Agoracom

Your absolutely right: confidence is the key. Paper money is worthless if people lack confidence in perceiving there is no worth backing up the currency. The Americans could be in such a crisis as the printing presses are working averdrive, diluting their currency evermore noticably. The worse part is, there's nothing of value backing it up, which is why the USD will continue to be devalued. I think they are purposely doing this to 'wipe out' much of their gangantuan foreign debt, leaving foreign countries as bagholders to their increasingly devalued treasuries.