> What makes it money is that it is "legal tender for all debts
> public and private." What makes it "credible" as money is
> that debts and taxes can be settled only with legal tender.
I don't think so. I'm not saying that the conditions that underpin the USD don't appear robust, even now. They do. Very. And part of it has to do with a "credible alternative," as raghu mentioned. That's why I'm not predicting anything. But things don't have to be very likely to be possible. Sabri sees Turkey invading Syria. That seems like a step towards Iran. With nuclear Israel in the map, things can get quite explosive in no time. The might of capitalist U.S., ultimately based on the part of the productive force of labor the ruling class can appropriate, is not infinite.
> I cannot, short of the hyper-inflationary scenario above.
I know there's this so-called American exceptionalism. But, in Latin America, we had cases of hyper-inflation with huge unemployment and no invading force in sight. Yes, the basic fabric of a state can just fray without anything positive replacing it---social stagnation and slow decay setting in, political paralysis, whatever. For this to exist, contra raghu, there is no need for a "credible alternative." The bottom just drops. I know the U.S. is not Mexico, or Central, or South America, but....
And then there's also that thing Anwar Shaikh calls "throughput." Just saying....