> entitlement spending on retiring boomers coming due in the next few years This is a frequently overblown fact. 12.4% of the population was >65 in 2000, incre

> entitlement spending on retiring boomers coming due in the next few years This is a frequently overblown fact. 12.4% of the population was >65 in 2000, increasing to 15.2% in 2006. So this huge incremental wave of retiring boomers is... 3% of the population. > The rest of the world gives us real goods, we give them paper IOU's. This is fun to say but try paying for goods with a paper IOU. Chances are the store will prefer dollars, even though they're technically the same concept. > Problem is, in the petrodollar system, the reason this whole ponzi could occur is dollars were needed to buy oil. Post-71 Nixon shock, the $ was as good as oil. Saudi and others only sold oil for dollars putting a floor on the value of dollar and incentivizing both oil exporters and rest of world to want to hold dollars, thus recycling their surpluses into treasury debt to both fund their export economies and fund our consumption. People want dollars for various reasons. The dollar is stable relative to other currencies. They're harder for authoritarian governments to seize. There's inertia (It's already the reserve currency and working fine, so why change?). It's extremely liquid. All more valid reasons than this random oil conspiracy theory. > This CANNOT continue because by definition it means rest of world works and produces for never ending, and ever growing, US consumption. Not sure how this follows, at all. > Holding dollars, amidst a growing realization the Fed would have to monetize this debt and government would never pay it back in "real terms" has led many oil exporters to try to sell oil in other currencies, and countries generally to try to exit the dollar for trade. Nobody is exiting the dollar for trade. What're you gonna do, switch to euros? yuan? HN and wacky economic conspiracy theories, name a more iconic duo.