During the past few weeks, major countries have been moving away from the U.S. dollar, raising doubts about the dollar’s long dominant role in the world. Eight weeks ago, it was just pariah nations like Iran or Russia trying to de-dollarize. Now it’s Brazil, France, even Saudi Arabia—the lynchpin of the decades-long “petrodollar” arrangement.
If the dollar does lose its position as global reserve currency, it will be catastrophic for the American economy. Catastrophic for the Americans people on whose backs 80 years of reserve status was built. And it will subject billions of foreigners, for whom the dollar has meant decades of being bullied, to history’s greatest bait and switch.
Dollar at Risk
In late March, Saudi Arabia announced it will price oil in Chinese yuan. Even CNN was worried, in a rare display of situational awareness, while Fox fretted about “Weimar” hyperinflation.
The dollar has been the undisputed global reserve currency since the 1940s. Reserve currency status looks great on paper: You get to print stacks of green paper and foreigners give you cool stuff for it like toasters, luxury cars, and copper mines. The problem is who profits—who gets paid when foreigners crave the green paper?
Unfortunately, it’s not the American people, it’s whomever’s printing money: The Federal Rerve, meaning the Treasury to whom they hand their ill-gotten profits, and—you guessed it—Wall Street commercial banks.
To see why, imagine foreigners didn’t want dollars. The Fed and the banks could only print a little bit, since printing a lot would create inflation and voters would toss them out.
But if do foreigners want a lot of dollars, the Fed and banks can print a matching demand. It’s like a river flowing into the money supply reservoir, matched up with a river flowing out to foreigners. The reservoir stays stable, and voters don’t riot.
