[pdonis]

> USD seems to hold its value pretty well.

The Consumer Price Index has inflated by a factor of more than 15 from January 1947 through March 2026 [1]. That's an annual rate of inflation of about 3.45 percent. That's an indication of how the USD does not hold its value--if you have a stock of dollars that you want to hold the same buying power year to year, you have to add 3.45 percent to it every year just to stay even.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL

[SR2Z]

Ok, great. Now list something what that's actually held its value.

A nice, mostly-even 3% a year is spectacular. Gold can't do that. Bitcoin can't do that. Only a central bank can do that.

[pdonis]

> Now list something what that's actually held its value.

Gee, I dunno, anything whose value as measured in dollars increases by more than 3.45% a year? Like, just off the top of my head, stocks, bonds, real estate, and yes, gold. Bitcoin, maybe.

> A nice, mostly-even 3% a year is spectacular.

I don't think you understand that that 3.45% a year is not a rate of appreciation, as if dollars were an asset. It's a cost that you have to bear every year if you insist on holding dollars instead of something that, um, holds its value. In other words, it's a rate of loss of value of dollars.

> Only a central bank can do that.

If you mean that only a central bank, as an agent of a government, can force people to use money that loses value every year as the central bank prints more, yes, that's quite true. But it doesn't mean what you appear to think it means.