Page 117 - Ray Dalio - Principles

are and how they are being played out. For example, people
tend to embrace stories about how their own country is moral
and the rival country is not, when most of the time these

countries have different interests that they are trying to
maximize. The best behaviors one can hope for come from
leaders who can weigh the benefits of cooperation, and who
have long enough time frames that they can see how the gifts
they give this year may bring them benefits in the future.

These conflicts of vested interests don’t just play out
internationally; it can also be nasty within countries. Finding

out what’s true and trying to do what’s in everyone’s best
interests is rare, though most policymakers pretend that’s what
they’re doing. More typically, they act in support of their
constituents’ interests. For example, representatives of those
with greater income will say higher taxes stifle growth while
representatives of those with less income will say the opposite.
It’s hard to get everyone to even try to look at the whole

picture objectively, let alone to operate in the interests of the
whole.

Nonetheless, I came to respect most of the policymakers I
worked with and to feel sorry for them because of the terrible
positions they were in. Most are highly principled people who
are forced to operate in unprincipled environments. The job of
a policymaker is challenging under the best of circumstances,

and it’s almost impossible during a crisis. The politics are
horrendous and distortions and outright misinformation from
the media make things worse. A number of the policymakers I
met—including Draghi, de Guindos, Schäuble, Bernanke,
Geithner, Summers, and many others—were real heroes,

meaning that they put others and the mission they committed
to above themselves. Unfortunately, most policymakers enter
their careers as idealists and leave disillusioned.

One of those heroes I have been fortunate enough to learn
from and, I hope, help is China’s Wang Qishan, who has been
a remarkable force for good for decades. To explain what he is
like and the journey that took him to the top of China’s

leadership would take more of this book than I can spare. In
brief, Wang is a historian, a very high-level thinker, and a very
practical man. I have rarely known a person to be both