680 i don't think so, page-14

Ctindale, firstly I like your counter arguments, these are always important in any forum. Relating to the following though:

"Folks think if they repeat something enough it becomes true, folks who have never studied monetary economics sprout long winded self truths about money printing and hyperinflation, commentators chant , the USD is debased, the end of the reserve currency, the dollar crash".

I must say I'm completely baffled by your statements here. I am no economist and this may well be my problem. How many historical examples do you need though, if you want to talk about printing money and hyperinflation, before you concede that printing money does indeed lead to hyperinflation a la Argentina and Zimbabwe, just in recent history. I rate this as rank common sense, what on earth am I missing here.

Additionally printing money in an adhoc fashion by definition debases the currency doesn't it. You infer that this is an argument put forward by some economists when in fact I don't see it as an argument at all, it's just a fact. If there is a bumper crop of wheat one year the value of the wheat goes down proportionally to the wheat available to the market. What the heck is the difference between this and flooding the market, not with wheat, but paper money. I don't even understand why I'd be having this debate with someone of your in depth understanding of finance. Are we speaking different languages or something.

So what if countries hold vast sums of USD, this fact alone doesn't protect their investment. If I buy millions upon millions of shares in a company the size of my investment doesn't by itself guarantee it's security, the people running the company are the ones who guarantee the security of my investment. Again I don't even get why I'd be having this debate with you. This is common sense stuff isn't?
If fraud, corruption and vested interest have pervaded the US economic system as it appears it has the investments in USD are rooted, why is this such an impossibility in your mind?

This debate is made so infinitely complicated because the markets are not free, currencies are manipulated at will by their governments, financial instruments and trading mechanisms have become beyond the scope of the average Joe to understand, the entire system is more akin to the weather than to finance that we once might have understood. It is beyond the scope of any individual, group of people or computer model to forecast the next earthquake, tsunami or tornado. If we use the earthquake as an analogy right beneath our feet stresses may be building in the earths crust while we gaily go about our business picking roses, patting puppies and holding babies. Then the ground opens up and swallows a city.

I suspect the stresses that have built in the global financial system are tectonic plate in magnitude.