'Putin should spend time trying to turn Russia into a country that exports something other than minerals, oil, corruption and women.' You are correct partially. In order to seek a turnaround a nation's leader should look at both weak and strong areas. Seeing a trend in US Irresponsibility towards its financial matters is a warning to not be much closely aligned with US Financial house. Putin is right on that and absolutely. The stupid debt deal is nothing but extending the time for bastard politicians to get reelected in WH and other constituencies. There is no genuine effort to start the healing of the 'parasitic spread' of debt and its other offshoot problems. At this pace, other than hyperinflation, I do not see any other method to clean out the debt mountain. That proves, US is a parasite on not only the resources of the world but also those of its own people..........middle class, poor and old and worst on the future generations.
US Army is in the test mode right now. Let's see how soon it reacts to whip the 'bastard politicians' in line. It has too!
Putin's comments should be taken seriously. The main features distinguishing the U.S. from other countries that have got into trouble over debt is the size and resilience of the U.S. economy AND the reserve status of the dollar. If the reserve status were to be lost, an accelerated decline in the value of the U.S. dollar versus other currencies would occur and U.S. borrowing costs would rise. The Euro economy is as large as the U.S. economy (larger actually), and were the ECB to be a better steward of the Euro and the EU do a better job of managing debt going forward than the Fed and U.S. congress do, the Euro may become the favored reserve currency. U.S. policy makers should be quite concerned about that prospect. When the U.S. congress votes for unfunded spending it is really voting to borrow more money. Unless productivity keeps pace with spending, endless deficit spending will surely lead to at least partial monetizing of debt. This is equivalent to taxing not just U.S. citizens, but because of the dollars reserve status, citizens of every other country as well. This may be the reason Putin referred to the U.S. as a parasite. Some may see this as a clever way of getting others to help pay the bills, but it won't be so clever if the U.S. loses its reserve status. The perennial cry from politicians that they will not raise our taxes is absurd in an economy running deficits too large to be managed by increases in productivity, as monetization will surely result. Furthermore, the moron politician's claim that cutting taxes will result in increasing revenue is insane. Revenues have increased following tax cuts, but those revenue increases weren't due to lower taxes. They were due to heavy government borrowing and the multiplier effect of the resulting government spending, not tax cuts. The parallel claim that raising tax rates hurts job growth is equally moronic. Job growth is related to economic health and/or large government expenditures and borrowing. Periods of twentieth century job growth were accompanied by high marginal tax rates. One of the highest periods of job growth, the 1950's, was accompanied by very high marginal tax rates. Still another moronic claim of politicians is that most of the jobs are created by the wealthy. That is absolutely insane. Most jobs are created by the middle class either directly when they start or expand small businesses, or indirectly when they spend money as consumers. The U.S. economy is driven by consumption. The middle class, the largest class of consumers, has been decimated and been living on credit the past 25 years as it attempted to maintain living standards in the face of declining real wages. Middle class earnings have decreased over the past 25 years when discounted for inflation, and the difference has been made up with borrowing. This trend had a dramatic beginning with the Reagan administration and its idiotic "trickle down" theories. Growing the middle class, putting money in their pockets, and working harder is the way to a stronger economy and job growth. For twenty-five years the U.S. has been moving, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly, in the opposite direction. The result is now quite evident. One reaps what one sows.
Piezoe, great post, but how does one insure that whatever currency is adopted as a reserve, the stewards of that currency don't abuse that status and follow the same road as the US?
Increasing taxes on wealthy Congressmen and Senators will hurt the economy. But maybe that's where the tax rate should be increased 1000%. You know...to pay for the negative externalities they create.
There isn't any assurance. One possibility is for trading partners to start a trading bank that will issue purchase credits based on the value of a local currency deposited in the bank relative to a basket of currencies whose component currency values are set by the FOREX market. No single country would have the advantage over another of having an exclusive lock on the reserve currency. Sovereign banks with large dollar deposits could exchange these dollars for Trade Bank credits. This has been considered many times but never seems to go anywhere, so far that is.. I can't imagine that the U.S. would be a willing partner unless forced. Some considerable trade is already occurring in Euros. Not surprising, Iran for example, is trading oil quoted in Euros and the Iranian central Banks reserves are heavily dominated by the Euro, but of course they still keep some reserves in dollars. And naturally all the central banks maintain some reserves in gold. The world is awash in dollars. The U.S. should hope and pray that everyone does not want to sell dollars at the same time! The U.S. dollar is no longer "as good as gold".