I largely agree with you, although I think one should place less focus on "trust". It is too vague a concept, and I believe it is too often used to confuse rather than enlighten, and to beat well-intentioned politics into submission (aka, "you have to earn the trust of the market", which means precisely nothing).

In this particular case:

> Any country that suddenly declared it had more money than all the others combined and was now buying up all the available land on the planet would find themselves in a heap of trouble. Trust still has to be earned & maintained

... why not be more specific and say that if a country did that, its currency would immediately drop in value on the foreign exchange markets.

Anyway, I'm not saying that trust is irrelevant, and I do largely agree with you, I just think it tends to be overrated in these kinds of discussions.