Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

>Why is the US seemingly immune to this kind of thing?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

Not trying to be a low-effort reply but any Economy 101 textbook will theorize that it's impossible. Practically, the world is too dependent on the USD in one way or another. If they try to break loose, they might get confronted with those military expenditures which is a good enough incentive to keep using USD as a global reserve currency.



No, really, this argument is even worse ignorance than the gold standard stuff, because it isn't true even as an oversimplification or historical detail.

The difference between Venezuela and any relatively stable country (the US is one of many, some of which have tiny armies and pacifist foreign policies) isn't military spending or reserve currency status, it's that the money in the country with the stable currency is created as a debt which the borrower and bank has to be repay in future (with the central bank also intervening if it thinks too many borrowers and banks are taking on debts) whereas the money in places like Venezuela is being created to pay off debts.


>which the borrower and bank has to be repay in future

And when do you expect this debt to be repaid back? If you cycle all the way back, at some point the money is created out of thin air backed by nothing but believe that the US will not default. It's not ignorance but reality that as long as you are the strongest arm in the room nobody is going to challenge you into paying back your debts. Yes, on paper it's all economically sound and "basic accounting" but the reality of the situation is that if America would not be able to defend its position as "stable country", nobody would accept their debt denoted in the currency they create themselves.


> And when do you expect this debt to be repaid back?

According to the terms of the loan or repo or maturity date of the bond. The money isn't "backed by nothing" it's backed by the productive capacity of an economy, and virtually all of it is created by market demand for credit, not the demand of the US government.

> It's not ignorance but reality that as long as you are the strongest arm in the room nobody is going to challenge you into paying back your debts.

It's absolutely ignorance to base your arguments about how a monetary system works on the assumption that the US is the only country in the world with a stable currency and modern central banking. The majority of the developed world is not "the strongest arm in the room" and people happily use those countries' currency and buy up their domestic-currency-denominated sovereign debt without any worries about hyperinflation or their military.

The military is of significance only to the extent that the dollar wouldn't be worth very much if the US was on the verge of being annexed by Mexico, but Venezuela has a military that prevents it from being annexed by Colombia too, and its military spending in excess of its productivity is still a cause of rather than a solution to its problems




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: