Futurology

Note - where 'Earth-like' is defined as planets analogous to Earth in terms of mass and equilibrium temperature.

Here's a full version of Mr. Dalio's words, and below is a summary. Also, he's written several books on this topic, more info here.

While tariffs and their market impacts dominate headlines, the deeper, more critical issue is the breakdown of the global monetary, political, and geopolitical order—a rare, once-in-a-lifetime shift driven by unsustainable debt, inequality, and deglobalization.

Key forces at play:

Monetary/Economic Order Collapse: Unsustainable debt imbalances (e.g., U.S. overborrowing, China over-lending) are forcing a restructuring of global trade and capital flows.

Domestic Political Fragmentation: Rising inequality and populism are eroding democracies, paving the way for autocratic leadership.

Geopolitical Power Shifts: The U.S.-led multilateral order is fading, replaced by unilateralism and conflict (trade wars, tech wars).

Climate & Tech Disruptions: Natural disasters and AI will further destabilize economies and international relations.

Why focus on these? Tariffs are symptoms, not causes. History shows such imbalances lead to depressions, wars, and new orders. Policymakers must prepare for radical measures (debt defaults, capital controls) as the old system unravels.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard lays out the likely steps in how this will happen in this article.

He says Trump will take direct control of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. This, and his global tariff war, and tax cuts for the rich, will stoke huge levels of inflation in the US. Think of Erdogan's Turkey for comparison.

By this point, the foreigners who finance US government debt by buying Treasury bonds will start to lose confidence in the dollar as a currency.

This crisis will force money printing (quantitative easing) and capital controls, both furthering the currency crisis and perhaps leading to hyperinflation.

I hope there are sunny uplands for the world ahead, and the transition to get to them isn't too long. We were always going to have to endure economic pain as we transitioned to a world where robots/AI can do all work. I suspect that pain is going to start sooner than we expected.