I am not suggesting the US is a real safehaven, what I am suggesting is that comparatively its in better shape than all the other major currencies , so it will undergo a meidum term cyclical counter trend resurgence .
The long term trend of the USD value is obviously down, the irony is its a race to the bottom as all lose value , the problem is the level of debt, Beranke is printed almost nothing, 1.6T is roughly the cost of the interest on the debt for a single year, for Bernanke to print his way out he would have to print say 20-25T.
There is 40-50T in USD debt locked up in asset prices, there is to much debt to income and a shortage of income, so the market has to sell assets to satisfy debt, this causes demand of USD, as the debt is retired and liquidated the money virtually disappears as the banks are still not lending, simply put if someone sells say 1B in assets, and uses it to pay debt, then if the money is not lent out again is shrinks the money supply.
Loki I am not talking about the number of folk in Japan I am talking about their age, in 2006 20% of Japanese were 65+ by 2012 it will be 30%, there is a huge hump of baby boomers moving into retirement, older folk dont buy consume or earn, they just drain the governments funds through social sec etc. While your right they do owe a lot of it to themselves, its still debt , they still have to service it, the Japense are trying to swim up the demographic waterfall by printing money and stimulating , the problem is income is disappearing as fast as they stimulate.
