Dollars

Interestingly enough, I've long espoused the notion of the US Dollar losing its dominance as the world's single reserve currency, something it's maintained since something like 1921. Unfortunately, all oil is traded in petrodollars and there have been murmurs for the past decade or so of other currencies being used to trade for oil - petro-euros, for instance. Saddam Hussein tried to do this in early 2003.

It turns out that countries have been negotiating behind closed doors (BRIC, France, Middle East countries) about bringing basket currencies into play for less volatile pricing of oil. Here is a must read article in The Independent describing in much better details what this entails.

But since the world is awash in dollars, things like commodities, precious metals, real estate and US debt are common investment vehicles to park dollars. Especially US government debt. So in order to encourage foreign investment in the future (when the world no longer is flooded with dollars) US Treasuries (bills, notes, bonds) will need to become more competitive considering the increased risk associated with an ever-increasing deficit, rates will need to be increased to what a reduced amount of petrodollars is willing to support.

Yes, this could be a pretty extreme view. Or is it?