Legend has it Picasso used to pay as much as he could using checks [1] TLDR: not many of these were cashed, because people loved the idea of having his signatu

Legend has it Picasso used to pay as much as he could using checks [1] TLDR: not many of these were cashed, because people loved the idea of having his signature on a piece of paper and kept the checks. So, effectively, every time he paid with a check, he essentially got products and services for free. Now, if you take the dollar - essentially a fed IOU - and in theory ultimately redeemable against some sort of tangible piece of American property (real estate, infrastructure, intellectual property, etc ...), it is very tempting to draw a parallel, namely; As long as the dollar is the world's currency reserve and people stockpile it, greenbacks are just like Picasso's checks: the IOU never gets exercised. And America can keep on issuing debt for ever ... [1] https://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2004/12/08/picassos-checks.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2004/12/08/picassos...