No one wants to see the US go, but everyone is busy making alternative arrangements

SHOOT: Since the US Fed is printing money, and this is likely to be highly inflationary, the value of the dollar is going to face a freefall. Country's who rely on the dollar include China and Japan. It makes perfect sense to insulate their economies by creating a new currency or basket of currencies, perhaps an Asian Euro.

clipped from seekingalpha.com For all intents and purposes, Ben Bernanke is running American economic policy, but his board is more split than a Fed board has been since the 1980s. American economic policy is the most incalculable thing of all. No one wants the United States to disappear from the scene: No one wants to shoulder the burden of being the world’s policeman-cum-mediator, of providing a global reserve currency, of sending aircraft carriers to put the bad guys in their place. An Australian politician with a longstanding interest in foreign policy was seated next to me at a Melbourne dinner a couple of weeks ago, complaining bitterly that Australia would have to start spending huge amounts on defense to replace the lost presence of the US. No one wants to see the US go, but everyone is busy making alternative arrangements. It reminds me of the end, rather than the beginning, of the Carter administration. It’s going to be a long, long three years.