"China is digging out of a crisis. And America’s luck is wearing thin." — Ken Rogoff

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

June 12, 2025

Duration

1h 36m

Channel

Dwarkesh Podcast

Watch on YouTube

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📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Ken Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF, predicts that within the next decade, the US will have a debt-induced inflation crisis, but not a Japan-type financial crisis (the latter is much worse, and can make a country poorer for generations). Ken explains how China is trapped: in order to solve their current problems, they keep leaning on financial repression and state-directed investment, which only makes their problems worse. We also discuss the erosion of dollar dominance, why there will be a rebalancing toward foreign equities, how AGI will impact the deficit and interest rate, and much more! 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒

• Transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ken-rogoff
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dwarkesh-podcast/id1516093381?i=1000712621759
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2XPKYjWWL3wculkx5z6WiA?si=220a633569594e9b

𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒

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• Scale is building the infrastructure for smarter, safer AI. In addition to their Data Foundry, they recently released Scale Evaluation, a tool that diagnoses model limitations. Learn how Scale can help you push the frontier at https://scale.com/dwarkesh

• Gemini Live API lets you have natural, real-time, interactions with Gemini. You can talk to it like you were talking to another person, stream video to show it your surroundings, and share screen to give it context. Try it now by clicking the “Stream” tab on https://ai.dev To sponsor a future episode, visit https://dwarkesh.com/advertise 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 – China is stagnating 00:25:46 – How the US broke Japan's economy 00:37:06 – America's inflation crisis is coming 01:02:20 – Will AGI solve the US deficit? 01:07:11 – Why interest rates will go up 01:10:55 – US equities will underperform 01:22:24 – The erosion of dollar dominance

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Dwarkesh Patel

  host

• Ken Rogoff

  guest

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Dwarkesh Podcast, featuring Dwarkesh Patel and Ken Rogoff, "China is digging out of a crisis. And America’s luck is wearing thin." — Ken Rogoff explores rogoff warns: China’s crisis deepens as America’s debt gamble grows Kenneth Rogoff argues that China has shifted from highly competent, technocratic leadership to a more centralized, loyalty-based regime, leaving it mired in a deep property-and-debt-driven crisis and overbuilt infrastructure, especially in weaker tier‑three cities.

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