Anyone thinking that dollars are going to go up in value is seriously loony. Dollars only go down in value. We keep printing more of them. At the same time, we

Anyone thinking that dollars are going to go up in value is seriously loony. Dollars only go down in value. We keep printing more of them. At the same time, we aren't printing as much land and productive assets to keep pace... The entire US economy has become dependent upon asset prices going up. The easiest way to achieve that is to make dollars go down. Conveniently, there is a branch of the government (The Fed) - who answers to no one - and who has the power to print dollars. Sure, some American companies actually do things. But a startling amount of wealth in this country is tied up in R/E and derivatives. If dollars go up and asset prices go down - this explodes spectacularly. The Fed chairmen are all relatively wealthy. IIRC, Ben Bernanke was - by far - the poorest Chairmen ever. At the time he was elected, he had a net worth of $2.5M - inflation adjusted would be >$5M. That's still similar to the type of wealth you read about in Jane Austen books...