This means that for nearly 100 years the USA has been able to print dollars and have much of the effects of this monetary inflation absorbed by foriegn countries that needed to hold dollar reserves.
Or put another way, there is a massive amount of inflation that has been exported. It will remain overseas so long as the dollar remains the worlds reserve currency.
But as that changes, and the dollar loses credibility due to this "Quantitative Easing" (which is nothing more than a euphemism for monetary inflation) at some point the rate of people switching from dollar reserves to other reserves- gold, yuan, whatever-- will reach a tipping point and as the dollar declines ever faster people will panic to get out of the dollar.
This is like an axe over our heads. We've got hyperinflation built in, because once that turning point happens, the panic will trounce the dollar, and that will imediately force the government to crank up the printing presses even faster- trying to outrun these ramifications, and we'll wake up one morning in Zimbabwe.
And I'm not kidding about it happening "one morning", when this happens it often happens very fast. The Ruble lost half its value between breakfast and lunch when it happened. In argentina it was a matter of weeks.
Neither of those currencies were world currencies.
No way to know when it will happen, or exactly how-- we've been helped by europes problems. Since they've been going down faster they have made the dollar look good in comparison.
We've also been helped by China's dependance on exports- as europe went down and we slowed down, that's hurt china, making them not look as relatively strong compared to us.
Finally we've also been helped with outright manipulation of the market. One of the key indicators is the price of gold (which is really the price of dollars measured in gold.) The FOMC is an entity within the fed whose job is to "stablize prices" which is also known as market manipulation, and it takes big chunks of that QE money and uses it to short gold. Notice how gold was on its way to $2,000 when they killed that momentum and brought it back to $1,500? That helps shore up the percieved value of the dollar.
If this sounds like conspiracy theory, google GATA and read the details-- the FOMC minutes come out eventually and their interventions in the gold market are documented.
I can't say what a fair value for gold is, but it is well north of $2,000. (Say if you compared the monetary inflation in dollars since the last time there was gold peg to the gold price then.... )
But so long as people are made to believe that a currency is stable, they will keep using it and the currency remains stable.
When people realize the currency is worthless paper being pumped out at insane levels, then it will be treated as such and quickly attain that market price.