Billionaire who predicted 2008 recession – Firstpost

American billionaire and the founding father of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio, criticised the
sweeping tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump and stated that he’s “anxious about one thing worse than a recession” hitting the US. The remarks from the distinguished investor got here throughout his interview with NBC Information’ “Meet the Press.” What makes Dalio’s warning vital is the truth that he was the one who predicted that the American economic system could be hit by a
recession in 2008.

“I feel that proper now we’re at a decision-making level and really near a recession,” Dalio instructed NBC Information in a latest interview. “And I’m anxious about one thing worse than a recession if this isn’t dealt with properly,” he added. The billionaire reiterated the stark warning in a number of of his posts on X, previously generally known as Twitter.

Within the social media put up, Dalio famous that it’s “too late” to fight the financial fallout of Trump’s tariffs and insisted that the world financial order with the US on the centre is “breaking down”. The billionaire repeated the identical warning within the NBC Information interview, which he had executed earlier than he made the put up.

https://t.co/PUUxSqYIv8

— Ray Dalio (@RayDalio) April 28, 2025

Historical past repeats itself: Dalio

In the course of the interview, Dalio defined that the mixture of tariffs, extreme debt and  “rising energy difficult the present energy” as modifications which are “very, very disruptive.” “We’re having profound modifications in our home order … and we’re having profound modifications on the planet order. Such instances are very very similar to the Nineteen Thirties,” Dalio stated. “I’ve studied historical past, and this repeats again and again.”

“How that’s dealt with might produce one thing that’s a lot worse than a recession,” he added. Nevertheless, the investor famous that there’s nonetheless hope and the state of affairs might “be managed very properly.” He went on to induce the members of the
US Congress to pledge to cut back the funds deficit by a number of share factors to three per cent of the GDP.

“In the event that they don’t, we’re going to have a supply-demand downside for debt similtaneously we’ve got these different issues, and the outcomes of that will likely be worse than a traditional recession,” he stated. When requested in regards to the worst-case situation, Dalio stated he was anxious about “the worth of cash, inside battle that isn’t the conventional democracy as we all know it, a world battle in a manner that’s extremely disruptive to the world economic system and will even be a army battle.”

Is it too late?

In a separate social media put up, Dalio claimed that it’s “too late” to fight the financial fallout. “Primarily based on lots of my indicators,” he wrote in a social media put up, “it seems that we’re on the point of the financial order, the home political and the worldwide world orders breaking down attributable to unsustainable, dangerous fundamentals.”

In his put up on Monday, Dalio stated that he had heard from a rising variety of folks, together with exporters who commerce with the US, recognise that “no matter occurs with tariffs … radically decreased interdependencies with the US is a actuality that needs to be deliberate for.”

“It’s also more and more being realised that the US’ function because the world’s largest shopper of manufactured items and biggest producer of debt property to finance its over-consumption is unsustainable,” he added. The remarks from Dalio got here at a time when buyers, enterprise leaders and governments world wide are determined for readability on Trump’s tariff coverage.

The person who predicted the 2008 recession

Dalio got here to prominence on Wall Road after he precisely
predicted the 2008 monetary disaster. Again in 2007, his firm, Bridgewater, warned that “embedded dangers within the system are fairly giant” forward of the eventual monetary disaster. Just a few months later, the corporate famous that rates of interest would rise “till there’s a cracking of the monetary system,” including that “nobody is aware of how this monetary market contagion will play out.” Months later, the recession started.

Since then, Dalio has been seen as some form of a perennial doom forecaster. Whereas chatting with the Wall Road Journal final yr, Dalio admitted that he “bought it improper” along with his 2023 forecast that the US economic system was coming into a debt disaster.

In his prolonged put up on X, the billionaire famous that whereas the duties had been “essential developments,” individuals are “largely overlooking the vastly extra vital forces which are driving nearly all the pieces, together with the tariffs.”

“The far greater, way more vital factor to remember is that we’re seeing a basic breakdown of the main financial, political, and geopolitical orders,” he wrote. “This form of breakdown happens solely about as soon as in a lifetime, however they’ve occurred many instances in historical past when comparable unsustainable situations had been in place,” he added.

With inputs from companies.