From asset to trade, the financial crisis resonates again 10 years later



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There is one question I get more than any other: "Are we going to have another crisis?" The answer, of course, is yes. But it's not a Wall Street crisis similar to the 2008 one that worries me. I am worried about something much bigger.

When I wrote "Too Big to Fail," this phrase was only used in the context of financial institutions. Today, it is used to refer to cities, municipalities, states and countries. If you consider the accumulation of debt, this is the place where you have to deal.

Unmanageable debt is the match that ignites all crises. You can have as many malicious actors on the scene as you want – greedy bankers, incompetent regulators, conflicting credit rating agencies – but unless you have a lot of leverage in the system, the risk crisis is minimal. Our national debt is over $ 21 trillion and has increased by $ 1 trillion in just six months, under the leadership of Trump, at the White House, but whose political choices have largely favored rich.

This is not the only cause for concern either. If history tells us the political divisions we have seen since the financial crisis, what about history?

Mr. Dalio drew attention to the fact that the international relations that took place after the Great Depression are a worrying example of the divisions that can grow when populism promotes protectionism. "We started having low fares and we started going back and forth," he said.

He paused for a moment, signaling that he did not want to contemplate what it would reveal later. But he continued, "Which, 10 years later, led to Pearl Harbor.

Between populism and war, there are of course many stages. But Mr Dalio said that he saw similarities between the global environment that preceded the Second World War and the one we see today.

This is reason enough to never forget this crisis and its lessons.

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