Hedge fund manager Dalio says bipartisan effort needed for post-pandemic world

[January 26, 2021]  By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Ray Dalio, who founded the world's largest hedge fund, said on Monday that all sides need to collaborate to reconfigure capitalism for a post-pandemic world.

 Ray Dalio, Founder, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer, Bridgewater Associates attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich

Dalio, whose opinions on global problems and potential solutions are widely followed, said a bipartisan and productive effort is necessary to create economic transformation. "It can't just be a transfer of wealth. It has to be an increasing amount of productivity," he said at the World Economic Forum's virtual Davos Agenda.

"So it has to be over-encompassing and it has to be like a Manhattan Project," Dalio said referring to the U.S.-led effort during World War II to develop a nuclear weapon.

His comments came hours after he said on Twitter, "I believe we are on the brink of a terrible civil war ... where we are at an inflection point between entering a type of hell of fighting or pulling back to work together for peace and prosperity."

In the Davos session, held virtually because of the pandemic, Dalio praised U.S. President Joe Biden for taking a more inclusive tone and wanting to be a president for the UNITED states. "It's a great objective," he said.

Still the investor said he sees no easy path to solving problems like the wealth gap, increased debt, plus the rising power of China and the declining power of the United States. "That's a fragile, fragmented world," he said.

Dalio's firm Bridgewater Associates has earned $46.5 billion for investors since its launch in 1975 but suffered a setback last year when it lost $12.1 billion, according to data from LCH Investments.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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