Ray Dalio never misses an opportunity to cut to the chase. On Wednesday at Davos, speaking to Kamal Ahmed, Fortune’s executive editorial director for the U.K. and Europe, he had a blunt assessment of the landscape leaders and CEOs are facing at the moment. “What always scares me is the lack of realism [among leaders],” he said as he reeled off the historic economic, environmental, and political threats the world is grappling with. “Will law prevail? Everyone is having to deal with that question.”
When it comes to the U.S. economy, Dalio has long been a vocal critic of the rapidly rising national debt, which now stands at $38 billion. He said the crisis is so great that we are now dealing with the “breakdown of the monetary order,” and we face a terrible choice: “Do you print money or do you let a debt crisis happen?”
Dalio has long been a student of history and said during an interview with Fortune that he’s looking back over 500 years to try to make sense of today and see what’s coming. “The reason I anticipated the 2008 financial crisis is that I studied the 1930s. The same thing happens over and over again; it’s like watching a movie for me,” he said.
