The U.S. dollar enjoys the world reserve currency status due to numerous factors. Legal and investor security, an open and transparent market, as well as independent institutions with checks and balances that limit political power and strengthen the country’s currency in relative terms. No, a country does not have a world reserve currency due to military power. No one accepted the kopek when the Soviet Union ruled half the world. For a fiat currency to be a world reserve it needs to be widely accepted as unit of measure, method of payment and reserve of value.

The problem is that all the above may be under threat.

Inflationary Policies Are Destroying Wages

When we read about the U.S. economy, we often get wage growth as a signal of a strong labor market. It is hardly a strong market when the labor participation rate and the employment to population ratio are both below the February 2020 level and have been stagnant for months.

Additionally, the headline figure of 4.6% annualized wage growth is misleading, as it shows a nominal and average figure that disguises a much tougher environment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from December 2021 to December 2022, real average hourly earnings decreased 1.1 percent, seasonally adjusted.

There are many excuses often used to explain inflation. However, the fact is that there is no such thing as “cost push inflation” or “commodity inflation.” Inflation is not an increase in prices, it is the destruction of the purchasing power of the currency.

Cost-push inflation is more units of currency going to relatively scarce real assets. The same can be said about all other, from commodities to demand and my favourite, “supply chain disruption”. More units of currency going to the same goods and services.

Every time the United States reaches its debt limit, we read that it is important to reach an agreement to lift it. The narrative is that the debt ceiling must be raised, or the US economy will suffer a severe contraction. There is even an episode of a TV series, “Designated Survivor”, where the character played by Kiefer Sutherland places lifting the debt ceiling as the priority to get the U.S. economy on track. The debt ceiling is viewed as an evil and anachronistic burden on growth. It is not.

Analysts all over the world consider the debt ceiling a non-event because Congress always agrees to increase it. As such, markets do not even care. Congress has raised the debt ceiling on time on over eighty occasions since 1960, according to S&P Global. The rating agency points out that Congress has passed legislation to raise or suspend the debt ceiling seven times in the last twelve years (in 2011, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2019, and twice in 2021).