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Comment by bullen | Hacker News Reader

The answer is: "when the world stops using the dollar".

There is no spoon.

> The answer is: "when the world stops using the dollar".

The world uses EUR, JPY, CAD, etc much less than USD, and plenty of countries (CA, NL, FR, DE, Greece(!), Italy(!), Thailand(!)) have lower borrowing costs than the US:

* https://www.investing.com/rates-bonds/world-government-bonds

Yes, but when the US uses monetary policy to control its debt, debt holders get pissed and start to hold fewer dollars.

It isn't a free money printing game forever.

Those countries still need oil and that oil needs to be bought with dollars. Normally doesn’t end well for countries that try to break out of that system.

Good thing there are no major geopolitical conflicts or realignments going on between the US and major oil producers

Exactly. China sees the current sale price of Russian petroleum products as just such an opportunity, and is using the Northern Sea Route to move the products (1). The Russians have recently passed a law to further assert their control of that route (2). Interestingly, the US countered by conducting what amounts to a freedom of navigation operation in the area (3).

(1) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-24/russia-s-...

(2) https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/new-russian-law-nor...

(3) https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2023/10/uscg-healy-...

Don’t forget Iran and Venezuela. And the Israel/Palestine conflict, along with other geoeconomic factors, puts Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations in play. New production coming online via projects such as EACOP as well.

Maybe read up on the recent BRICS summits.

It only needs to be bought with dollars until it doesn’t.

> debt holders get pissed

To understand what this actually looks like, read Hank Paulson's Dealing with China where he describes speaking with Chinese leaders during the 2008 crisis. The Chinese are massive holders of US dollars and did not find TARP or quantitative easing amusing.

https://www.amazon.com/Dealing-China-Insider-Economic-Superp...

They also don’t need to be perfect, just better than the alternatives.

What is better? The Yuan? The Ruble? The Peso? The Euro?

So far, not many viable candidates frankly.

I was waiting for the article to eventually get around to discussing the current distribution of $US in central banks around the world and the role that global trade plays in backing up US debt - they never got there, so I don't think the article has any explanatory value.

What is your theory? With the current high rates a lot of central banks are probably in the same situation as was Silicon Valley Bank.

That is just the first step in the reasoning. The interesting parts are always further along - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys .

I have been down that road, and it ain't pretty:

Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

> There is no spoon

Reference is to the Matrix, the young monk in the waiting room who is bending a spoon with his intent.

https://screenrant.com/matrix-movie-no-spoon-phrase-meaning-...

edit: why the downvotes? I saw the original movie in theaters, I still didn't get the reference. Some of us are old.

He isn't bending the spoon. That's impossible. Rather, he's bending himself or distorting the signal representing the localized perceived region of the digital spoon.

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