Billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio explains how capitalism works

Ray Dalio is distinguished not only for founding Bridgewater Associates - the world's biggest hedge fund - or by his estimated net worth of $15 billion, but by his unique business philosophy and his tendency to explain it at length.

Every Bridgewater employee, for example, is given an exhaustive 120-page manual on Dalio's world view.

In late 2013, he produced and narrated an animated video that explains "How the Economic Machine Works" that simplifies the economy as the interaction of short- and long-term debt cycles over a productivity growth line. It's since gotten over 1 million views.

It's an engagingly animated explainer that covers the relationship between cash and credit, the government and the central bank, and inflation and deflation within 30 minutes.