Panic Sets In as Debt System Implodes, April 28 2011

by J.D. Heyes
naturalnews

To most Americans it’s unthinkable that the U.S. dollar could someday be relegated to second-class status as a currency, but what they may not realize is that the transition is already underway.

Reports this week marked the dollar’s continued slide – it reached a 16-month low against the euro and slid to a historic low against the Swiss franc on Tuesday – while at the same time predicting something we’ve been telling you for years now, namely that the dollar is on its way out as the world’s reserve currency.

Impossible, you say? Think again. Signs of the dollar’s imminent collapse are everywhere.

Look at the economic and investment juggernaut that is China. Beijing’s economy has been growing in leaps and bounds and as such used to be the largest holder of U.S. dollars, because, as the world’s reserve currency, our dollar was the most stable. But China’s place was recently overtaken by our more traditional Asian ally, Japan, as Beijing has begun instead to divest itself of the dollar.

The U.S. was once known as the world’s richest nation, but these days we have the dubious distinction of being the largest debtor in the history of the world. China, meanwhile, has become our largest creditor.

So, what does all that mean in real terms? Well, it means that as more countries and investors flee the dollar, the faster it will begin to devalue. We’re already seeing the effects of that in higher energy prices – oil is priced in dollars, after all, and when it falls, it takes more of them to buy the oil.

And, of course, higher oil prices mean higher gasoline prices (the average price nationwide at the beginning of this week was $3.858 a gallon); higher gas prices mean it is costing more to get products and commodities to the market, which means we pay more for them in the checkout lane. As this cycle perpetuates, inflation will skyrocket and the dollar’s value will plummet.

There’s one more indicator that the dollar is growing weaker – the meteoric rise in the price of gold and silver.

In the meantime, the sea of government red ink continues to grow, already at more than $14 trillion. The plan in Washington to fix this vicious cycle? Simple. Print more money.

The U.S. dollar is in trouble. The cycle is underway. The smart money says the age of America is over.