| Swan Dive — May 7, 2025 Our Dollar, Your Problem Addison Wiggin Wait, what? Why now? Why this book? Why has Kenneth Rogoff — Harvard economist, former IMF chief, and chess grandmaster — suddenly decided to write a blistering takedown of the very system he’s spent a career helping shape?
That’s the mystery.
Our Dollar, Your Problem didn’t spring from the radical fringes or an off-grid Austrian economist muttering about gold bars in a Montana bunker. It came from the tippy top of the ivory tower.
And the title really gives us pause. Is it intentionally ambiguous? Who’s the “our” Rogoff is referring to? Who’s the “your”? It's way too easy to interpret this as an out-of-touch statement of the elite directed at the masses.
So let’s not.
Taking him at face value, Rogoff argues that the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency is no longer a birthright. Not in the distant future. Now.
Between trillion-dollar deficits, rising global tensions, and what he calls “fiscal brinkmanship,” the dollar’s dominance — once assumed permanent — is suddenly looking conditional. And fragile.
The surprising part isn’t that the edifice is cracking. It’s that someone of Rogoff’s stature is finally willing to say it out loud. The book is a popular account of Triffin’s Dilemma… 55 years later.
We’re not throwing stones — we’ve actually had respect for Rogoff’s intellect since touring the IMF back in the stone age. But you’ll also forgive us the smirk. We wrote Empire of Debt nearly twenty years ago, laying out how America’s power and currency were already mortgaged to the future.
And we suffer from a distinct malady: we do not listen to dead men or dead presidents. Even the Wall Street Journal admitted on February 21 of this year we have a problem with this headline: Debt Has Always Been the Ruin of Great Powers. Is the U.S. Next?
Back in the mid-aughts, Empire of Debt was heresy. Today? It’s morning show fodder on CNN. Still, better late than never, yeah?
Oh well, if a currency crash doesn’t get us… there’s always nuclear war.
For 25 years, Google crushed its rivals. Now Elon Musk has unleashed a platform that could replace Google — not compete, but destroy it. One tech expert believes it could be the "Google Killer" — and it's already changing everything.
Here’s what you need to know…
📱 The iPhone War India and Pakistan are trading artillery again. The stated reason? Terrorism. The subtext? Smartphones. As Apple shifts production out of China and into Indian factories, Beijing isn’t clapping. And in the time-tested tradition of proxy conflict, China’s longtime partner Pakistan has started rattling the saber.
Yesterday on X, Porter Stansberry aptly dubbed it The First iPhone War: a proxy conflict with China leveraging Pakistan to destabilize India's ascent in the tech world. He’s not exaggerating. In the post-globalization era, assembly lines are as strategic as aircraft carriers.
If you’re holding emerging market ETFs — or even broad tech exposure — pay attention to where the parts come from. And where the rockets are falling. 🌏 China-U.S. Trade Talks Are On (Until the Headline Flips Again) Officials from the U.S. and China are heading to Geneva next week to “restart” trade negotiations. These talks happen so often they should be on a subscription plan. As usual, nothing’s actually changed. But that didn’t stop the markets from reacting — futures spiked 1% overnight on headlines alone.
For the retiree investor, the lesson is clear: the market doesn’t need progress. It just needs news. Don’t make portfolio decisions based on the diplomatic mood ring. Instead, focus on companies with pricing power and resilient balance sheets — those that don’t rely on diplomatic breakthroughs to function. 🏦 Basel III Is Coming for Your Bank (No, Really This Time) While everyone was watching tariffs and TikTok bans, the real structural shift crept in under the radar: Basel III Endgame. Starting in July, banks will be required to hold more capital, which means lending could tighten just as the economy starts to wobble.
If you’re holding regional bank stocks or high-yield bond funds, take a second look. These new rules may hit smaller institutions harder, particularly those that rely on aggressive lending to stay profitable. And for income-focused investors, now is the time to stress-test your bond portfolio. Can it withstand tighter liquidity? Lower issuance? Slower growth?
Irony of course: regulations designed to prevent a banking crisis may be laying the groundwork for the next credit crunch. 💸 Powell Gets a Say Jerome Powell takes the mic today. The official topic: last week’s GDP print, which was weak enough to raise eyebrows across Wall Street. But Powell’s real challenge is stage management — delivering dovish enough language to calm markets without setting off another inflation scare.
With Trump needling the Fed on Truth Social and rates already straining Treasury interest payments, Powell will likely play the hits: “data dependent,” “inflation anchored,” “gradual adjustment.” Retirees need to read between the lines: the Fed doesn’t want to hike, but it can’t cut yet either. 💵 Before JPow Speaks… Stocks are up in early trading, but gave up about half their overnight gains. Gold is also slightly down overnight, at $3,400 per ounce, but still one of the winners of 2025’s market uncertainty so far. Bitcoin trades around $97,300, just waiting for an excuse to break over $100,000.
We doubt it’ll get the chance today, but with global liquidity on the rise, both bitcoin and gold look best positioned for today’s uncertain world following the stock market’s strong rebound from last month’s low. ✝️ Pick the Pope, Win a Prize The Vatican is holding a conclave. Pietro Parolin is the frontrunner. And yes, you can bet on it.  Prediction markets like Polymarket are letting you wager on who’ll wear the white hat next.
It’s funny until you realize it’s true: in 2025, even faith is tradable.
Whether that strikes you as irreverent or inevitable, it underscores a key point — there are fewer and fewer “sacred” spaces untouched by market logic. Just remember: not everything with a price has value. And not everything of value can be priced.
Oy vey,
So what now?
If you’re retired — or planning to be — and your wealth is denominated in dollars, this isn't just theory. It’s your reality. The dollar may not vanish overnight, but its purchasing power can erode fast and quietly. Just ask anyone who tried to buy a decent bottle of wine or a car battery lately.
Diversifying out of pure cash positions isn't a luxury anymore — it’s survival. That means real assets, inflation hedges, and productive equities with pricing power. It means understanding that “safe” is a moving target. Although, saying that now feels a bit like the Pope preaching to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square.
– Addison P.S. You can pick up a copy of the carefully and lovingly curated, post-pandemic third edition of Empire of Debt, right here. Please do. Our publisher at Wiley will thank you. We’re traveling this week, and meeting with several of our publishing colleagues down in the great Sunshine State. So this week’s Grey Swan Live! won’t, in fact, be live. But we will send out an email alert when we have a new video – likely one that follows up on last week’s dive into bitcoin with a broader look at crypto and technology trends, most likely with our colleague Ian King. Full details to come. We’ll let you know!
As always, your cheerful reader feedback is welcome: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com (We read all emails. Thanks in advance for your contribution.)
How did we get here? Find out in these riveting reads: Demise of the Dollar, Financial Reckoning Day, and Empire of Debt — all three books are now available in their third post-pandemic editions. You might enjoy one or all three. 
(Or… simply pre-order Empire of Debt: We Came, We Saw, We Borrowed, now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble or if you prefer one of these sites: Bookshop.org, Books-A-Million or Target.)
Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium, vitriol and praise to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com |
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