Ray Dalio warns that the monetary order is breaking down, leaving us with a terrible choice: ‘Do you print money or let a debt crisis happen?’

Ray Dalio never misses an opportunity to cut to the chase. On Wednesday at Davos, speaking to Kamal Ahmed, Fortune’s executive editorial director for the U.K. and Europe, he had a blunt assessment of the landscape leaders and CEOs are facing at the moment. “What always scares me is the lack of realism [among leaders],” he said as he reeled off the historic economic, environmental, and political threats the world is grappling with. “Will law prevail? Everyone is having to deal with that question.”

When it comes to the U.S. economy, Dalio has long been a vocal critic of the rapidly rising national debt, which now stands at $38 billion. He said the crisis is so great that we are now dealing with the “breakdown of the monetary order,” and we face a terrible choice: “Do you print money or do you let a debt crisis happen?”

He said recently in another interview: “My grandchildren and great-grandchildren not yet born, are going to be paying off this debt in devalued dollars.” He has described a paralysis in Washington in which policymakers assume the bond market will not collapse, and bond traders assume Congress will act before a crisis becomes irreversible. When referring to the debt crisis, Dalio has often referenced Ernest Hemingway’s famous line about ho...