The Money Messiah: Ray Dalio thinks the coronavirus crisis could close the global wealth gap
Billionaire hedge funder and ultra-capitalist Ray Dalio has used lockdown to speak up about inequality, reducing the wealth gap, and why a global pandemic is the time to rethink a broken economic system
Words: Tom Ward
Ray Dalio (founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund firm Bridgewater, 46th richest person in the world, $18 billion net worth) knows a thing or two about financial systems. He isn’t afraid to shout about it, either. In 2007 he was one of few people to warn of an impending economic collapse. The next year the world entered the worst global recession since the 1930s.
12 years later, the coronavirus pandemic sees us all on the brink of financial uncertainty once again. As of 28 May, London’s FTSE 100 may have begun to recover but it has a long way to go after such a dramatic fall, with blue chip stocks and travel and leisure in decline. As a whole, the UK economy has shrunk by 2% since January 2020, leading chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak to warn that a ‘significant recession’ is now ‘very likely’.
Dalio, who is both an outspoken advocate for both progressive philanthropy and the epitome of an ultra-capitalist success, has some thoughts on the matter. In a virtual TED talk given this April, Dalio likened the coronavirus pandemic to a ‘tsunami’ and again warned of another Great Depression. In financial terms, Dalio believes that, however the global community chooses to weather the coming storm, one thing is for sure, “We’re not going to go back to the way it was.”
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