[rikdpola]

I didn't want to de-rail my own olympic thread, so I thought I'd bring this up separately.

The Japanese mens' gymnastics team put in an inquiry for a scoring challenge. Evidently, in order to do that, you need to post cash to the officials. If your inquiry is accepted, you get your cash back. If not, the Olympic committee keeps it. It seemed very strange.

But..

The Japanese coach approached the judges' area with a fistful of cash. Japanese Yen? No. British Pounds? They are in London, right? Nope. Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) issued by the IMF and made available for exchange by the Olympic Committee? Nope. The Japanese came fully prepared with a fistful of Benjamins.

True, the buying power of FRNs will continue to erode away as we continue to print them. But this was a vivid reminder that we have a LOOOOOONG way to go before the demise of the US dollar. The rest of the world treats FRNs like gold. The USD isn't going away until every other crap fiat currency in front of it goes down like a bunch of dominoes. It could happen eventually, but it's not going to sneak up on anybody. If the SHTF, those FRNs are going to become super valuable before they become worthless.