Remedy this, and the EUR will become a serious threat to the USD.
The U.S. doesn’t have perennial debates about breaking up or bits breaking off. If your Euro bank deposits are at risk of suddenly turning into drachma or lira, that’s a problem.
Hell, the break-California-up initiative made it to the ballot this year, was removed for this year by the CA Sup Ct, and has a non-zero chance of being back on in 2020. E.g., https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_9,_Three_Stat...
One of the questions I was asked in a State Attorney General Office interview in 2009 was: "What state would you kick out of the union and why?" (The secession debates were raging in certain circles after Obama was elected, and I guess some AGs wanted to know if incoming lawyers were inclined that way?)
Will Texas ever secede? Will CA ever actually break up? I have no idea, and I doubt it. But the debate and even the effort is there.
The United States set a precedent for insolubility in the Civil War. Secession is not an option. The EU, on other hand, has an official exit mechanism. Texas talks about it in the same way New York and California talk about it; it's punchy, funny and rallies a crowd pissed off at whoever is in power.
Breaking up is not a realistic medium-term risk for the United States. It is for the EU.
The Marshal Plan gave much less money to Germany than to anyone else, per capita.
Greece received, per capita, about 3 times what Germany got. The UK, with a smaller population than Germany, received 3,297 million, while a larger Germany got 1,448 million.
Especially in the early days of the EEC/ECSC, rebuilding (west) germany was important for many other european nations at the time to increase their export markets. (Benelux especially).
Can you please elaborate a little? I'm wondering about 'destroying' part.
Yes.
> The US legal system
The US legal system is not some global shining paragon of how a judicial system should operate. See the shitshow around Kavanaugh how the highest court of the US judicial system has become a plaything of partisan politics. Remember that for a proper trias politica, there needs to be clear separation between the two.
> a free press
America is 45th in Freedom of Press rankings, behind Burkina Faso, a country that was a dictatorship until 2014, under military control until 2015, and still somewhat in turmoil.
> a long-standing calvinist work ethic
Most of NW Europe has 'a long-standing calvinist work ethic'.
> continued financial infrastructure investment
It is not as if the rest of the worlds' financial infrastructure is in disrepair. The reason why the US has such a huge finance industry isn't 'continued upkeep' but the absurd freedom the financial industry gets to do whatever it wants. The strange thing is that the US doesn't even have the most lax regulations - they just have absurdly weak enforcement of those regulations. For a prime example look up how absurdly lightly HSBC got away with their criminal behaviour.
> These things have proven impossible to reproduce - in aggregate - anywhere else.
There are two reasons for the US dollar being the main reserve currency: WWII and the petro dollar. Your claim is pretty much a perfect example of American Exceptionalism.
'American exceptionalism is an ideology holding the United States as unique among nations in positive or negative connotations, with respect to its ideas of democracy and personal freedom'
Many forms of money have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that the US dollar is perfect. Indeed it has been said that the US dollar is the worst form of money except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Lots of other countries have great economies and different advantages over the US. But that the set of advantages above isn't more widely replicated points to more than just first mover advantage.