Note, my point is that we're witnessing the death of the dollar - the patient is being given mouth-to-mouth, adrenaline and being jump started. But for it to become healthy again, it has to be backed up by real assets of value.
I've yet to see a credible path that takes the US from a debtor nation where the debt increases each day to a point where it is producing more than it is spending and therefore has money to reduce the debt.
I've read/heard a lot of 'beliefs' that the US 'should' recover. I just ask the questions 'why' and 'how'. The why tends to be answered - we'll start generating wealth again, because the Americans are a nation of fighters and traders etc. Great words - but I imagine Romans, Persians, Brits, Greeks, Egyptians, Aztecs and heck - even Dubai property speculators - having the same 'faith' before their bubbles burst and reality encroached on the dreams of eternal growth and prosperity. (I exaggerate for effect, of course)
I used to concede (a few years ago) that the US at least had the edge in high tech, entertainment and the motor industry - but also great agriculture business and potential. Then China came out with Hero, Crouching Tiger.. and I thought - well, they've caught up in terms of creativity and film production - technology, the Chinese and Taiwanese are fast going into primary research (and indeed I expect them to have a faster development path than Japan - who went from a joke copy-cat manufacturing state to the second largest economy) etc.
It certainly has the strongest military - and I'd argue this is a major factor in the slowness of the death. But I can't see it maintaining it's superiority if there are no wars - China will just naturally become the most powerful very soon.
I'm struggling to understand what human resources are unique to America - it can't be the entrepreneurs or scientists or techies in Silicon valley or in academia - many of them are Indian!
Historically, the talent goes where the money is. The number of ambitious parents who are having their kids learn Mandarin is a sign of things to come (although there was a fad of learning Japanese in the 80s and 90s - but the difference is that we don't expect the Chinese bubble to burst).
Indeed, which of the 'positives' don't apply to China? In terms of talent growth - why shouldn't they develop their primary research and manufacturing and leap-frog Europe and America like Japan did? They've got more resources, more focus and indeed have the will. They have a space programme, working on a replacement GPS system and their military is fast becoming a force to be reconned with.
Indeed, Forbes magazine says that the most powerful man in the world is the Chinese premier, and Obama second.
Anyway - perhaps I'm just a natural cynic. I was regularly criticised for not believing the Dubai dream explanations for why it wasn't a property bubble ('this time it's different' etc) - but was ultimately proved right there.
But I'm prepared to be agnostic on this one - show me something more than 'beliefs' and I'll happily revise my opinion.
Perhaps if the assets of the US could be used to pay off debts, then indeed there would be an argument that fundamentally the US and dollar could bounce back (but you'd still need to show where the revenue would come from - and who would buy).
Wiki estimates the total US debt to be around $13 trillion, and the total amount of Gold ever mined to be around $6 trillion (with the US having an estimated 8000 tonnes of Gold in reserves) - so the Gold reserve is probably around $2 trillion (just a guess).