Noah Smith

Nobody will buy your debt.

So what you want to look at there are interest rates on long-term bonds, and you want to look at the strength of the dollar.

So if the strength of the dollar goes down at the same time that the interest rates on long-term U.S.

government bonds goes up, that indicates that people are pulling their money out of America.

And we have seen some of that recently.

So if you want, I can explain why those two things together show that.

It's a little unnerving because the idea of the collapse of the US-centric global financial system and abrupt devaluation of the dollar, a potential US default or inflation, those are two forms of a similar thing.

The potential of that should scare people, even if it's not imminent, right?

It's such a bad thing that could happen.

It's like you're...

You get a blood test and it shows a tiny bit over the level for some cancer marker.

You should be worried about that because cancer will really screw you, even if it's only a little bit over the level.

And so that's where we are.

It's highly specific to the country.

The thing is that you can look at other time periods for our own country and you can look at other countries, right?

They aren't necessarily comparable.

Because what matters is expectations.

What matters is when Chase Bank and Grandma and China stop buying the debt.

What matters is when all those people stop buying the debt.

And we don't know, for America right now, when that point is going to be.