I don't have the exact quote, but he made it as an aside during a conversation on the "achievements" of the Boy Emperor on MSNBC's Dumb Tuck Carlson show. Maybe he's heavily invested in gold, but there's enough talk of this happening to worry those of use who know little about economics. Down below is a 2004 essay from Richard Heinberg's Museletter that suggests a similar fate for the dollar. Does anyone think the collapse is likely? If so, what, other than panic, should one do to protect dollar based assets?
http://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/149#149 The Endangered US Dollar
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To understand why the dollar is America's Achilles heel, a metaphor is useful. Imagine being able to write checks and then convince the people you give them to not to cash them. Perhaps they find the checks themselves comforting to hold onto; or maybe you have a friend who agrees to sell groceries or gasoline for your checks only, and then happily stockpiles and re-circulates them. In either case, you may be tempted to write checks for much more than you have in your bank account. As long as the checks themselves are regarded as valuable and not cashed, you get a free ride. But if people stop finding your checks comforting to hold onto, or if your friend starts selling groceries for other people's checks or for gold or silver, then the game is up. It will be revealed that your account is overdrawn and you will be in trouble.
The metaphor is not perfect. In fact, every nation in the world is attempting to write checks beyond its means. But the US has managed to do by far a better job of it than any other nation. The checks we are not talking about are not just hoarded paper dollars (though there are billions of these stuffed in mattresses around the world) but dollar-denominated investments and securities, including T-bills, stocks, and mortgages. Currently the US is running a $700 billion per year trade deficit, this on top of trillions in government debt and trillions more in consumer debt. No other nation in the world comes remotely close to this level of bad-check writing, on either a total or a per-capita basis.
If a run on the US dollar were to occur, then the only financial solution would be to create even more dollars (presumably through government borrowing), which of course wouldn't actually solve the problem and would in the long run make matters worse. The currency would become almost worthless, and in the process real wealth (land, factories, and natural resources) would be confiscated and turned over to creditors.
What could cause this to happen? A decision by OPEC to openly sell oil for euros could be a trigger. Some oil is already quietly being sold for euros, and several countries including Iran and Saudi Arabia have floated the possibility of valuing oil against a basket of currencies (meaning, effectively, dollars and euros). The Arab OPEC states have also toyed with an idea that must be equally worrisome to Brussels and Washington: to sell oil for gold (the gold dinar). If and when this happens, the full wrath of America will descend upon the Arab Middle East - and that's why it hasn't happened yet.
The other likely trigger would be a collapse of the US economy from within resulting from a bursting of the mortgage bubble. The recent US economic "recovery" arose almost entirely from low mortgage rates (set ultimately by the Fed), which allowed families to refinance their homes, cash out some of their equity, and use the money for immediate consumption. With oil prices soaring, the Fed will eventually have to raise interest rates steeply in order to contain inflation. But this may cause millions of homeowners to default on their currently low-interest adjustable-rate mortgages. In that event, property values would plummet, and with them would go the stock market and the economy as a whole.
If the Fed's real owners are confident in the present Washington leadership, they will do everything in their power to delay the inevitable until after the election (and this is what they seem to be doing). If they think it is time for a regime change, we may see the great unraveling begin even before November.
In either case, the response of US political leaders may be merely to seek foreign scapegoats. As Stan Goff writes in his recent essay, "Persian Peril" (www.fromthewilderness.com), it appears as if Iran is currently being set up as the next domino in the neocons' crusade for democracy in the Middle East. With Iranian and Russian cooperative energy agreements blooming, a US attack on Iran could be the trigger for another all-out conflict on the order of the World Wars of the 20th century. On the other hand, it is possible that the disastrous outcome of the Iraq invasion has sunk deep enough into the awareness of Washington elites that further similar adventures (however desperately sought by the neocons) will be headed off by cooler minds.
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