got to be the dollar because of market forces over decades, not because a bunch of diplomats at a meeting said so. It is very cute how people talk of the "US Economy going bankrupt" like it's a Mom and Pop diner down on mainstreet. As I recall, US public is 28th highest in the world as a function of GDP (with lower being better), and is lower on the list than countries like Germany, the UK, France, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Canada and France. The problem here is a matter of scale. The United States's economy is eight times the size of the UK's. A trillion dollars to the United States is a lot less money than it is to the UK or any other country. I mean, consider Turkey is going to the IMF for a bailout, proably $5 billion. Americans spend that much on Coffee in two months. Country's can default on their debt, but Moody's put about a 1% chance on the United States doing that over the next 10 years. Don't take it personally, i was just giving the perspective: if long end blows up, inflation goes to the roof, there wil be US nationwide , and wor dwide capital fly ( fly to where? fly to China, baby, relatively a safer place than Switzerland in that scenario) , USD will be down in a straight line (good news for Baker though, so that he can try to imagine export big time based on worthless USD,