The era of the U.S. dollar's "exorbitant privilege" as the world's primary reserve currency is coming to an end. France's then-finance minister Valery Giscard d'Estaing coined that phrase in the 1960s largely out of frustration, bemoaning a U.S. that drew freely on the rest of the world to support its overextended standard of living. For almost 60 years, the world complained but did nothing about it. Those days are over. Already stressed by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. living standards are about to be squeezed as never before. At the same time, the world is having serious doubts about the once widely accepted presumption of American exceptionalism. Currencies set the equilibrium between these two forces — domestic economic fundamentals and foreign perceptions of a nation's strength or weakness. The balance is shifting, and a crash in the dollar could well be in the offing. Read the whole thing. With Polls Worsening, Donald Trump Flails — Jonathan Bernstein Trump Reveals How He Wants to Be Remembered — Timothy L. O'Brien 2020 Is Not 1968. It May Be Worse. — Niall Ferguson U.S.-Germany Crisis Goes Deeper Than Planned Troop Cuts — Hal Brands Saudi Arabia Lays Down the Law to the Oil Market — Julian Lee Hydroxychloroquine Farce Has Tragic Consequences — Lionel Laurent Why Military Leaders Like Me Are Speaking Out — James Stavridis What Happens If There's a Second Wave? — Jessica Karl U.S. Troop Cuts in Germany Would Be a Disaster — Andreas Kluth This is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion published this week based on web readership, plus some other stuff occasionally thrown in. |
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