Agree.  I believe (correct me if this is wrong), the transition from the British Pound to the Dollar took some 15 to 20 years (started with the end of WWII?), I believe that by the time the 1960s rolled around, the USD was well on its way to becoming the reserve currency.

I'd like to see a long term graph of the pound against a basket of currencies, but this one against the dollar is still eye opening. From over $5 in the late 30's to around $1.53 now. The chart basically reflects the relative decline and growth of each empire.

miketodd.net/en...st.htm

It is a brutal decline and with it the brutal lowering of standards of living for all Brits, as their currency no longer buys as much in foreign goods as it used to.

The innevitability of Empires Declines has begun to hit us, while it does not happen overnight, this past 30 years have had a brutal effect on those at the bottom of the food chain so to speak, as their wages have not kept up with inflation and their jobs have been shipped abroad.

As you and Jamok pointed out, the dollar will eventually lose its defacto position as the currency of the world. 

The next 30 years will be worse than the last 30 imo. All those outsourced jobs are never coming back, and we're about to hit various walls that weren't even an issue before:

1. Unfavorable demographics, which has been an issue in Japan for years and is coming to Europe and US very soon.

2. Oil resources. There is currently an over-supply due to the slowdown, but we are at Peak Oil around now.

3. Water.

4. Social security funding, which will likely mean belt tightening for many segments of the population either with lower SS incomes (especially factored against inflation), higher taxes, etc.

Of course our politicians who are only concerned with winning their next appointment and kicking the can to the day after their appointment ends, have done nothing regarding these macro issues.

Jester,

I think of all of the pretty certain things you cite, the last is probablyy an absolute lock - there is no upside to politicians not kicking the can down the road, and unless voters become as sopisticated as many in Europe are (not likely), there is no incentive for them to do so, except if they really don't care about getting elected again.

One other issue that I can't see proactive measures even being much thought about: When a robot is intelligent enough to do your job (and the predictions from AI experts is that will apply to white collar jobs eventually, as well as blue collar jobs in progress), how will you compete against a machine whose maintenance costs (salary, vacation, benefits, eating, sleeping) etc. may well make them less expensive than hiring Ethiopians to do the work? Friend of mine said 'singularity' is inevitable, so that such machines will be indistinguishable in their abilities from humans. (e.g., imagine a psychotherapist who is a robot, but hidden from view, and the patient can't tell whether it is a human or machine presence that is responding. AI already can compose poetry and paint pictures that are credible.) And you might notice that a fair number of the more minor stories you read on sports in newspapers now has some tag at the front that indicates it was not a human who composed stats into a narrative story.

The only 'upside' to that I can see is some damn fine computer games to wade into - if you can afford them.

Two more walls:

1.- Medicare

2.- Medicaid

The future looks very troublesome, and as you correctly state, it goes on and on. As if these walls don't exist.  No leadership and worse yet, a citizenry who also wants to pawn it on its kids!

lt cap,

I did not acknowledge those more closely looming issues of medicaid and medicare. It'll be interesting, altho possibly horrifying to watch. I think Alan Simpson (former Sen. Wyoming) quit the Senate because he said things have deteriorated to continual games of 'gotcha'. I don't have much love for Hilary (altho I do think she's a hypocrit and liar, lol) but the political torture she was subject to leads nowhere. In this kind of political atmosphere, it's impossible to propose solutions to those soon-to-arrive problems - what pol wants to give ther other side trunchons to beat them with? I'm really not sure who gets the shaft on the Medicare issue - the elderly? (Maybe - I think it's hard to get far from where the water cannons go off in a walker or a wheelchair.) Means test for Medicare supplements? (I think that the most likely, even though the rich have some bucks to spend politically, and AARP is more oraganized. I personally don't like that one, as it penalizes the people who worked and saved and planned for retirement rather than blowing every paycheck as fast as they could.) Maybe the Medicaid poor are the best targets - a permanent under-class of homeless people don't present much of a political threat, unless you've got a conscience, and city planners can always claim that the concrete beneath bridges was actually intended as an 'urban housing project' for the destitute.) Where I live, the city is probably the friendliest to homeless people I've ever experienced. They get cell phones for free. Busses will come to pick them up if they're in a crisis. Walk in to stores and try to walk out with merchandise - rationale is they're 'liberating' that $3k bike, like in the late '60's. Funniest site is at the Mission that provides food, and maybe shelter. Around dinnertime, the 'park lot' is filled to the gills with very expensive bikes. Walmart and Target have started putting 'lock-up' devices on shopping carts - if they get further than 100 yards from the store, the wheel lock up. I dont' mean to mock them so much as some are real sad cases. But it is considred a kind of 'lifestyle' here. Two shopping carts tied together is known as the 'poor man's SUV'. At least no one has defined police brutality as 'the poor man's 'rolfing'.  Ive rambled on too long. Any solution doesn't look like it ends well.

lt cap,

I'm not sure it would be accurate to say this, but it occurs to me: Yes, absolutely - we've already shipped a ton of working class and middle class jobs overseas, with the beginnings of a socio-economic dislocation already evident, and bound to get worse, as the beneficiaries are the owners of the means of production, while it's the workers who are getting eliminated and screwed.

When the reserve currency change-over to something besides dollars occurs, we will have, or would about to have, a shipping of not only jobs, but wealth in large amounts overseas. However, even if that is so, the range that companies are really international entities have may be a vehicle for the 1% in the US mitigating the transfer of wealth outside the US. And if that is so, there still would be the problem of having so many workers 'disenfranchised' in the US, that revolution and revolt may not be unthinkable. Maybe.

Jamok,

Unthinkable indeed.  With the exception of the civil war, this country has had a history of civil activism, something that is mostly dormant. We have seen it flair up in the past 18 months with events involving the police and blacks. 

Given the onerous future we could easily face, it could stair up a lot of unrest in the country. It would be a sad day if and when something so tragic as a revolution were to be the result of our leadership's and citizenry's inactions.

In Greece, the crisis was greatly mitigated by the fact that there is a safety net.  They still have/had plenty of pensions and social medicine. That safety net prevented what could easily have resulted in widespread revolt and violence.

Jester,

Indeed - As you say, it may take some time - but eventually, inevitably I think the Yuan at least becomes a large part of the basket that determines world resereve currency, or takes the title outright. I think when that time arrives, it will creates havoc with our markets and our economic strengths (and the 'sins' of our economy that gets a 'pass' from worldwide investors, producers, etc.)  Maybe it happens sooner. Maybe we never see it after full transition. But if you have kids, I don't think it'll be pretty for them. If they're college age, and interested in business and economics,  taking courses in Mandarin might be a good move.