s a
4:38
healthy process. But what happens is that if the um income, the debt service
4:45
grows relative to the income because it’s not paying for it, it’s like uh
4:52
plaque in the system uh growing up and it squeezes out spending. And so we now
4:58
have that $2 trillion deficit. Half of that is interest payments plus we have
5:05
to roll over $9 trillion of debt that has been accumulated and is maturing.
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Okay. So now if you were to look at a company like that or an individual like that you have that problem. So as a
5:20
handy number 3% of GDP would sort of
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stabilize the situation. Very unhealthy condition. It’s not just unhealthy
5:31
because it’s squeezing out those spendings, but also because there’s a supply and a demand. In other words, you
5:39
have to roll over the $9 trillion of debt that’s coming due and you have to
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sell two trillion more, something like that. Okay. So, now you go to the buyers
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and the buyers, who are the buyers? There are some domestic buyers and they’re foreign buyers. about a third of
5:57
foreign buyers and now it’s a riskier situation from their point of view. It’s
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riskier. First of all, it’s a lot to acquire. They dollar denominated debt is
6:11
already a large percentage of their portfolio, larger than it would be if
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just decided on on a prudent basis. But also we have political geopolitical
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risks that also extend to possibly the risks that the debtor and the creditor
6:31
will have a conflict. You could imagine that with China. You could imagine that with Europe even. And you know Europeans
6:40
could wonder whether they will get sanctioned. In other words, the debt service payments might not be made as a
6:46
sanction. and the United States has to worry about whether it’s going to bring in that money. Now, the things that I’m
6:54
describing have happened repeatedly through history. So, in other words, I’m
6:59
not just making this stop stuff up. If you were to see uh particularly, you
7:05
know, in the 1929 to 45 period, you saw this dynamic. You saw it before. So
7:11
there is this financial piece which in and of itself is not healthy for the US
7:17
government and it’s um but it’s also problematic
7:22
because of the other factors uh compounding the problem. You highlighted this problem.
Why Government Reform Is Nearly Impossible
7:30
You provided a diagnosis that if we could get to 3% we could soften the effect but it hasn’t happened. We were
7:37
all very hopeful last year around this time when Elon Musk decided to lead
7:42
Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency. He was going to go in and there were going to be these kind of big
7:48
sweeping changes to reduce government spending, find fraud, waste, and abuse and so on. Did Doge fail
7:57
because the actions that were taken were wrong or did Doge fail because the system itself cannot be changed at this
8:03
point in the cycle that there’s too much capital flowing. The economy is too dependent on it. There are too many
8:09
individuals and businesses are dependent on it and it’s structurally impossible to pull our way out of it. I mean, does
8:14
Doge tell us something about what’s possible at this stage? Yeah, you’re talking about uh taking an
8:20
inefficient government and making it efficient,
8:27
okay? And having to do it quick because there are elections and if people don’t like it, then you know, you lose your
8:34
mandate. And in a um society in which no matter
8:39
what you do, you’re criticized and and torn down. So you know we have the fact
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of uh the question of does democracy and our system lend itself toward the sort
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of um executive leadership that both makes it efficient and makes it
8:58
acceptable for all people. You know there was a lot of uh cutbacks
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um you know things like school lunch programs and things you know um and then
9:10
trying to do it surgically. So it’s um how do you do that effectively quickly
9:19
in a manner that uh doesn’t uh cause so much controversy
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that the government falls. So if you look at history, that’s why I deal with the political.
9:32
If you deal with history and you deal just even common sense, think, you know,
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like u are you going to have the executive leadership that’s going to be able to make this satisfactory with most
9:44
people? Um, you know, and do that quickly. I think that’s that’s a hell of
9:50
a hell of a trick to pull off, right? So it might just be structurally
9:56
it’s a little difficult at this stage. What an understatement. Structurally a little difficult at this stage.
10:03
Yeah. Well, there was another big news story recently that there may be quite a lot of fraud going on with public dollars in
10:10
Minnesota that there are these daycarees that don’t exist and billions of dollars are flowing to individuals to run these
10:16
daycarees. And now there’s a lot of this sort of citizen journalism going on across the country that federal spending
10:23
is actually being fraudulently abused. Do you think that this is a symptom of
10:30
this stage of the cycle? What’s your view on how this relates to this problem
10:35
that we’re generally kind of talking about? Yeah, it’s both the stage of the cycle and if you’re going to have something
10:41
wellmanaged, are you going to have the government well manage it? I mean, how how how well managed, you know, go to
10:48
the Department of Motor Vehicles for your it’s so big and complex and such a,
10:56
you know, such a mess. Like, what you know, like when when you think, is this
11:02
a surprise to you that there’s all of this stuff going on all over the place
11:08
in terms of inefficiency? Is that a surprise to you? No. Uh but you know I guess the question
11:15
is are people waking up to this? Because last time we spoke you highlighted that
Gold vs. Bitcoin
11:21
a piece of your portfolio was in gold. You had invested quite a bit in gold. Since we spoke I think gold has climbed
11:28
from 2900 an ounce to 5200 an ounce. What has happened with gold over the
11:33
last year? Is it that markets are waking up to the point in the cycle that we’re in that you’ve been highlighting for a
11:40
number of years at this point? Or is it because China is structurally abandoning the US dollar and treasuries and moving
11:46
more into gold and other central banks are moving into gold? Is it because individual speculators and market
11:53
participants are getting bubbly with gold? What’s your view on what’s gone on with gold and how it relates to the
11:59
market’s acknowledgement of the stage that we’re in? It’s the big cycle. And what what what you have to understand is
12:06
that gold is not a precious metal that’s speculated on like most people have come
12:14
to think of it as. Um it is um the most
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established money that it’s the second largest reserve country currency that
12:25
central banks hold. And so what we’ve seen is for various reasons that I
12:32
pretty much covered the economic, the supply demand, the uh political, the
12:37
geopolitical, for those reasons, central banks themselves have acquired
12:44
gold to build that up and individuals and others are looking for an
12:50
alternative money. The question is what is money? So when we’re thinking about
12:55
this, money mechanistically, money is debt. What I mean by that is that if
13:03
you’re holding money, you’re holding it in the form of a debt instrument.
13:08
And if you um are holding a debt instrument, what you’re getting is a
13:15
promise from somebody to deliver you money. Okay? And what as I mentioned in the
13:22
beginning, the power of the central banks when they have too much debt is to
13:28
print money. Okay. So if you’ve got that down,
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okay, then you can understand what’s happening. Okay. The because the
13:40
question is Dave, what money do you think is safe?
13:45
Right. given what I’ve just said. Okay. Which Yeah. the act asset back, right? I
13:52
want an asset. I want to have something that’s got some physical known limitation to it. And particularly what you want is that
14:00
can be transferred from one place to another because money is both a medium of exchange and a storehold of wealth.
14:08
So in other words, if you if one country’s central bank or government
14:14
wants to pay another gun government, it can’t just be in fixed assets like
14:19
buildings. Okay? If you want to transact, you have to transact in
14:24
something that you can transfer to them and so on. And gold is the only uh
14:31
asset. It’s the long-term historic asset for for reasons. That means that it can
14:38
be transferred. They can’t print a lot of it. Um and um it is not dependent on
14:46
somebody giving you something. In other words, most money most if you hold debt
14:52
or you hold stocks or you hold something, you’re holding a promise from somebody to give you buying power. Okay?
15:00
So you can like wealth. There’s important thing to distinguish wealth from money.
15:05
Okay? Wealth is in stuff. It’s it, you know, it’s in buildings. It’s in
15:11
companies and so on. But you can’t spend wealth. You have to when you want to spend it, and that’s the purpose of
15:17
money, you have to sell it. And then you get money to spend. And right now, we
15:25
have an awful lot of wealth relative to money. And the question is,
15:30
what is that money? And there’s the risk that you go to get convert your wealth into money that they’re going to print
15:37
money cuz that’s what they’ve always done since we’ve had fiat currencies. So as you look out and have
15:42
conversations with all the market participants that you know and you know everyone that’s of size and scale,
15:50
where are we in terms of folks converting their wealth into gold or
15:56
their money into gold? like how much more do we have to run in terms of the dollar denominated value of gold in the
16:03
market cycle as this great rush for the doors rush for the exit happens. two things that come to mind. What I what I
16:10
look at is literally who has what assets
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including like central banks, what is the money in and so on and and what is
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that mix and I look at the amount of uh wealth relative to money or I look at
16:30
the amount of wealth relative uh to gold. And what we’ve seen is that
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there’s an enormous amount of wealth and there was an enormous amount in
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central banks of the other money relative to hard money gold. And so
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we’ve seen about what I would call it go from an extremely small number to
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something that is a less small number. That price
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increase and that change in composition has brought it almost not quite but
17:11
almost toward the average of what it’s been uh over a period of time. So uh
17:19
being out of balance however because the wealth is total wealth is still so large
17:25
relative to money that’s a real uh issue. So let me give you a practical
17:31
example of of of this wealth taxes and wealth
17:36
being a risk. One question that might be asked are are we in a bubble? In other
17:41
words, are AI stocks and other such stocks in a bubble? That’s a does if you
17:47
want to get into that, we’ll get into that. But one of the things that we know from that is that one of the
17:54
characteristics of bubbles is that there becomes a need for money
18:02
that requires people to sell their assets to get money
18:09
to meet that need. Now quite often that need comes from borrowing money to buy
18:15
those assets. Okay? and then the assets go up in price and and so on. But what
18:21
happens is it can’t be sustained because you have to make the debt service payments and they’re not thrown off the
18:28
cash the to make that and so they have to start to sell that and then you and
18:34
when you have to sell it because you need money you need cash to pay your debt service or to pay nowadays wealth
18:42
taxes. Okay. So now we have a dynamic. The bubble will burst as that dynamic takes
18:50
place. There are a number of things we could talk about about the bubble if you’re interested. But just imagine if
18:55
you put in wealth taxes. Everybody could talk about whether they like or don’t like wealth taxes or something. But
19:01
anything that if if you put in wealth taxes and there’s a lot of fear of
19:06
wealth taxes in and of itself that can drive money uh wealth to cash
19:13
and and and there’s only one way you’re going to get the cash with the wealth and that’s either sell it or to borrow
19:19
against it which causes its own cash flow issues. And we have a dynamic having to do with the social part of
19:26
this, you know, the wealth gap that makes that politically an issue. So
19:33
anyway, all I’m saying is people should worry and and companies should worry or
19:40
countries should worry. Do they have enough gold? I mean, if you didn’t know what the if you didn’t know what gold
19:49
was likely to do and you had no view on gold, one should have between five and
19:54
15% of their portfolio in gold because of the fact of how it works with the
20:00
other components. In other words, it’s a diversifier when when the hits the
20:07
fan, okay, gold does well and the other things don’t. generally speaking and
20:14
because of that correlation depending on what else is in the uh portfolio if you
20:20
put it through an optimizer you’d have something like that. So I’m not trying to tout people on buying gold but I
20:27
would say what is safe? What is safe? And it’s safe is somewhere
20:33
if you had no view between five and 15%. Why hasn’t Bitcoin performed in the same
20:40
way? In the same period that gold’s climbed 80% since we last talked, Bitcoin’s down 25%.
20:46
What’s your view on what’s happened with Bitcoin and why that hasn’t played the role that many thought it was going to
20:52
play, which is the safe haven asset? There there’s an important differentiating characteristics of
20:57
Bitcoin and then there’s also, you know, like who owns it and why they buy, why they bought and sell. Okay. So, Bitcoin
21:04
does not have privacy tra any transactions uh can be monitored and
21:10
then u indirectly perhaps controlled. Central banks are not going to want to
21:16
buy bitcoin and being able to hold it. So, it’s not just individuals, it’s
21:21
institutions and so on, but most you know and central banks. So, that there
21:27
are attributes of that. there has been um some question or thoughts of the
21:33
development of you know new technologies like quantum computing and so on. Can there be issues regarding that? And then
21:41
there’s um you know who owns it and what are the other exposures that they have
21:46
in their portfolio? It tends to have a a pretty high correlation with uh the tech
21:52
stocks. So from an ownership, you know, just the supply demand is affected by if somebody
22:00
gets squeezed in one thing, they sell something that whatever else they have.
22:05
So there are those dynamics. It’s a long way as and it’s a relatively small
22:11
market that’s a relatively controllable market. I think a lot of attention has been given to Bitcoin but as a money you
22:18
know it’s it’s it’s it’s small in relationship to u gold and so you know
22:25
those are the dynamics. There is only one gold. What about silver? I mean silver has had
22:30
a big run up in the past year as well. Is that a derivative to gold and it’s effectively people playing off of the
22:37
wake of gold movement? um silver in its production is a residual commodity. The
22:45
supply of it is difficult to increase and through history uh you know like the
22:51
pound sterling silver was perceived as a monetary uh item. Uh but it uh has also
23:01
taken on a speculative life of its own. So, you know, people are um you know,
23:06
hot in it because it’s been hot. I just want to shift gear a little bit back to something you touched on, but
23:12
the last time we met, you also talked about the importance of making sure that interest rates remained low for us to
23:18
kind of manage the effect and the impact of the stage of the cycle that we’re in. What’s your view, I guess, today on
23:24
where rates are and how the Fed has acted over the past year relative to
23:29
what needs to be done to soften the effects of the stage in the cycle that
23:35
we’re in because we have so much debt, federal debt, um interest rates are one of the three
23:42
main considerations. There’s the um taxes, there’s spending, and then there’s interest rates or on the debt.
23:49
But you can’t make interest rates um severely artificially low because one
23:55
man’s debts are another man’s assets. And if you make those interest rates
24:02
too low for the creditor, you will produce the dynamic that we
24:08
understand. In other words, you’ll produce a lot more borrowing. You’ll put it into things and you can fuel a
24:14
bubble. And so at the same time uh you can’t have them so high that the
24:22
debtor gets squeezed uneffectively. So there’s a balancing act. You know keep them high enough that
24:31
they’re adequate for the creditor but not so high that the debtor. And so when you have a lot of debt assets and
24:37
liabilities because for every debt asset there’s a debt liability. And when you
24:42
have a lot of those that balancing act is is very difficult. this made more difficult you know because of what’s
24:49
called the K economy you know in other words there are bubble elements that are
24:55
going on in the part of the economy you know where um
25:02
you know the question is who will be the first to be a trillionaire and and and that you know that top 1% of the
25:10
population and all of that at the same time as you have the other part of the
25:16
econom economy where um for example 60% of all Americans have below a sixth
25:22
grade reading level and and to make them productive particularly as we are also
25:30
having AI have replacements for them um
25:35
is a particularly difficult thing to achieve. In other words, when you have so much debt assets and liabilities
25:43
and then you have such a disparity in conditions between those that are at the
25:49
top and let’s call it the bottom 60% of the population what that’s like that’s
25:55
uh you know another hattick that’s another difficult thing to pull off. So
26:04
this is a challenging situation as for as far as monetary policy
26:11
exists. The idea of setting an interest rate and having a fiscal policy and a
26:18
monetary policy that’s for the economy as a whole
26:24
and doesn’t deal with the differences in the econ in the circumstances. may be
26:31
more is more challenging. Well, so taking a look at Fed action
26:38
and market activity, there’s been a lot of reporting over the past year that a
26:44
number of global central banks have stopped buying US treasuries and are
26:49
shifting to gold. Does this mean that the Fed in the US is going to have to
26:55
start buying treasuries and expand their balance sheet again? Is it inevitable that we see a re-expansion of the Fed’s
27:02
balance sheet in this phase in the cycle given what’s going on with global market
27:07
action? I think that it’s likely down the road. Um uh right now uh there’s um the
27:14
shortening of maturities um as a means of trying to deal with
27:20
that. Of course, that increases the debt rollover risk. uh but the you know sell
27:26
less long debt uh try to uh hold the short rate down so that the longer rates
27:34
attachment to it doesn’t get you know helps to hold the long rate down and
27:39
then uh try to um use
27:45
the government’s power of persuasion on other countries to either buy the
27:52
debt or to hold the debt or to have other forms of capital enter the United
27:57
States. How do you like Kevin Wars has picked for Fed chair? What’s your view on how
28:02
he’s going to guide interest rate policy for the central bank and when he assumes his term? It’s a very very big challenge. I think
28:09
he’s a practical man. He understands both sides of the pros and cons. I think
28:15
it’s a tough job. One of the other things that I would say was pretty surprising over the past year
What Economists Got Wrong About Tariffs
28:22
is how adamantly against tariffs for fear
28:28
of inflation and reduced consumption which would mean a negative effect on
28:33
GDP growth. Perhaps tariffs might be. The president and the administration put
28:39
in place a number of tariffs under the emergency economic powers act which the
28:45
Supreme Court in the last week or so overturned. But looking back on the economic effect
28:53
of tariffs, what do you think economists got right and wrong about their
28:59
predictions about the effect tariffs would have on the economy, on consumption, on inflation?
29:05
And are there things that economists fundamentally missed or didn’t understand and why? Yeah, I I think so. First of all, um
29:13
there’s the uh tax revenue part of them. I mean thinking of it just as uh revenue
29:21
and I think that people don’t all economists make the mistake of not
29:28
including taxes in inflation. And what I mean by that is
29:35
if your if your taxes go up
29:40
that’s inflation. I mean, why should it be any different than if your cost of housing goes up?
29:48
Why shouldn’t it be part of the inflation calculation number? It’s take
29:53
it’s taking money out of your pocket. I mean, it’s probably the, you know, for a lot of people the biggest expense. And
30:00
so, when they to say inflation is something separate, you know, uh uh I
30:06
think it’s changing the form of of inflation in a sense.
30:12
So what I mean is you know through history tariffs used to be the biggest
30:18
source of uh revenue for government through throughout most history and in
30:24
most countries. Okay. So, it is a um I think it’s viewed it’s it’s a totally
30:31
valid way of raising money and it should be kept kept in consideration for that
30:38
and and you get the foreigners paying a portion of it. But there’s also as part of the big cycle question is the problem
30:47
that we have that we are not independent. Okay, we’ve had a hollowing
30:52
out. This is the big question, you know, that we’ve had a hollowing out of
30:58
manufacturing the middle class and so on. Now, are we going to try to build
31:05
that? and what is the plan to build that or are we going to continue on with
31:10
large trade deficits and um so you have unsustainable
31:17
trade deficits that the United States has and which are capital um surpluses.
31:25
In other words, the dependence on foreign capital is the other side of those trade balances and that’s
31:31
unsustainable. So because that’s unsustainable um you need uh uh some way of uh
31:40
rectifying that. Okay. So what is the plan to rectify that? Partially that
31:47
plan uh can have trade tariffs. I think they’re totally valid.
31:53
uh but it all has to be part of another greater plan which is to develop
32:00
the industries that we need to have developed which we’re seeing happen in a much more proactive way. In other words,
32:06
you’re seeing more government um activity to create infrastructure
32:13
to bring in industries and so on. You need that not only economically but you need it geopolitically because you can’t
32:20
have dependencies. In other words, we’re entering a world of greater conflict. We’ve moved from a
32:26
multilateral world order to a a powerbased confrontational world
32:32
economy. And in that environment, everybody’s threatening to cut off everything from, you know, the uh goods
32:40
and capital wars that we can have are threatening. And so, you have to build
32:46
independence. And so, um, that’s part of a plan to try
32:52
to build that independence. Um, so I I think when I look at that, I
32:58
don’t think that’s the problem. I I’d say uh and it’s misunderstood. So yes, I
33:04
think people are misunderstanding that. And the important thing is we get the
33:09
other things right, you know, like let’s get down to 3%. And and by the way,
33:14
there’s a bipartisan bill that on this and um uh the 3% has um has come out in
33:24
favor of it. I’m in favor of it. And I mean lots of people are in favor of you
33:29
know um what I’ll call the 3% threepart solution. 3% of GDP, three parts uh a
33:38
bit from one thing, a bit from another. taxes, spending, and um and hopefully
33:44
interest rates. And just to take the inflation question to its conclusion, at the State of the
33:49
Union this week, President Trump shared his vision, which is that tariffs can
33:55
completely replace an income tax in the United States. Do you think that that’s a feasible path? Is it make sense at
34:00
some point for tariffs, which are effective? I don’t think it’s it’s I I don’t think it’s going to No, I don’t think it’s anywhere near um that uh both
34:09
because of the combination of the size and then the impact of that size.
34:14
tariffs are regressive and I think that uh there needs to be um some um we have
34:23
to deal with the wealth gap app to me the wealth gap the biggest problem of
34:28
the wealth gap which is a big social problem is also the productivity gap and
34:35
you have to make most people productive and you have to do that through
34:40
infrastructure and so on and I I don’t think I I think that needs to be
34:45
addressed. It’s a really important point you just made. I think my analysis
34:52
indicates that nearly half of Americans either work for a government agency or a
34:59
government service provider or contractor. The data over the past year is the federal workforce declined by
35:07
317,000 employees, roughly 14% of the total federal workforce.
35:13
As this administration has reduced the size of some of these agencies, reduced the size of that workforce, what happens
35:21
to those individuals? Do they go work in the private workforce and become productive or do you think they’re
35:27
getting subsumed by other government agencies either state or local or government service providers to do work
35:33
that fundamentally is not productive to growing the economy? I uh I I haven’t studied the numbers. I
35:39
I don’t think I can adequately answer that. I would say
35:45
government is extremely inefficient. It has a role. It has an important role
35:51
but even that role it’s handling very inefficiently. Other governments handle
35:57
that role of um maybe education some of these things in a better way. We
36:04
need fundamental we need you know best thing you could invest in is education.
36:10
But anyway, where they go and what they do u from the government and and you
36:16
know the other inefficiencies is a problem. The one thing that’s good about
36:21
uh the system um that the capitalist system in a sense is it doesn’t live if
36:28
it can’t uh if somebody either won’t bet on it or it doesn’t make a profit. So,
36:33
um, yeah. So, I think wherever it goes, um, it’s wherever those people go,
36:41
they’re just so many inefficient people and inefficient systems.
36:47
Is there not enough productivity driven economic growth in this nation at this
36:52
time to give more people the opportunity to improve their income, improve their
36:58
wealth, improve their livelihoods? Is that the fundamental issue we’re
37:03
dealing with at the moment? Or is it that you know people aren’t prepared or educated to be productive and therefore
37:11
the system itself has failed them? There are three things basically that you need to do to be successful.
37:18
You have to first educate your children well and uh so that they are capable of
37:23
being productive and also educate them in civility so that they are civil with
37:29
each other. The second is then they have to come out to an environment that is an orderly
37:37
civil environment that people can compete and work wi with with and and
37:43
compete and work with each other to be productive. That that works for the most people. And the third thing is you have
37:51
to stay out of wars. You have to stay you have to have no civil war and no
37:56
international war. If you do those three things right, you will have a successful country. That’s all throughout history.
38:04
Okay. We’re having problems with those. And are those three things the antidote
38:09
to some of the rising movements that we’re seeing in increased unionization
38:16
and effects that unions are having on the political process which is also leading to these rises in socialism and
38:23
support for socialist movements in the United States as well as the wealth taxes which from the view that’s shared
38:31
by those participating in those movements they are meant to solve income inequality wealth health gap issues that
38:37
we’re seeing in the United States. So that’s their solution. Is the solution to those movements? Education and
38:43
civility, creating a civil environment, and staying out of wars. Is that all we need to do to make this successful or is
38:49
there more to the That’s that what we need
38:54
is is is to stop fighting. Okay. We’re now at a stage where we have
38:59
irreconcilable differences. In other words, when
39:06
when the causes people are behind are more important to them than the system,
39:12
the system is in jeopardy. Our system is in jeopardy
39:18
because um they people will not accept the system
39:26
or the alternatives and so they’re going to fight. You know, I think I think when
39:33
we have we’re going to have the midterm elections, you’re going to go past the midterm elections with probably the uh Democrats
39:41
will take the House and be and maybe I don’t know, it’s going to be difficult. And you know what? Nobody can succeed
39:49
because everybody’s going to be fighting. They’re going to all be fighting. Okay? So, how does that affect
39:55
productivity? Uh, okay. And then when you deal with things like how do you get a good education system? So you have now
40:04
almost the mob disorder mob disorder and inefficiency.
40:10
Nobody’s allowed to take charge of this. If if you go back in history,
40:16
Plato, you know, I think it was like 350 BC wrote about the cycle, you know, of
40:22
democracies and the threat to democracies. What’s happening now is similar to
40:30
Julius Caesar and Rome and being, you know, stabbed in the Senate and and what
40:38
you need is you need a bipartisan
40:43
you need you need the country to have have a strong almost a strong leader. We
40:50
do need a strong leader to get the the reforms done to make the country work
40:56
well. But I mean, so how do you force this mob of people who are behaving this
41:04
way including in the elections and so fragment to create order. So you need a
Is America Heading Towards Collapse?
41:11
a tough leader who will force them to do diff force things to difficult things
41:17
and not fight with each other and focus on being productive. That’s what you
41:22
need. I think it sounds a little like there may be this inevitable path of the choice that no
41:30
one wants to make between some form of socialism and some form of fascism. Is that where this
41:35
I think there’s I think you were we’re moving toward the that war. We’re in that war. We’re in what’s sta what I
41:42
call stage five of a cycle. Okay. In the book I describe the pattern that’s happened over and over again. And when
41:49
you get to this position when there are a bad finances
41:55
combined with large wealth and values gaps
42:01
and irreconcilable differences and you have external threats as well as
42:08
domestic threats. You have this dynamic. I think that’s where we are. I I’m like a mechanic. My
42:16
goal I’m not ideological. I’m just a practical guy trying to make money in the markets and trying to describe
42:22
things and that’s what it looks like. I think when we look at the bubble question on AI, what a lot of people
42:28
don’t realize in bubbles is that through
42:33
all technologies, they think that they are betting on the technology when they
42:39
buy the stocks and the companies. That’s not true.
42:44
Okay? There’s a giant difference between the behavior of the companies and the
42:51
behavior of the technologies and that the norm is in these is that a
42:56
lot of companies won’t survive in the start. It very small percentage and they’ll all fight and so on but the
43:04
technologies will go on and it’ll be great. the technologies will. So I want to emphasize to people that dynamic and
43:12
I can go on and describe you know what it’s like. Uh of course we’ve seen it to
43:19
some extent with the 2000 bubble in the technologies and what went on. But e
43:25
even if I describe what it was like in the late 20s, you know, it’s just it was
43:30
unbelievable. But the technologies will go on but the companies uh won’t necessarily go on. And um so when I’m
43:38
looking at that, that has big implications. Right now it looks to me
43:44
like AI uh basically is eating everything and it
43:49
might eat itself. And what I mean by that is not produce
43:57
adequate profits. We can’t take just a domestic view of that. We have to look
44:02
also at what’s happening in China and um make interesting distinctions there. You
44:08
know, there’s a difference in philosophy that’s carried through in the economy of
44:14
how the economies of the United States and China work in that we have basically primarily a profit-based system.
44:22
They have a system in which they might believe that profits are a second
44:28
consideration. they’re not necessarily needed in order to achieve the best results. For example, in in China, they
44:37
would say usage of AI is fantastic. So,
44:42
it should be like electricity or something and let’s make it free for everyone
44:49
and let’s make it open source for everyone. Okay? and they might get much higher
44:54
usage and they’ll get their productivity gains through the usage
45:00
and we have a profit system to pay back. Okay. Well, now we’re in one world. How
45:06
do you compete in that world? What do you do with that? In other words, just imagine that their technologies are
45:12
almost as good as ours because they are. They’re not far behind. and um and and
45:18
then but that you could get them for free open source.
45:23
Okay. Now you got to pay it back. Okay. So I just want to emphasize
45:30
that these are also systematic risks that enter into the picture of of AI.
45:37
But you certainly yeah there are a lot of unknowns here. As we wrap, looking
45:44
back on the history of this nation, I ask myself the question a lot. How did
45:49
we get to the point that we’ve gotten to in terms of the amount of debt, the amount of government spending, the role
45:54
that the central bank has played, and the risks that we find ourselves in today that all seem largely avoidable if
46:00
we hadn’t taken or made the decisions we made along the way. You’ve highlighted that they repeat over and over again.
46:07
But if you could go back and restructure the United States and be a founding father and write the Constitution
46:12
yourself, what are one to three things that you would have done differently? What would you have written into the
46:18
Constitution that may have prevented us from getting into the situation that we’re in today? Well, the uh I mean it’s like the
46:25
marshmallow test. You know the marshmallow test? You know, you want to see it as a kid going at early age. you
46:33
uh give them the choice between one marshmallow now and two marshmallows in 20 minutes and the kid that chooses the
46:41
two marshmallows in 20 minutes is going to have a better life and make better decisions kind of thing. Um I mean that
46:47
therein lies our problem the immediate gratification and also the not knowing
46:52
if things are going to be productive but the system has been remarkably adaptable
46:57
too. In other words, we’ve gone through crisises, we’ve wiped out debts, and
47:03
we’ve gotten past it. And there are certain ways of getting past it. But you, you know, it’s a it’s a tough
47:09
question to balance um financial prudence with uh innovative inventions,
47:18
you know, uh because you like particularly like take AI now. Nobody
47:24
knows what’s going to come of it and and what what way, right? Is it going to pay? Is it not going to pay? And all of
47:30
that. And so what do you write into uh the law that uh is going to get you
47:38
financial prudence and control? And do you when you write it into the law, does
47:44
that lessen the experimentation and you know the entrepreneurship and
47:49
all of the things that you know? So it’s tough to do this with um with rules. I
47:55
think maybe the main thing is I would say read history. Read history and know
48:01
these things and try to get that balance right. You know, um everything’s a
48:06
matter of the balance. So the balance of the pain of failing or the pain of let
48:12
putting money into a something that fails. Well, Ray, I want to thank you once again for taking the time to be here
48:20
with me. It’s always great to catch up, hear your perspective. Obviously, so much has changed in the last year and
48:25
yet so much hasn’t. It’s been great to to get your view on it and I think it’s really helpful to do this. So, so thanks
48:31
so much and and thank you for what you guys do. I’m I’m I’m riveted to your program and
48:37
um I think you make a great contribution. Um so conversations like this are are really practical helps for
48:45
a lot of people. So anyway, thank you for letting me participate and uh thank you for what you do for a lot of people.
48:51
Thank you. That’s right. I’m going all in.
49:08
I’m going all in.

Description

316,034 views Mar 3, 2026 The All-In Interview
(0:00) Dave Introduces Ray Dalio
(1:29) 5 Forces That Will Decide America’s Future
(7:26) Why Government Reform Is Nearly Impossible
(11:19) Gold vs. Bitcoin
(28:16) What Economists Got Wrong About Tariffs
(41:11) Is America Heading Towards Collapse?

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Ray Dalio joins the All-In Podcast for the third time to break down why America’s debt crisis is worse than most people realize, and what comes next.

Dalio covers the five forces reshaping the global order, why DOGE faced structural limits, what’s driving gold to all-time highs while Bitcoin stumbles, the real story behind tariffs and trade deficits, and why he believes the US might be approaching a collapse.

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https://x.com/RayDalio

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