[jacquesm]

> The idea the USD is going to collapse is farcical. It would be a global catastrophe of a scale not yet seen, but also not threatened.

In the short term you are probably right. In the long term you are almost certainly wrong.

[XorNot]

Hardly. What long term destabilizing factors would make people abandon the USD - the currency of the current global military hegemon, if nothing else?

[dualogy]

Did I hear "global military hegemon"? Try paying your soldiers far from home in a dying currency, go for it! ;D

(Not making a case for "collapse gonna happen", just saying "if, then your military's worth sinks with your currency"...)

[conanbatt]

rampant inflation.

[XorNot]

You mean that 2-4% range with the Fed is legally mandated to keep it in, and has been wildly successful in doing so for the past 40 years?

[conanbatt]

I didnt say there was inflation, its just one of those things that can make people drop the US if it happened.

US debt cannot increase indefinitely without consequence, and in a time of desperate need (such as the 2008 bailouts) it has to print lots of money and hence cause inflation. If the US dollar suffered 10% inflation 2 years in a row, it could originate some drastic changes, as dollar holders might want to get rid of the coin. Figure china selling out its entire dollar reservers in one year, US goes to the tank.

Im not being alarmist, its just a possibility. Comparing Bitcoin to USD makes no sense at this stage in many ways, starting with volume.

[maxerickson]

How are you fitting the 1970s into that statement?

[XorNot]

By observing that the USD did not "collapse" despite it?

Plenty of BitCoin people seem adamant the USD is definitely going to collapse, but can't explain why it hasn't already, or where the instability causing it too would come from, or why smaller, less wide-spread currencies don't do the same barring exceptional circumstances (i.e. Zimbabwe).

[maxerickson]

I more meant the 2-4% range part. If you had said 30 years, fine. But inflation was (well) over 4% for much of the 10 years prior to 1983.