The only purpose of this essay is PR, for hiring and attracting capital. If you want to do the cynical self-interest take, that's the one you should be going with.
The only purpose of this essay is PR, for hiring and attracting capital. If you want to do the cynical self-interest take, that's the one you should be going with.
I made a number of bets on the tech industry early on in my career (2005-08): that the Web and Javascript would become increasingly more important, that Python would be a major language both for web development and for scientific computing, that Google and other new tech companies would continue growing until they were bigger than we could imagine, that startups would become a more respectable way of spending your career. I would happily crow about them to anyone that would listen, while also arranging my professional life to benefit from them. They happened. Did I cause the ascendancy of Javascript, or Python, or Google, or startups? Of course not. I called it, and then lots of other people, as events progressed, independently made the same call and jumped on the bandwagon.
So it is with Dalio (and Buffett, and other thought leaders in the financial industry). It's unlikely that their words are moving markets, particularly since their bets are often contrarian and unremarkable at the time they start publicly stating them, and financial markets often take years to catch up. Rather, they spot the trend, understand the implications, and then position themselves to benefit when everyone else spots the trend and understands the implications.
Your anecdote isn't equivalent here. You weren't broadcasting your idea to millions of people managing billions of dollars. If you did have that kind of power, it could have helped javascript/python/Google/startups get adopted faster.
This sort of thing does actually happen in other domains, like short selling, and maybe you're reasoning by analogy with that activity. But that logic simply does not apply here. The amounts involved are too large, the liquidity moves too slowly, and the people involved have too much expertise. All the stuff Dalio is saying here is already known to them, and far more.
His articles and books are not innovative. They are not designed to educate experts. They are designed to popularize his ideas, among the general public.
The kinds of people you would have to influence to move these markets are phd macro economists working for central banks, and portfolio managers at places like Pimco. These kinds of people are not reading Dalio's books and thinking "oh man, never thought about these debt cycles before, better go short treasuries".