I have a recurring dream, one of international dollar-denominated debt defaults crashing like a tsunami upon our shores, our defenses long ago laid bare and stripped for strategic currency reserves. I dream of Jerome Powell, alone, fighting a war on two fronts. The invisible and the insidious, the virus and the deflationary spiral that overwhelms the lowly printing press. What is one to do when all need a dollar they cannot afford? When the hedge against its rise only serves to strengthen its resolve to gain further? When those peddling dollar-denominated assets are suffocated by their own currency, a resource curse in plain sight?

I awake in a cool sweat, quantitatively uneasy. There is no winning here, no easy way out. No hope but for a centrally recognized, internationally neutral means of currency exchange. One where the printing press lay not in the hands of men. One where the money is shiny and heavy and chemically non-reactive and distinctly gold in color.