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USD is backed by the faith & credit of the United States Government. USG has a 200 year history of paying it's debts. It has the power to tax a massive economy.

USD is backed by the faith & credit of the United States Government. USG has a 200 year history of paying it's debts. It has the power to tax a massive economy. There are hundreds of millions, if not billions of people, who believe in the creditworthiness of the USG. This is why markets are "amiable" wrt the dollar. Tether is backed by a shady company who's been caught lying numerous times. The claim that 1 USDT is backed by 1 USD is what was meant to establish it as creditworthy. This has been walked back so many times - it's not USD, it's a basket of goods. Those goods might include cryptocurrencies. Those cryptocurrencies might include coins we've minted. Et cetera. It is not reasonable to have faith in their statements. It is not reasonable to consider them creditworthy. You can't keep USDT pegged to $1 if the organization backing it can't be trusted.

dheera 5y ago
> faith & credit of the United States Government Why should I have faith in the government? > USG has a 200 year history of paying it's debts Wait what? https://www.worldometers.info/us-debt-clock/ https://www.worldometers.info/us-debt-clock/
- maxbond 5y ago
  Should you have faith that your treasury bonds will be paid? I'd say so. I certainly have qualms with my government. But their ability to send out checks is not one of them. Yes, the national debt is rising. Debt is being issued faster than it is being paid. So what? Are coupon payments being missed? Is there any reason to believe that the government will default?
- lvh 5y ago
  The US debt clock does not say that the US does not pay its debts.
- yqe78 5y ago
  > Why should I have faith in the government? Because you’re allowed to be this naive on a computer forum on an international network of high-tech computing devices, some of which you own, openly call for economic reforms you don’t understand, and not find yourself up against a wall with seconds to live. That’s why. Your ability to study crypto instead of working a field to feed your family under the watch of rifles, crypto’s entire existence (arguably), the fact that you’re ostensibly literate, the food in your stomach, and countless other secondary concerns that add up to you making this comment right now only happened because you are subject to a government that permitted it and created an existence for you where you can have all of those things. The other side of that wall has guns pointed at it. Note that specifying status quo does not communicate an opinion on it. There are real concerns with every world government. On the other hand, it’s naive young people who assume their comfortable existence is “just the way it is” for everyone universally and their ethnicity and sovereign power has nothing to do with it. You don’t have to trust the government to tell you the truth. You do have to implicitly trust that governments worth paying attention to can, and will, exercise actual power when they consider it necessary and consequently create a free existence where you are allowed to flourish. Those are different things. That’s what “backed by the full faith” means. Not that we trust the government to be honest about who it’s talking to late at night on Snapchat. The world implicitly trusts the Third Fleet. “What has the government done for me?”, you’re essentially asking, on the downstream consequences of a decentralized government command and control network experiment which also happened to feed you your entire economic worldview in a society where limits on education are mostly forgotten, particularly by you.

dheera 5y ago

> faith & credit of the United States Government Why should I have faith in the government? > USG has a 200 year history of paying it's debts Wait what? https://www.worldometers.info/us-debt-clock/ https://www.worldometers.info/us-debt-clock/

maxbond 5y ago
Should you have faith that your treasury bonds will be paid? I'd say so. I certainly have qualms with my government. But their ability to send out checks is not one of them. Yes, the national debt is rising. Debt is being issued faster than it is being paid. So what? Are coupon payments being missed? Is there any reason to believe that the government will default?
lvh 5y ago
The US debt clock does not say that the US does not pay its debts.
yqe78 5y ago
> Why should I have faith in the government? Because you’re allowed to be this naive on a computer forum on an international network of high-tech computing devices, some of which you own, openly call for economic reforms you don’t understand, and not find yourself up against a wall with seconds to live. That’s why. Your ability to study crypto instead of working a field to feed your family under the watch of rifles, crypto’s entire existence (arguably), the fact that you’re ostensibly literate, the food in your stomach, and countless other secondary concerns that add up to you making this comment right now only happened because you are subject to a government that permitted it and created an existence for you where you can have all of those things. The other side of that wall has guns pointed at it. Note that specifying status quo does not communicate an opinion on it. There are real concerns with every world government. On the other hand, it’s naive young people who assume their comfortable existence is “just the way it is” for everyone universally and their ethnicity and sovereign power has nothing to do with it. You don’t have to trust the government to tell you the truth. You do have to implicitly trust that governments worth paying attention to can, and will, exercise actual power when they consider it necessary and consequently create a free existence where you are allowed to flourish. Those are different things. That’s what “backed by the full faith” means. Not that we trust the government to be honest about who it’s talking to late at night on Snapchat. The world implicitly trusts the Third Fleet. “What has the government done for me?”, you’re essentially asking, on the downstream consequences of a decentralized government command and control network experiment which also happened to feed you your entire economic worldview in a society where limits on education are mostly forgotten, particularly by you.