How America Goes Broke — ft. Ray Dalio

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0:01:22 When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners, I started wondering,
0:01:29 is every fabulous item I see from Winners? Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. Are those from Winners?
0:01:35 Ooh, are those beautiful gold earrings? Did she pay full price? Or that leather tote? Or that cashmere sweater?
0:01:41 Or those knee-high boots? That dress? That jacket? Those shoes? Is anyone paying full price
0:01:47 for anything? Stop wondering. Start winning. Winners. Find fabulous for less.
0:01:52 Today’s number, $5,000. That’s how much a man gave to each of his three girlfriends to try and figure out
0:01:57 who he should marry. One spent it on a glow-up, saying she’d always be attractive. The second bought
0:02:02 stuff for him, saying I’ll always be generous. The third invested in a Vanguard mutual fund, saying we’ll
0:02:07 always be financially secure. So, Ed, you know who he chose to marry? Who? The one with the biggest
0:02:14 tits. Listen to me. Markets are bigger than us. What you have here is a structural change in the
0:02:19 world distribution. Cash is trash. Stocks look pretty attractive. Something’s going to break. Forget
0:02:26 about it. Ed, how are you? Back with a bang. I love that joke. You know, just, I love how you go into
0:02:32 these virtue signaling, I’m 26 and a big deal. Like, I commit to you to report on the news,
0:02:37 distinct to the politics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You hate that line. That is your least favorite line.
0:02:43 My commitments to the audience. As 70-year-old women on watching MSNBC touch themselves,
0:02:52 I commit to being more profane and more inappropriate. I want to dispel any likelihood I will
0:02:57 ever run for office, much less get hired or acquired by Comcast who should acquire us because we’re
0:03:03 actually growing the Prof G universe quite robustly. But anyways, how are you, Ed?
0:03:06 I’m doing very well. It’s good to have you back, finally. It’s been way too long.
0:03:07 It has been a while.
0:03:12 I mean, is this going to continue? Every year, I’m always surprised at how long you’re gone.
0:03:16 And by the way, every time you also, I know you get antsy.
0:03:16 I do.
0:03:20 Because you keep on checking in on the business and you think we’re not making money anymore.
0:03:25 So I’m starting to think maybe you shouldn’t be taking this long of a vacation. What do you think?
0:03:30 I really like not working and I’m really good at it. But I got to be honest, this time I did get
0:03:37 bored. I got antsy. I started harassing Catherine saying, what if we did this? What if we? And she’s
0:03:42 like, yeah, I got four podcasts to get out the door today. Leave me alone. What have you been doing?
0:03:45 What did you do in our… We closed the office for two weeks. What did you do?
0:03:52 I went to London for a wedding, which was great. I hung out with my family and good to see my
0:03:54 friends get married. And then I went to Sardinia with my girlfriend.
0:04:02 Oh, hold on. Daddy’s… Daddy, you’re still in the impressor mode. Wow.
0:04:04 And you’re not. You’re off to Ibiza every three weeks.
0:04:09 That’s just a rested adolescence. Back to you. So you went to Sardinia. I haven’t been there.
0:04:12 What’s that like? Sardinia is great. It’s very expensive. I’ve got to say.
0:04:18 It’s pretty unbelievable. I feel like that’s all of the Mediterranean at this point. I mean,
0:04:24 it’s all these Americans showing up to Ibiza or Mykonos or Sardinia or Capri, whatever it is.
0:04:31 And the prices are just out of control. An amazing time. But it was… I got to say,
0:04:40 it’s quite shocking. I will tell you that. But beautiful place. Great weather, obviously. Great
0:04:50 polity scene. Puerto Trevo’s. Really nice. But I mean, unbelievably expensive. There was a plate of
0:04:58 a dish. It was four dumplings. And guess how much it cost? I didn’t end up buying it, but guess how
0:05:01 much that cost? Four dumplings. A lot. How much? 125 euros.
0:05:03 Were they truffle dumplings or something? Nope.
0:05:06 Or did you get to eat them backstage with black coffee or something?
0:05:11 No, none of that. No one reports on it because no one feels sorry for it. But at the high end,
0:05:14 which you are now a part of, is you’re still trying to impress someone and you’re overpaid. But
0:05:18 the greatest inflation, I believe, has happened at the high end for a few reasons. One,
0:05:24 you can’t spin up Sardinia or a five-star hotel. They take 10 years to build. So even though the demand is
0:05:32 there, there’s just a finite supply. And the fastest growing demographic group are one percenters. And
0:05:39 then you layer in the following. Essentially, since COVID, people have figured out that experiences are
0:05:46 more important than things. Sales of luxury goods, actual things, hard goods are down. But dining is up,
0:05:55 I think it’s 4%, travels up 8%, and jet travels up 12%. So what do you have? You have this, it’s great to be a
0:06:01 five-star hotel or five-star restaurant, especially in the summer. And then the kind of the chaser on chaser
0:06:07 on chaser is that I noticed in Colorado, it was actually quite empty because of COVID. There’s all this pent-up
0:06:13 demand to go to Europe. So you have this influx of, you know, increasingly wealthy people who value
0:06:20 experiences into Europe into a finite supply of really high-end places. And the result is, I’ve
0:06:25 noticed it too, the prices are just outrageous. Outrageous.
0:06:34 And it’s, I noticed it in hotels. I was at the Rosewood in Sao Paulo. And, you know, Brazil is about
0:06:40 half the cost, or Sao Paulo is about half the cost of New York, and probably half the cost of major
0:06:47 metros in Europe. But if you’re looking to go to Ibiza or Mykonos or any hotspot south of France,
0:06:53 it’s extraordinary. I don’t, what’s interesting is I see wealthy people or wealthy people my age,
0:06:58 and I see young people your age. And I assume the people your age, their parents are paying for it,
0:07:03 that they’re rich kids. I can’t imagine, unless they’re, you know, world-class podcasters,
0:07:10 the people your age can afford that. Because it is, yeah, I’ve noticed that too, the inflation at the
0:07:16 high end is extraordinary. I wonder if we have reached peak Europe. I wonder if we’re sort of,
0:07:25 we hit the apex. Because my instinct now is, I mean, I had a great time, but do I really want to run it
0:07:35 back at that level of expense? Or would I rather just go to somewhere beautiful in the US? I mean,
0:07:39 this is at least what I’m thinking about for next summer. It’s like, why don’t I just go out west?
0:07:44 Why don’t I go, I mean, obviously, Aspen, I’m sure the prices are insane there too. But I don’t know,
0:07:49 I’m just, I feel like Europe, everyone’s doing Europe at this point. The prices have gotten so insane.
0:07:56 I mean, every American is going to the south of France or Italy on their vacation, or the one
0:08:03 percenters in America. And it’s, it shows. I mean, everyone, everyone you meet there is pretty much
0:08:10 an American. And the prices are just, I mean, at a certain point, it’s not really worth it. At least
0:08:10 not for me.
0:08:16 Euro fabulous places all over the world, the places that are really in demand, have kind of figured out
0:08:21 a way to almost coordinate. It’s almost like they collude and they create a certain price level. But
0:08:27 Europe is next level. Like you said, south of France, Ibiza, Sardinia, these places. You did
0:08:31 see about two years ago, and I thought this was fascinating, on Instagram, a bunch of people took
0:08:36 to Instagram and basically said that Mykonos had become ridiculous. And there were all these TikToks
0:08:46 of $34 margaritas. And supposedly, last summer, it was tourism to Ibiza and to Mykonos was way down.
0:08:52 And shockingly, places like Scotland went apeshit in terms of tourism. But supposedly, this last summer
0:08:58 was this hot girl summer where basically all the hot places are back in vogue again. But everything
0:09:03 catches up. Like I used to go to Cabo San Lucas, which I thought was a relatively good deal when I was
0:09:11 your age. I would go to a tacky place like Mazelan or I used to go. I think the best deal, if you’re
0:09:16 moving out of the, okay, I’m no longer trying to impress my girlfriend and I’m not allowed to go where
0:09:22 the hot girls are, then I would suggest that the place- Is that what happens?
0:09:30 Best value in luxury travel, hands down, is Mexico. Like the Rosewood Mayakoba or going to a great hotel
0:09:37 Cabo San Lucas or, you know, if you want to get more cultural San Miguel de Allende, there’s,
0:09:44 you can get five-star luxury in Mexico still at a relatively decent price. Other than that,
0:09:48 everything’s gone absolutely batshit crazy in terms of cost.
0:09:53 And it’s all of Europe, by the way. I think, I mean, it basically doesn’t matter where you’re going.
0:09:59 If you’re trying to be on the beach in Europe in the summer, you’re going to be emptying your
0:10:01 pockets. That’s just, it basically doesn’t matter anymore.
0:10:05 This is what you should do next summer and it’ll be crazy expensive, but it’s more romantic. You
0:10:07 should, and you should have talked to me. I know this stuff. You should have gone.
0:10:09 I was going to say, you should be my travel agent for next summer.
0:10:15 Yeah. Well, you never know. I need a job soon. So, um, you chose the one with the biggest debts.
0:10:20 Anyways, uh, go to Capri. Uh, I think that is spectacular. That’s the most romantic place in the
0:10:24 world. But by the way, if you say you’re going to Capri, your girlfriend’s going to think you’ve,
0:10:28 you know, you’re bringing, you’re going to put a ring on it. People don’t go to Capri just to hang
0:10:31 out with their girlfriend. That’s, that’s a tough one.
0:10:33 Okay. Well noted.
0:10:41 Moving right along. It’s like, okay, okay. What’s GDP growth in Switzerland? How do I get them off this?
0:10:44 Now I’m going to tell them she listens to the podcast.
0:10:51 Should we get into our interview with Ray Dalio, one of the most legendary investors of all time?
0:10:56 No, no, I’m not. I’m not done yet. Who was your favorite guest in August?
0:10:58 Guest on, on this podcast? On Prof G. Marcus?
0:11:02 No, your favorite guest on Rogan. Yeah. Favorite guest on this podcast.
0:11:07 I think Mark Zandi was pretty good. I mean, I love, I always love co-hosts with Josh Brown.
0:11:07 He was excellent.
0:11:12 He’s always great. But Zandi, Zandi was mine. He was really, I thought that was a very substantive podcast.
0:11:15 Really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it.
0:11:16 So you’ve been tuning in then?
0:11:18 Yeah. I listen to all your stuff. I learn a lot. I like it. Actually,
0:11:24 actually, you and Claire do a decent job. Not a good job. Decent. Solid four. Scale of one to 10,
0:11:30 solid four. Solid four. Speaking of which, I don’t know how, I’m trying to think of a segue here.
0:11:33 Should we get onto our conversation with-
0:11:34 That’s not the right segue.
0:11:35 That’s not the right segue?
0:11:38 You want to say solid four out of 10 and let’s bring in our next guest.
0:11:41 Four out of four. Let’s bring in the most successful. Let’s bring in the most successful
0:11:43 investor in history. How about if we do that?
0:11:49 I love it. Let’s do it. Here is our conversation with Ray Dalio, global macro investor, founder of
0:11:55 Bridgewater Associates and New York Times bestselling author. Ray, so good to have you
0:11:58 on the podcast again with us. Thank you for being here.
0:12:00 Ed, so good to be with you.
0:12:10 So you have a new book out. I think that’s where we’ll probably want to start. Although I’d like
0:12:13 to get your reactions to a lot of things. You were just saying off mic that we are living in
0:12:19 interesting times, which I agree with. But we’ll start with your book, How Countries Go Broke,
0:12:24 The Big Cycle. If you want to go buy that book, it is out now. You can go buy it now. How Countries
0:12:30 Go Broke by Ray Dalio. Let’s start with this, Ray. How do countries go broke?
0:12:39 The credit system is like the circulatory system of the body. It brings credit, which is like nutrients,
0:12:47 to the different parts of the body. And if those credits are used to create incomes that can service
0:12:58 that debt, then it’s a healthy process. But when governments raise the debt relative to their
0:13:09 incomes and debt service accumulates relative to their incomes, it squeezes out spending. And you can see
0:13:18 that. You can measure that. And you see it, that squeezing out of other spending. And then that causes
0:13:25 eventually something that’s the equivalent of a debt crisis, or what I’ll maybe call a heart attack.
0:13:36 Also, there’s a supply and demand issue for countries, just like people. So when governments have a lot of debt
0:13:45 and want to run large deficits, what means they have to sell a lot of debt, they go to buyers
0:13:56 and they try to sell that debt. And one man’s debts are another man’s income assets. So those assets have to
0:14:04 provide an attractive real return and be a value. And when that doesn’t happen, not only do you have to sell
0:14:12 the new supply to fund the deficit, but you also have a problem. You might have a problem because
0:14:20 there may be selling of the existing supply. And when that happens, that puts central banks and central
0:14:32 governments in difficult positions, the economics and the debt for a country are the same as that for an individual
0:14:41 or a government, except the government can print money and they can grab money through taxes. So that puts them in the
0:14:50 position where they, when they have that imbalance, what they do is they print money and they buy the debt
0:14:59 to try to make up for that imbalance. And that lowers the real returns of those assets. And it lowers the value
0:15:09 of money, which the debts are a problem for. And so you get into the self-reinforcing cycle, including that central banks
0:15:19 have losses and have negative net worth, and then they have to deal with that cash flow problem. And so both central
0:15:26 governments and central banks find themselves in the position of creating debt to pay for their debts.
0:15:31 I think everyone probably has a specific country in mind while you are describing this, but
0:15:37 from my understanding, you’ve been looking at this throughout history. And before we get into
0:15:44 what’s happening in America, lots happening in America, I’m just, I’d love to hear more about
0:15:52 how this has played out in the past, perhaps in American history, but also perhaps among other nations.
0:16:00 This has happened throughout history in all countries, all times. The basic issue is,
0:16:08 you know, what is money and what is debt? That is a promise to deliver money. And is that money hard money
0:16:16 that actually gets delivered on? Or is that money fiat money or printed money that doesn’t get delivered on?
0:16:24 But if you go back through all history repeatedly, you always see that I can recount the times. 1971
0:16:32 was a good example of the breakdown of the monetary system when we went from promises to look to liver
0:16:38 gold that were defaulted on. And then we went to a fiat monetary system. All countries throughout all time
0:16:46 have dealt with this. And the reason I wanted to write the book is I wanted to show very, very clearly
0:16:54 the mechanics and symptoms of this problem so that one could understand it mechanistically and measure
0:17:00 it because we can measure it right now. For example, in the US, if you want, I’ll take you through what the
0:17:07 numbers are. But it’s important just some numbers I have in front of me. Our national debt in America is
0:17:15 currently $37 trillion. Our net interest payments are $900 billion per year. It is the interest is our
0:17:23 second largest federal expenditure. So when you look at America’s debt situation right now,
0:17:30 you talk about the big debt cycle. You talk about how countries go broke. How far along in the cycle
0:17:39 are we? How far along is America? This year, the government will spend about $7 trillion and it
0:17:50 will take in about $5 trillion. So it will spend 40% more than it’s taking in. And it really can’t cut
0:18:00 expenditures much. Having done a lot of that. The debt is now about six times the amount of money it takes
0:18:09 in. The amount of money that it has to come up with for next year is $12 trillion and that amount of
0:18:20 essentially debt it has to sell. That comes $1 trillion about is, which is half our budget deficit.
0:18:30 goes to interest. $9 trillion have to be rolled forward. It’s maturing. And then we’ll sell an
0:18:40 additional $2 trillion. So you have to sell a lot of debt. We’re now at a point where there will be an
0:18:48 adding to a lot of debt at a point that’s close to the edge. Because as we add to that debt,
0:18:57 then those numbers and that supply to man picture, uh, worsen past the point really of being able to
0:19:07 rectify it. So, because then what do you do? Um, I was in Washington and speaking with, um,
0:19:16 you know, top people in, uh, on both parties. And, um, the problem is really a political problem.
0:19:27 In the book, um, I explained that if there was a cut in the budget deficit to about 3% of GDP,
0:19:35 which could happen in three ways that they could stabilize the debt where it is. And those three
0:19:46 ways, um, of cutting the budget deficit to about 3% of GDP would be basically equally in taxes and in spending.
0:19:54 which would be up in total amount of taxes. Total amount of spending would be probably a 4% increase
0:20:01 in taxes and a 4% decrease in spending. That wouldn’t quite get you there. But what it would do
0:20:09 is improve the supply demand picture of the debt so that interest rates would come down
0:20:17 and interest rates. And interest rates coming down would be good for debt service payments because so
0:20:22 much goes to interest. That’s why interest is so important, but you can’t force interest rates
0:20:33 unnaturally down because then it discourages the holding of debt assets because it makes it a bad deal
0:20:42 for the, uh, creditor to hold those assets. That reaction, uh, both about everybody I spoke to agreed
0:20:52 with the numbers and the mechanics. And I’ve spoken to all most federal reserve heads and, um, other central
0:20:58 bank heads and treasury secretaries. And there’s agreement about that. The reason I say it’s political
0:21:06 is that the answer that I got back from those, um, in Washington who were dealing with it is that,
0:21:14 uh, they say, Ray, you have to understand that we have to make one, um, at least one, maybe two promises.
0:21:21 And those promises are first, I promise not to raise your taxes.
0:21:29 And second, I promise not to cut your benefits in order to get, um, elected.
0:21:37 And so that’s where we are on the financial conditions. I would say in the United States.
0:21:42 We’ll be right back after the break. And if you’re enjoying the show so far,
0:21:46 be sure to give Prof G markets a follow wherever you get your podcasts.
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0:25:29 We’re back with Prof G Markets.
0:25:36 Isn’t this a kind of confirmation that sort of this 45-year strategy I would describe it? If you were to
0:25:41 describe America’s strategy, I would say, loosely speaking, the strategy has been to cut taxes.
0:25:49 that maintain spending, cut taxes, and our most productive, our wealthiest citizens, corporations,
0:25:54 will figure out a way to reinvest that capital because they’re more efficient and the growth
0:26:02 will compensate for the reduction in revenues. And it strikes me it just hasn’t worked in that if we’re
0:26:07 going to, if we’re going to fix this, as you said, is it cut benefits or raise taxes? The answer is both.
0:26:12 So what I want to get your thoughts on, and I actually am more hopeful that the American public
0:26:16 is ready for an adult conversation. So I want to throw some ideas at you. So the question is,
0:26:21 if we have to raise taxes, what would be the least taxing taxes? And I’ll throw a couple ideas at you.
0:26:29 Elimination or vast reduction in the ceiling on the estate tax exemption. You’re just not going to get
0:26:33 any, you’re going to be dead, so it doesn’t matter. And your kids aren’t much happier or less happier
0:26:40 if they get 3 million versus 5 million. That’s one thing. And then age and means test some of the
0:26:42 entitlements, specifically social security.
0:26:46 I think those two are reasonable. I think here’s the problem. And I’ve found that
0:26:54 that everybody’s into their particulars and they argue so much about the particulars. It’s like being
0:27:02 on a boat that everybody agrees is going to hit the rocks and that they need to turn the boat,
0:27:09 but they can’t agree whether to turn it left or right because they’re so hung up on their particulars
0:27:17 that… So, like, I believe, you know, take the 3% pledge. If you can’t agree on what to do,
0:27:25 then do it proportionately. I don’t, you know, I don’t really care. Get there. Okay. So,
0:27:36 you know, like, we can get into that, but I think please take the 3% pledge. Do agree to do it
0:27:44 proportionately or find some way that you do it because otherwise the arguing about it is going to lead us to
0:27:45 hit the rocks.
0:27:49 My understanding of economic history is every fiat currency has ultimately failed because of the
0:27:57 dynamic you’re talking about. Political pressure to not cut spending results in an inability to
0:28:03 raise taxes results in basically the failure you’re talking about. It kind of plays out everywhere.
0:28:10 What are you telling these guys? In addition to the pledge, what is realistic on the tax side?
0:28:14 What do you, I mean, what do you think could be, is it an alternative and minimum tax on
0:28:20 corporations and individuals? Is it reduction in exemptions? I mean, we’ve, it feels like,
0:28:25 it feels like either the market is going to address this in a very ugly, crude way,
0:28:30 or we’re going to have to get out ahead of it. And I, and your book is kind of saying it may be too late.
0:28:37 It’s likely to be too late to be a specific, what’s going to happen. They’re starting, they will soon
0:28:50 start to talk about, um, 26 and 26 is a midterm election year. And so it won’t be until after 26 that
0:29:02 the best you can hope for is a bipartisan commission in which, uh, both sides, uh, approach the question
0:29:11 and hopefully smart people then choose to do their engineering and their political negotiating to
0:29:20 come up with a plan that probably, um, you know, won’t be put into place. Cause commissions don’t
0:29:33 work that well, or if it does, we’ll be put in awfully late. So we’re all just playing with ourselves.
0:29:42 When we think about this idea of which one, it should be rather than dealing with which
0:29:47 things that there should be. There are all sorts of things that in particulars, which we can digress
0:29:54 into that can be done. I mean, just at the big picture, just figure it like, can you do 4%
0:30:00 one way or another in taxes? And if you had to do everything across the board,
0:30:07 because you couldn’t agree on anything, could you do that? Could you do 4%, um, on spending?
0:30:13 Could you do that? Even looking at that question of whether you could do that is interesting because
0:30:19 there are some things that cannot be changed or, you know, like, what are you going to do on,
0:30:27 on some things, but to start to look at it that way. And then you can go on to, is this thing better than
0:30:31 the other thing? But, you know, I can’t be optimistic.
0:30:35 But how does it play out? Say, say we don’t get our act together. We can’t come to an agreement
0:30:42 around a 4%. How does it, what, what economic history can you point to about what actually happens?
0:30:46 Is it when people say, well, they don’t show up at our debt auction, they show up,
0:30:50 they just demand higher prices, right? Well, how does this actually play out if we do nothing?
0:31:00 There’ll be actions by both the government and the marketplace. Um, the actions by the government,
0:31:11 um, some of which are, you know, in the works, um, is to try to lean on holders of the debt,
0:31:20 such as foreign countries and so on to buy debt and, uh, to, uh, not sell their debt. Another thing
0:31:28 will be, um, to shorten the maturities of the debt. Uh, when things get bad, there might be capital
0:31:39 controls and most likely there’ll be, uh, the central bank coming in and buying a lot of the debt,
0:31:48 which will depreciate the value of the money. So you would see that in the form of, um, the dollar
0:31:55 going down, but also other currencies, cause they have their problems going down gold prices going up.
0:32:04 It would be something like what happened from 71, you know, 1970. You know, if you, if you take the
0:32:13 late seventies, uh, when we had, uh, then, uh, the world was operating under a gold standard, which was
0:32:20 created in 1944 at the end of world war II, when they had to define what was the monetary order,
0:32:27 how would the system work? And that was, uh, gold, uh, backed, uh, the money or it was actually
0:32:34 thought of differently. They thought gold was money and all the money that we think of today,
0:32:39 like fiat currency was like checks in a checkbook that you would then turn in to get your money.
0:32:46 But when the checks in the checkbook, uh, or the checks outstanding were much greater than the
0:32:54 gold in the bank, the real money in the bank. And there was a turning in of that. Um, they couldn’t
0:33:00 cover it like all bank crises. There’s not enough money in the bank and they wanted it. Then there was
0:33:07 a pause, uh, in that up breaking of that promise to get the real money. So the bank, in this case,
0:33:14 the central bank defaulted and, um, devalued and printed money. So everybody would get their money.
0:33:23 And that’s why we had the stagflation period of the 1970s. The exact same thing happened in the 1930s.
0:33:32 So, um, on August 15th, 1971, president Nixon got on the television and announced that change in the
0:33:38 monetary policy, that breakdown of the monetary policy and going to a fiat monetary policy in, uh,
0:33:49 March of 1933, president Roosevelt got on the radio and announced this exact same policy because there
0:33:56 wasn’t enough hard money, not enough, not enough gold. And so that’s what it, you know, that’s what it
0:34:02 looks like. I would say that you are one of the first people to really popularize this issue.
0:34:09 At least in recent years, you are kind of the first one to sound the alarm. I mean, this latest book is
0:34:15 about the big debt cycle, how countries go broke, but a lot of your books and a lot of the stuff that
0:34:22 you’ve been writing and talking about is along this theme. And it was my view at the beginning of the year
0:34:29 that this was something that people everywhere in America, but also, and more specifically in
0:34:36 Washington cared about. And I really thought that because that was part of the Trump platform.
0:34:42 Um, there was a lot of talk about getting spending under control. Uh, we had Doge and the idea of Doge
0:34:48 was to get the spending under control. Um, regardless of how one might think all of that was handled,
0:34:54 that was the idea. I thought that people were on board with this issue. I thought that people cared
0:35:03 about this. Then I see this big, beautiful bill act and I learned that it will add four trillion to
0:35:05 our national debt.
0:35:14 Four trillion is the amount of the estimated increase from what it would have been the
0:35:20 amount of debt if the tax bill didn’t get modified and, and the tax cuts were rolled over.
0:35:22 Four trillion is that?
0:35:22 Yes.
0:35:29 No, no, no. The correct number of the amount of debt increase from the $36 trillion that you mentioned
0:35:37 before over the next 10 years is about 25 trillion, because just, just look at like we run 2 trillion,
0:35:48 uh, a year deficit. Okay. And that adds up on the compounded basis to about 25 trillion.
0:35:57 So the correct statement to make is that our debt will increase by about it probably will increase
0:36:01 by about 25 trillion, not about 4 trillion.
0:36:07 So we increased the debt by 25 trillion. I’ve also seen, I mean, I think that the higher the numbers,
0:36:14 the more confusing it gets. But one statistic that I think is very relevant, as you say, um,
0:36:19 we’re going to crowd out our ability to spend money on things that we need. As I said before,
0:36:23 we’re spending almost a trillion dollars a year just on servicing the debt. But because of the big,
0:36:29 beautiful bill, we’re going to double that to almost $2 trillion per year by 2034.
0:36:36 In sum, I thought we all cared about this. I thought that people in Washington cared about this. That’s
0:36:43 what everyone was saying. And yet here we are, this big, beautiful bill has been passed. And it’s
0:36:49 basically going to do the total opposite of what I thought we all were worried about.
0:36:55 And so my question to you as the guy who’s been talking about this and who’s been sounding the
0:37:02 alarm, are you not frustrated by what is happening in Washington right now? And when you go to Washington
0:37:06 and you talk to these people and you say, this is a problem. And they say, yeah, yeah, we agree.
0:37:09 It’s a problem. It’s, it’s really bad. I’m wondering if you even believe them.
0:37:12 First of all, I don’t get frustrated. I’m just analytical.
0:37:13 Fair enough.
0:37:18 I’m just, you know, it is what it is. And, and, and different people have different perspectives.
0:37:27 And I, I would say, I think that the problems are very well recognized and that the administration’s
0:37:37 point of view is that these things are problems. So, um, you have, uh, a renovation plan that they have,
0:37:46 which is tariffs will bring in tax revenue and they are bringing in big tax revenue and that,
0:37:55 uh, that will protect American businesses in various ways, um, and help in the budget deficit.
0:38:05 And they would say that, uh, uh, stimulation is required to raise the incomes to create the tax.
0:38:11 Just like, uh, Scott had mentioned, the best way to get out of this is through stimulation and taxation
0:38:22 and then leaning on other countries in various ways, partially to pay their expenses, uh,
0:38:35 to help to cut our expenses and, um, to encourage them with a big E under encourage them to invest in
0:38:45 the United States and, uh, by our debt. So I’m very non-partisan. Okay. I’m just trying to be analytical
0:38:54 and I, so I, I convey my pictures of these things as accurately as I can. And I wouldn’t do justice to our
0:38:57 discussion if I didn’t convey that perspective.
0:39:04 The key question then is, do you think that that strategy could work? I mean,
0:39:13 assuming these issues are being taken seriously and assuming that this is the way that we are to deal
0:39:20 with them. Um, do you think, do you think it’s going to work? Do you think that could get us out of the
0:39:27 hole if we’re so far along on this path of, of, um, you know, as you say, going broke?
0:39:32 Is this going to help us not be broke in the future?
0:39:38 I don’t think it’s going to get us there. I think there are some aspects to it that have a
0:39:45 lot of merit and there are lots of aspects to it that I would disagree with. And I think the real
0:39:52 problem of our country right now is the breakdown of the effectiveness of democracy.
0:39:54 Could you say more about that?
0:40:00 I’m going to preface it with something. I’m a practical guy. I I’m not an academic and what,
0:40:07 but I’ve studied history the first time that, uh, about the 1971 breakdown of the monetary system,
0:40:12 I was clerking on the floor of the not New York stock exchange. And I thought when Nixon made that
0:40:18 announcement that, uh, that was going to cause a crisis, I went on the floor of the stock exchange
0:40:25 and I saw the stock market up more than it was in, uh, decades. And that led me to study 19,
0:40:32 the P the prior devaluations. I never saw one of those before. And I learned that in March,
0:40:40 1933 Roosevelt made the same move. And I understood more of the mechanics of all of this. And that also
0:40:47 led me to understand how the debt problem existed. That allowed me to anticipate the 2008 financial
0:40:58 financial crisis and the, um, 2010 to 15 European financial crisis and do very well during that period.
0:41:05 I would say that there are five main forces that interact to drive everything. We’re talking about
0:41:13 about the debt mechanics. There is also a political mechanics, um, at that enters into this, the battle
0:41:19 between the left and the right. And when you get into a situation where there are irreconcilable
0:41:28 differences, then the system classically creates a type of great internal conflict in which the system
0:41:36 itself is in jeopardy. Okay. Democracy, one of the big problems of democracy is people vote for what they
0:41:44 want and you can’t maybe necessarily do what’s best for them sometimes. And we now have, we are now at a
0:41:51 stage where we have irreconcilable differences. And so how our system is working and the, uh, moves that
0:42:00 we’re seeing politically to get control, to get control remind me very much of the 1930s,
0:42:08 as does this debt situation. The third, as I said, there are five, the third great force that has a big
0:42:17 effect, um, is the international geopolitical world order. The way it works is, um, there, you know,
0:42:22 who’s in control of the order of the system, the world system. It’s always the powerful country. So
0:42:30 in 1945, we, uh, the winners of the war set the rules and the United States was the dominant power,
0:42:38 had 80% of the world’s money, gold, half the world’s. Anyway, it set the rules. Then what happens is rising
0:42:45 powers challenge the existing powers, and there’s no world court that resolves these things. And so you
0:42:51 have a great conflict and that requires military spending that requires that, you know, these
0:43:00 actions. So we are, uh, you know, as you can see, as you watch, um, in Beijing, uh, Xi and, and, uh,
0:43:09 Putin and Modi and the military parade. Okay. This is all part of the picture and there, and, and so it
0:43:16 enters into even to even the economic policy tariffs. One of the purposes of tariffs is to
0:43:24 be get independence because you need self-sufficiency in a world where you may be cut off or we might be
0:43:30 cutting others off in one in certain type of war and that’s financial. So that’s the third influence.
0:43:36 The fourth influence throughout history has been acts of nature. Droughts, floods, and pandemics have
0:43:42 killed more people than wars. And it’s a factor and it’s a big factor now. And it’s costly. It’s
0:43:48 estimated that the cost of that will be about eight trillion dollars a year for the world and a world
0:43:54 GDP that’s a hundred trillion. That’s a lot of money. And then number five in the force has always been
0:44:02 technology. In other words, man’s inventiveness of technologies have been revolutionary and raised living
0:44:08 standards as reflected in life expectancy, GDP per capita, and so on. And now we have,
0:44:14 we can’t have this conversation without talking about technology changes on this whole picture,
0:44:20 because now with the artificial intelligence and so on, does that create productivity miracles
0:44:26 that help to make that money, that problem, less of a problem? And what does it all mean?
0:44:34 So all five of those forces are interacting to create the dynamic that we now have and also raise
0:44:40 a lot of question marks because this is not a precise, not none of those things really can be thought
0:44:48 through so precisely. If you, as you look at the risks to America right now, and as you say,
0:44:53 your job is not only to analyze these risks, but also to bet on them, and you’ve had a good track
0:45:00 record. And, you know, you’ve gone through some of those risks. We have this debt crisis, an impending
0:45:07 debt crisis. We’ve got internal political conflict. We’ve got external conflict with China. One of the
0:45:16 the most geopolitical precarious times, probably in the last 50 years, many, many risks. What is your
0:45:21 number one risk? What is the thing that you are most worried about? What do you think is the biggest
0:45:26 threat to America and to America’s dominance in 2025?
0:45:42 First, human nature. Can we rise above our own selfish, fighting, possibly self-destructing or mutually
0:45:57 destructing tendencies to find the common solutions or the compromises to be able to not have
0:46:05 the worst of what is possible? I mean, so that’s, that’s number one. Number two
0:46:20 is in each country being strong and in it together. Okay. I believe if the United States is very strong
0:46:27 and healthy, that’s the best thing it can do. Okay. It’s the safest thing to be doing, but I think
0:46:37 that that can only come about by a us not fighting with each other so much and, um, and a strong,
0:46:48 strong middle and a strong middle, I mean policies that truly are effective in creating improvements,
0:46:56 like in education, like we have a problem. 60% of all Americans have below a sixth grade reading level.
0:47:04 So anyway, we have a problem with it. If you want to make a society successful, there are very few things
0:47:10 things you have to do. Um, I, I think that, um, we can’t do it with fighting with each other.
0:47:18 Uh, we have to be, we have to have a strong middle, a strong means also being able to enforce the things
0:47:26 that need to be done. That may be unpopular. Okay. Like dealing with this budget situation and the like,
0:47:31 I don’t know. You know, these are long shots, by the way, I don’t, these are the things that are necessary.
0:47:35 Stay with us.
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0:49:51 We’re back with Prof G Markets.
0:49:55 Ray, we’ve been drawing parallels between the current situation in the United States,
0:50:01 the United States in the ’30s. And I actually see as strong or stronger parallels. I’m curious if you
0:50:09 see the same comparison between the US now and ’30s Germany. And that is economic anxiety. We don’t
0:50:14 have a Weimar-like collapse. We have a collapse in the middle class. Political polarization.
0:50:22 Income inequality. Populist strongman appeal. That speaks for itself. All the scapegoating of
0:50:27 quote-unquote the enemies within. We’re not worried about Russian soldiers pouring over the border in
0:50:31 Ukraine or the CCP. We’re worried about your neighbor or universities or immigrants.
0:50:35 Media and information chaos. There was a lot of that back then. Same now.
0:50:44 And I used to hold out hope. Well, our institutions are stronger. And our leaders don’t have their own
0:50:52 private armies. And those two things now seem as if they’ve been compromised. So am I catastrophizing
0:50:58 here? Or is a deficit problem, quite frankly, small ball compared to what could happen here?
0:51:05 You can’t separate the financial from the political, which you’re talking about internal
0:51:10 political. And I agree with that. From the other three that I also mentioned, they’re all
0:51:22 reinforcing. Yes. We won’t use the terms because they’re evocative. But yes, Germany had an economic
0:51:30 crisis. And before Germany, there was Italy and places were not run on time. They said to make the
0:51:42 trains run on time. Will somebody make this thing work well? And so you had out of that the autocratic
0:51:54 leaders. Four democracies in the ’30s. Four democracies chose to have autocracies or dictatorships, however,
0:52:07 because of the great disorder and the great fighting. And so you saw that in Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain.
0:52:20 And so we are at a time where Americans are saying, “Will somebody gain control of this situation?” And so when you
0:52:29 look at whether it’s Washington D.C. and the National Guard going into Washington D.C. and other things,
0:52:46 there is an appeal to a lot of people about that. And when we’re dealing with how this is working with democracy and the loss of trust in our legal system,
0:52:54 that is a belief that almost everything has been politicized. That you’re on one side or the other,
0:53:04 and you have to pick inside and fight for it. That is where we are. So I don’t think what you’re saying is incorrect at all.
0:53:13 Trey Lockerbie: Ray, one of my takeaways from your insights is almost that this is inevitable.
0:53:20 I mean, when we talk about the idea of cycles, the fact that this happens to many countries over and
0:53:25 over again, and here we are again, we’re in the big debt cycle once again. And the thing that you describe
0:53:30 of we’re all on the ship, we’re headed towards the iceberg, and people say, “No, we’ve got to go left.” The
0:53:34 other people say, “No, we’re going to go right.” And ultimately, we just crashed into the iceberg.
0:53:43 That’s kind of where I’m beginning to land on this debt issue. And also on the dominance of the
0:53:49 American empire itself. I’m starting to think, you know, this is kind of just the way it is.
0:53:56 And we can say that we’re going to get spending under control. Uh, we can say that we’re going to get
0:54:03 down to three or 4% as you put forward. But ultimately, this stuff is too difficult. Humans
0:54:10 are too selfish. Uh, there is too much conflict. And the way things shape out is the cycle just happens
0:54:15 over and over again. And so in a lot of ways, maybe, maybe we just resigned to that. I mean,
0:54:20 I’m not sure I want to go that far right now, but that’s kind of where I land on this. I’m wondering if
0:54:30 you would, uh, object to my landing there. Um, and if you think that’s kind of the situation we’re in,
0:54:34 what do we do about that? What do we do that about that as investors, as young people,
0:54:35 as professionals? What do we do about that?
0:54:44 I think, um, um, that we are most probably, um, headed in that type of a direction, but we also
0:54:52 know that there are things we can do. And, um, um, there are things that are happening that, uh,
0:55:01 should make us, um, not view that as a surety. What we should do is continue to use
0:55:10 my measures are measures that show these things and deal with it. Um, well, I have a, um, and that’s,
0:55:18 by the way, what we should do, I think is inject some understanding and worry into the situation,
0:55:23 which we’re doing now today. I have a principle. If you worry, you don’t have to worry. And if you
0:55:30 don’t worry, you need to worry because if you worry, then you will take care of the things that you’re
0:55:39 worrying about. And we have the capacity today to deal with all of these things. If the parties
0:55:47 involved can worry enough and rise above their self-interests to be able to deal with them well,
0:55:56 that’s a reality. There’s still choice. However, I agree with what you said. It’s not likely. And then
0:56:03 there are possibilities, you know, what does AI do and what do the other things do? Okay. So the answer
0:56:11 to the last part of your question is what does a person do? Okay. I think what, what a person, uh,
0:56:19 does is first of all, they know how to diversify. Well, in other words, I’d say whatever success I’ve had
0:56:26 in life has been more due to my knowing how to deal with what I don’t know than anything I know.
0:56:35 And so for that reason, I would say, you don’t want to concentrate bets. You want to have certain
0:56:43 proper diversification of your bets. That’s a whole other subject. One of the aspects of that is yes,
0:56:48 you do want to have a certain amount of gold in your portfolio or the equivalent of an alternative
0:56:56 money, but not so much that it’s your big dominant bet. Okay. But it diversifies your portfolio in an
0:57:04 effective way, because if the things we’re talking about happen, it also will mean that the other assets
0:57:12 in your portfolio that you’re holding, which won’t do well, will be protected by that position. So you
0:57:20 can structure your portfolio well. Now that’s a whole other session to discuss, you know, how to structure
0:57:29 a portfolio that’s well diversified in many things. Um, and I would say, um, very importantly is, you know,
0:57:34 what is money as a storehold of wealth? What money do we have as a storeholder wealth and give
0:57:40 consideration to that? And how do you protect yourself to have a real after tax return?
0:57:46 As for, uh, young people who are just sort of starting their careers right now, I would like to
0:57:53 get your advice. I mean, you are one of the great legendary investors of our time, but also a founder.
0:57:59 I mean, you, you started Bridgewater, you built it into the largest hedge fund in the world. Um,
0:58:03 and it’s a very interesting time for young people right now. You mentioned the, the AI,
0:58:09 and how technology is impacting us. Just a new study that we’ve been looking at, uh, which I will
0:58:16 just read off you right here. Entry level workers aged 22 to 25 in occupations, most exposed to AI
0:58:24 have seen a 13% relative decline in employment since 2022. So basically young people who are entering the
0:58:30 workforce right now, they are losing their jobs to AI more than anyone else. Um, I’m just wondering what your
0:58:34 advice to those people would be, and what would your advice be to young people who are starting their
0:58:36 careers in general right now?
0:58:46 There’s a, uh, a polarity that exists where, uh, if you’re among the best and the brightest,
0:58:56 nothing matters other than your talents to be successful, any business, those with the most
0:59:00 amount of money, their power is not even in the amount of money they have.
0:59:09 Their power is in identifying the most talented, capable people and enabling them.
0:59:15 Because think about where all this stuff is, has come from. There was no Nvidia. There was no
0:59:24 any of this. Okay. That all came from talented people enabled. Okay. So you want to, and it’s
0:59:30 really 1% of the population, 3 million people out of a country of 330 million people. There was really
0:59:40 like that 1%. If you’re in that 1% or even the 10% that’s around them, that you can, um,
0:59:48 do things together and take full advantage of intelligence and capabilities, do everything you
0:59:55 can to be close to them or be part of that. Because that is where, um, all things could happen,
1:00:01 including how to navigate the world we’re talking in. You know, you can navigate it because it’s not
1:00:06 happening everywhere. Not all countries are going to be at war. Not all countries are going to have
1:00:13 this. There’ll be places and things to do in all of those environments. And so be able to be
1:00:22 intelligent and be around those who are doing those things. Take full advantage of AI. Wow. It can answer
1:00:25 almost any of your questions and so on, but you have to do it well.
1:00:30 It sounds like you believe that the success of Bridgewater or at least Bridgewater’s greatest edge
1:00:37 was you recruited a great team. Yeah. People, culture, but, and then one other thing, every
1:00:46 decision that I made, I always thought, what were the criteria for making that decision? And I wrote
1:00:52 them down as principles. I’ve written literally like thousands of principles. And then I had them put into
1:00:59 computer code and then I tested them back to see how they would have worked in the past. So I’m having,
1:01:07 I’m executing a game plan. And so I’ve been doing AI in its various forms, but to be able to use that
1:01:16 power too. So I have experienced it. Yes. Who you’re around people and culture that’s destiny, um, meaningful
1:01:23 work and meaningful relationships where, you know, you’re on a mission to be the best with people who
1:01:28 are on that mission with you and you have the meaningful relationships. And, but to do that,
1:01:34 to achieve the highest level of excellence, and then yes, use the AI.
1:01:39 So what are you up to in the next 24 months? What do you want to accomplish professionally and
1:01:45 personally, what are you focused on? I’m at a stage in my life where I want to pass along whatever I’ve
1:01:51 learned and is benefit to others. I’m 76. So I want to pass along whatever I have that could be a
1:01:56 benefit to others. That’s everything that I’m doing. That’s why I wrote the book about the mechanics of
1:02:03 the debt. So people could study the mechanics. I love playing my investment game. Um, I’m now doing it for,
1:02:12 um, my family office and that, and then I’m, uh, making a platform for, uh, that everybody can do
1:02:18 that sort of thing. That would be my aspiration. That’s what I’d like to accomplish in the next 24
1:02:28 months. And of course, family, grandkids, savoring life. I hear you, brother. Uh, Ray Dalio is founder
1:02:32 of Bridgewater Associates and ran it for most of its 50 years, building it into the largest hedge fund in the
1:02:36 world. He is a long running New York times, bestselling author of several books, including
1:02:41 his most recent work, how countries go broke the big cycle. He received an MBA from Harvard business
1:02:47 school in 1973 and has been married to his wife, Barbara for 46 years and has three grown sons and
1:02:52 seven grandchildren. He is an active philanthropist. He joins us from where are you, Ray? In Greenwich,
1:02:57 Connecticut now. Nice. Well, we always, I think you’re now a four time guest on your fifth, you get a
1:03:02 jacket. So we’ll have you back soon. Oh yeah. What a thrill, right?
1:03:06 Right. Ray, really appreciate your time and good that you, good that you’re getting into good trouble.
1:03:09 Right. Thank you. Bye, bye. That was great. Thank you, Ray.
1:03:23 Scott, what’d you think? Well, you know, by virtue of the fact he’s been on four times,
1:03:28 we obviously think a lot of Ray and his accomplishments speak for himself, but I think he’s very civic minded.
1:03:34 I like how he grounds, you know, he tries to build frameworks, kind of the five influences.
1:03:41 I always enjoy hearing from him, trying to figure out how we move to the, the action part of the program.
1:03:46 Like what, can he put, can he, he has so many resources and such a big platform.
1:03:55 You know, could Ray potentially put forward bills and initiatives or ballot initiatives? Could he find
1:04:00 30 moderate candidates and quite frankly, just bankroll them the way Peter Thiel has? I mean,
1:04:04 what we need is we need a Peter Thiel that looks like, and sounds like, and behaves like Ray Dalio.
1:04:11 I’ve agreed with his concerns for many years. One thing that I did find interesting,
1:04:17 and I kind of get it because I think that he wants to, I think he wants to make things happen. And he,
1:04:20 I think he probably believes that he needs to be sort of friends ish with both sides.
1:04:26 But it was interesting to me that, you know, he said, I don’t, we don’t want to be evocative.
1:04:30 We don’t want to say things that would be, that was the word he used, evocative.
1:04:41 And I don’t know. I just find that, I found that notable that Ray, I think is doing a lot of work
1:04:48 to explain the actions of the administration. And again, fair enough, if you want to get stuff done,
1:04:51 you can’t just go around alienating everyone and making people your enemy.
1:04:58 But he was certainly doing a lot of work to steel man that side. I mean, the notion that the big,
1:05:05 beautiful bill, here’s the argument as to why it could actually bring down the deficit.
1:05:12 To me, it just doesn’t hold water at all. And who knows? Maybe he does think that it does have merit.
1:05:21 I don’t really buy it. And I think it’s notable that he’s putting in that work probably to stay friends.
1:05:25 I hope he doesn’t get mad at me for saying that, but that’s my read on it.
1:05:29 I think it’s an accurate depiction. And he’s, he kind of comes across as his very statesmanlike.
1:05:35 I just, my view is, and again, I don’t know if this is my anger talking, I think the reaching
1:05:41 across the aisle just hasn’t worked. And trying to understand the other side and what Trump voters
1:05:45 are thinking and what the rationale is and what if things go right. I just don’t think it’s working.
1:05:50 And it’s not, and by the way, it’s now, as far as I can tell, it’s never reciprocated.
1:05:58 So it’s like, look, this is, war is the wrong word, but this is a conflict and battle lines have
1:06:04 been drawn. There is a vision of America that is shared by most Democrats and what I would argue is
1:06:09 most traditional Republicans. This is no longer a nation controlled by the Republican party. It’s
1:06:16 controlled by a MAGA movement. And in some ways it’s a greater insult or more contrary to traditional
1:06:22 Republican ideals. Keep in mind, the initial founding fathers and the constitution were largely
1:06:26 sort of what you would call traditional Republican ideals, making sure there were checks and balances.
1:06:30 The government couldn’t move too fast. The government couldn’t intervene too much. That small government
1:06:37 by virtue of three co-equal branches of government. So from a purely theoretical or constitutional
1:06:42 standpoint, what’s going on here is more of an insult and more contrary to Republican ideals
1:06:47 and democratic ideals. And it feels to me that we aren’t going to have moral clarity around what
1:06:51 has happened here, the violation of the constitution, the weaponization of the Department of Justice,
1:06:58 the violation of people’s rights, the shipping of innocent people to black sites, the incredible,
1:07:06 first time in history we’ve been removing people’s rights, the grift, the corruption. I think there
1:07:10 needs to be more moral clarity about this. And I think that these people need to pay a price.
1:07:15 And I’m not one of these people who’s like, lock them up. But I think the level of criminality here
1:07:21 has been normalized. And that we aren’t going to get back to a sense of a great institutions and a more
1:07:26 resilient society and economy until we reconcile that. I don’t think it’s it’s trying to understand
1:07:31 them or reaching across the aisle and feeling their pain. Fuck that. This is war. And I use that word.
1:07:32 This is war.
1:07:37 Richard At a certain point, we can do everything we can to try to understand their argument. But at a
1:07:44 certain point, it just looks like lying. I mean, I do not believe that any of the policies that we
1:07:53 have seen enacted in 2025 have been any attempt to reduce the deficit and to reduce the national debt.
1:08:00 There is nothing that has been done that would indicate to me that that is a priority or of any
1:08:07 interest or of any meaning to this administration. And to be clear, they said it was. So we can try to
1:08:13 explain away and try to figure out how to justify, oh, maybe they, if you look about it, look at it from
1:08:20 this angle. Maybe that makes sense. Or you could just conclude they lied. They lied to get votes.
1:08:26 And that’s where I land on this. And I’d be interested to know what what Ray really thinks.
1:08:30 Maybe it is what he really thinks. I just I was a little skeptical.
1:08:34 I wonder if this is the price we pay for something you said really struck me when that was 60 percent
1:08:40 of U.S. adults can’t read at a sixth grade level. I mean, have we not purposely created a populace that
1:08:45 are it cracks me up when elected officials say, you know, but the American public are smart. No, they’re not.
1:08:49 No, they’re not. The average American can’t read above.
1:08:52 I like to believe that America is smart, but maybe you’re right.
1:08:58 I think we’re innovative and I think we’re hard, hard working. But I’m not sure if the average
1:09:04 American can’t read above a sixth grade level, I think it would be difficult to call us to call us
1:09:07 smart. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Something’s a foot.
1:09:09 I don’t want to get to the bottom. I want to get to the other side.
1:09:14 What’s on the other side and I’m ready. All right.
1:09:22 This episode was produced by Claire Miller and Alison Weiss and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
1:09:27 Our research team is Dan Chalon, Isabella Kinsel, Kristen O’Donoghue and Mia Silverio.
1:09:32 Drew Burrows is our technical director and Catherine Dillon is our executive producer.
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