Let's go back 30-odd years. It's late in the 1980s. The US and the Soviets have been competing heavily for the last 50 or so years. Both are spending money like

Let's go back 30-odd years. It's late in the 1980s. The US and the Soviets have been competing heavily for the last 50 or so years. Both are spending money like there's no tomorrow. Both are heading rapidly towards bankruptcy. It's the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union runs out of money and goes broke and breaks up. The US goes broke but continues triumphantly on. (Or so goes the normally accepted story.) The US is lucky at the end of the Cold War by having the advantage of having the World's Reserve Currency to use as a credit-card. That allows the US to continue serenely on, and being allowed to continue racking up debt after debt on that reserve currency credit-card. Because it is not forced to restructure its finances, by 2022 it is 31 TRILLION dollars deep in the shit. The Soviets are lucky at the end of the Cold War by NOT having the World's Reserve Currency to use as a credit-card. That forces the Soviets/Russians into about ten years of difficult restructuring of their finances and then by 2022, after 20 years of positive cash-flows the Russians are the proud owners of roughly half a trillion dollars of reserves and negligible external debt. Today's world is rapidly de-dollarizing. When that Reserve Currency credit-card is taken away, the US is in a huge world of hurt that will make the Yeltsin-era Russian decade of pain look like a picnic in comparison.