[NewTeaBag]

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No way, countries don't just go and collapse. USSR collapsed because it was run by an extremely unnatural and inefficient regime, and was rotted out from the inside out. The country could no longer satisfy the basic needs of its population, which is kinda sucky for a communist government. The trouble that US is in, real and potential, does not even come close to USSR's troubles.

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So if say perhaps,

1) Oil trading was shifted to euros vice $$$
then
2) China dumped its gazillionity Tbills back onto the market
then
3) $ plunges into rapid freefall
then
4) US econmy pluges into massive depression type recession
then
5) significant chunks of population can no longer afford to feed their families let alone their "lifestyle"
6) Government can longer even pay the military forces who now get to fight foreign wars whilst their families are starving and fighting back at home.


Yeah, pretty far fetched. Can't happen.

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As much as I hate it, the FED is going to do its job, here. The deposits in the bank are guaranteed. There is going to be no capital market implosion. The only thing that is going to happen is that a bunch of money that got loaned out to shaky mortgages is going to get lost. The capital markets are very diverse and are not solely dependant on the mortgage sector.

As for your oil shifted to euros premise, the worlds largest oil producers are not going to put their security in the hands of the European Union. The European Union cannot possibly deliver on that promise. You have to think about the reason why oil is traded in dollars to begin with. It's because the US has the muscle to protect that arrangement. To think that Europe, after centuries of war and animosity between its member states is going to pull together and stand up to deliver on a promise like that is absurd.

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I'm not so certain about the FED. They just cut rates twice (printing more money) with the $ at longtime lows. They are feeding the devaluation of the currency instead of actally stabalizing it. The gubment continues to spend more and more and more of imaginary money it does not have racking up enormous debt.

It will only take a few crisis of confidence for a snowball effect.

As for muscle to back up the promise, what happens when they can no longer afford to pay the people who man that muscle in anything other than a hyperinflating currency? Do you think they are going to stick around?