Piling up debt through irresponsible budgeting can seem like part of human nature. In “How Countries Go Broke”, a book released in June, Ray Dalio, founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater, argues that there is a debt supercycle that is visible across countries and through centuries of history. Governments lever up for decades and then must clear away the problem, often via default or inflation. Even the most advanced economies of the day are not immune.