The Long Haul

Our world is shaped by the three generations before us, and we are shaping the world for the three generations that follow us.

American First Nation Saying

It seems that the more we are able to analyse data, the more we become myopic in its use. We focus on this year, this quarter and at best look a few years forward. We look at the world through the lens of our own lifetimes.

Ray Dalio, he of Bridgewater Capital is an analyst par excellance, and is currently publishing his perspectives based on a much longer perspective - around six hundred years. It's a good piece of work, and benefits hugely from a move away from an attempt at forecasting, to a more nuanced look at trends. It puts our own timescales into perspective, and makes us realise we are all passengers on cycles we have little influence over.

As part of his first release, he has derived a list of seventeen qualities that he suggests determines where we are in a long term cycle - whether we are moving upwards as countries / kingd…