Is the Dollar finally on the way out?

0:00 History tells us that no currency remains at the top forever.

0:04 First it was the Dutch Gilder, then the British pound,

0:06 and now the world is asking [music] if the US dollar is next.

0:11 A so-called sell America trade.

0:13 The American currency slipped to [music] its lowest

0:15 level against the euro in more than four years.

0:18 A slow erosion of [music] confidence in dollarbased assets.

0:22 So is Trump finally pushing the world to move

0:24 away from using the dollar as their currency of choice?

0:27 This would be a massive deal.

0:30 Even Trump himself has said that

0:32 if you want to go to third world status, lose your reserve currency.

0:36 But is it actually true?

0:37 Both Britain and the Netherlands have lost

0:39 their reserve currency status a while ago.

0:41 And yet they are still wealthy countries today.

0:43 And while perhaps easily forgotten, we have actually [music] been here before.

0:47 In the 1970s, many economists thought that the US dollar was done

0:51 for and would be replaced by gold or a basket of other currencies.

0:55 [music] yet it came back stronger than ever.

0:58 Could the same thing happen to the dollar today?

1:01 And if the dollar does fall, what can [music] we expect?

1:05 To answer these questions,

1:06 we could not just look at the latest data like we normally do on this channel.

1:10 [music] Instead, we had no choice but to go back

1:13 400 years in time to track in detail the rise,

1:16 survival, resurgence, [music] and fall of the British pound,

1:19 the rise, fall, and resurgence of the US dollar.

1:22 And [music] first chapter one, the rise and fall of the Dutch Gilder.

1:26 The year is609.

1:28 The newly established Dutch Republic is quickly becoming the global

1:32 trading powerhouse with the city of Amsterdam [music] at its center.

1:36 As one of the few places where money was protected by the rule of law,

1:40 even if your country was literally waging war against the republic,

1:44 your money would still be safe in Amsterdam.

1:46 As a consequence, silver coins from all over Europe were flooding

1:50 to the bank that would later become the template for all central banks,

1:54 the Bank of Amsterdam.

1:56 Officially, the Bank of Amsterdam promised that all deposits

2:00 there were backed by silver coins in the vault.

2:02 But it would later be revealed that this was not fully the case.

2:05 In fact, [music] the bank was using its silver to provide

2:09 basically for free cheap loans to the biggest corporation of the time,

2:13 the Dutch East India Company.

2:15 and the city of Amsterdam itself.

2:18 This meant that the Dutch colonial efforts

2:21 managed by the East India [music] Company

2:23 and the Dutch government effectively enjoyed something

2:27 the French would later call exorbitant privilege.

2:31 Issuing the reserve currency gave the Dutch three massive

2:35 advantages over much larger rivals such as France and England.

2:38 First, the Dutch could borrow at a lower

2:41 interest rate than they otherwise could.

2:43 For example, Dutch provinces typically had to pay around 2 to 3% while the much

2:47 larger British had to pay 5 to 6% and the unreliable French 10 [music] to 12%.

2:53 Second, the Dutch could borrow much more than they otherwise could,

2:56 allowing them to fund a massive navy that dominated

2:59 the seas [music] despite the Dutch Republic being a tiny country.

3:03 Finally, during a massive geopolitical crisis,

3:05 money often flowed to the safe haven of Amsterdam rather than away from it.

3:11 Therefore, while borrowing was often extra expensive for most European states,

3:15 at the moment that they needed it most,

3:17 crucially, the Dutch could borrow at extra low rates in times of a crisis.

3:21 This was crucial during the so-called year of disaster, Rampia,

3:26 when the tiny republic was invaded by its [music] two much larger rivals,

3:30 France and England, plus two German bishop bras.

3:33 Despite troops rapidly closing in on the Bank of Amsterdam,

3:36 the Dutch provinces could still borrow at rates much lower than the invaders.

3:41 This privilege allowed the tiny country

3:43 to hire German mercenaries and simultaneously

3:46 subsidize the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs to enter the war on its side.

3:51 Meanwhile, King Charles II of England was so low on money

3:54 that he was forced to partially default on his debts,

3:57 leading to a major financial crisis in London.

4:00 So exorbitant privilege quite literally saved the Dutch Republic.

4:06 However, at some point all of that money

4:09 did lead [music] to a dark side as well.

4:11 Perhaps we should call this the exorbitant burden.

4:15 The crux of it is that money had essentially gotten too easy.

4:18 This encouraged over borrowing by both the provincial

4:21 governments and the [music] East India Company.

4:23 Easy money also contributed to rampant real

4:26 estate speculation and to overreach by the bank

4:29 of Amsterdam which massively increased its loans

4:32 to the overstretched Dutch East India Company.

4:34 [music] Finally, most of these financial profits went mostly

4:37 to an increasingly rich financial elite [music] increasing inequality.

4:41 Economists like Yandere and Atanderada have argued that this exorbitant

4:46 burden made the Dutch Republic increasingly specialized in global

4:50 banking which then crowded out [music] the trading and crafts

4:54 that had made the republic great in the first place.

4:57 Then ironically the Dutch financial elite got [music] rich funding

5:00 the industrial rise of the very nations that would overtake the republic,

5:05 France, the US and especially England.

5:09 First, the Dutch continued investments to England's rebellious

5:12 American colonies and this then led to the fourth

5:15 Anglo Dutch war which ruined the Dutch economy

5:18 and led to the bankruptcy of the East India Company.

5:21 This in turn caused a major loss of trust in the Bank of Amsterdam and this made

5:25 money issued by them worth less than

5:27 the money they supposedly had in their vault.

5:29 However, while clearly on the decline,

5:31 the Dutch financial system managed to cling on partially because the Dutch

5:35 had diversified their investments by lending a lot to the French crown.

5:40 But ironically, this would soon lead to their final demise

5:43 as the French king was overthrown in a violent revolution,

5:46 further weakening the Dutch so much that it was

5:49 easily conquered by the French revolutionary forces in 1795,

5:53 who saw Dutch wealth as a great way to fund their armies.

5:57 However, ironically, this would mostly benefit their arch rival, the British,

6:01 as from that point on, money was no longer saved in Amsterdam,

6:04 cementing the status of London as Amsterdam successor.

6:08 [music] And even after being liberated from the French,

6:11 the Dutch were in so much debt, and London was now so strong that the Dutch

6:14 would never again regain their exorbitant privilege.

6:18 They spent well over a century paying back their international debts,

6:22 leading to a century of economic stagnation.

6:25 [music] And when borrowing, the Dutch paid a premium now over the English.

6:29 And especially in times of crisis, the Dutch had to tighten their belt as money

6:33 now flowed to the great British [music] Empire instead.

6:37 But before getting to that story, let's first review how similar the experience

6:40 of the Dutch Republic is to the dollar situation today.

6:44 First, the US today is also said to have an exorbitant privilege.

6:47 Despite having some of the highest debts in the world

6:50 and one of the highest government deficits in the world right now,

6:54 the US can borrow at real interest rates that are close to 2%.

6:58 Very low indeed.

6:59 On top of that, during big crisis such as during 2007208,

7:05 the Americans could borrow more and more cheaply as money from all around

7:10 the world wanted to go back to the safety of New York City.

7:14 But just as the Dutch Republic, many have argued that the US is

7:18 now also suffering from everinccreasing government overreach,

7:22 more and more financial bubbles, and increased inequality.

7:25 And just like the Dutch elites funded the rise of France and especially Britain,

7:30 so did China's rise mostly come about thanks to the US dollar system.

7:35 Near the end of their exorbitant privilege,

7:38 the Dutch faced a series of financial crisis and shocks.

7:41 The first signal of their decline was that they could no longer borrow

7:44 more during crisis such as the fourth Anglo Dutch war or French invasion.

7:50 And this is why after Trump's liberation day, for the first time ever,

7:55 markets were panicked because money flowed out

7:58 of the US during this crisis rather than into it.

8:01 Losing this part of exorbitant privilege was literally

8:04 the beginning of the end for the Dutch Republic.

8:07 Just a couple of years later, Amsterdam was occupied by the French.

8:10 But of course, there are at least two very big differences

8:13 between the tiny Dutch Republic back then and the US today.

8:16 The first is obvious.

8:17 America today is not at risk of an invasion.

8:20 But more importantly for our story,

8:22 the second difference is that the dollar today is

8:24 not tied to a metal like the Dutch guilder was.

8:27 Thirdly, where the Dutch were in trouble, there was a clear alternative.

8:31 Britain had a far bigger economy and thanks to a recent

8:35 influx of Dutch bankers who helped establish the Bank of England,

8:39 it was the clear alternative.

8:41 Britain would go on to have the exorbitant privilege next.

8:46 Today, America's situation looks much less

8:49 clear-cut than that of the Dutch Republic.

8:51 There is no clear alternative right now.

8:54 So to find out what will actually happen to the dollar,

8:57 we need a more comparable example,

9:00 which leads us to the rise and fall of the British pound.

9:04 Let's go back to 1799.

9:06 Napoleon had just come to power in France,

9:09 meaning there were now two rising powers

9:12 vying to become the new global hedgeimon.

9:14 [music] France had the biggest army and it was rapidly acquiring land,

9:19 [music] but Britain had the biggest navy, allowing it to dominate global trade.

9:24 And while France occupied the wealthy Dutch Republic, by doing so,

9:28 France had arguably given Britain the biggest price of all,

9:32 exorbitant [music] privilege.

9:34 Britain could now borrow at 3% while France had to pay 10% or more.

9:39 [music] Using this privilege, Britain essentially hired the armies of Europe

9:43 to fight France on its behalf by subsidizing Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

9:48 On top [music] of that, they used

9:49 their giant navy to blockade France and its allies.

9:53 But to do so, the British state had to borrow

9:55 to levels previously unseen at almost 200% of GDP.

10:00 This was so much that it caused a run on the Bank of England,

10:03 meaning that they had to suspend the pound's convertability to silver and gold,

10:07 essentially making the pound a so-called fiat currency,

10:11 [music] much like the dollar is today.

10:13 Much to the surprise of everybody, this did not make the pound worthless.

10:18 How can a currency be worth [music] anything

10:20 at all if it's not backed by a precious metal?

10:23 The answer is simple.

10:24 The British pound [music] was backed by the mighty British state.

10:27 you could always use it to pay taxes in Britain.

10:30 This in turn meant you could always use it to pay

10:32 British merchants who were the most productive in the world.

10:36 So was the pound during this era exactly like the dollar?

10:39 No, not quite.

10:41 Because unlike with the dollar today,

10:42 the Bank of England promised that the pound would once

10:45 again be as good as gold after the war was over.

10:49 And they kept that promise.

10:51 After Napoleon was defeated, Britain was now the unquestioned hedgeimon

10:56 where everyone wanted to store their money.

10:58 Whether that was at the Bank of England, at the London Stock Exchange,

11:01 or British banks, interest rates were lower than ever.

11:05 And while this had facilitated excess and bubbles in the tiny Dutch Republic,

11:09 in the [music] 18th century in Britain,

11:12 ultra cheap money fueled the first industrial revolution,

11:15 making Britain both the unquestioned industrial and financial superpower.

11:21 This is crucial because Britain's industries guaranteed

11:24 that gold would always flow to Britain.

11:26 Therefore, the papers issued by the Bank of England,

11:29 the British state, and banks were never questioned.

11:32 They were free to lend to the world on an epic scale,

11:36 providing it with a global currency that they used

11:39 to trade between them even if Britain was not involved.

11:42 However, as happened to the Netherlands before it,

11:45 over time, ultra cheap money fueled complacency.

11:48 Just as Dutch financiers had financed the rise of Britain and France,

11:52 London now played a crucial role in financing the rise

11:55 of US industry and to a lesser extent Germany.

11:59 To make matters the dominant position of British

12:01 industry began to suffer for two reasons.

12:04 First, while new inventions like electricity

12:06 and the assembly line enabled a second industrial revolution,

12:11 it did not take off in Britain because

12:12 its steam and water powered industries resisted the change.

12:16 Second, Germany and the US did not play completely fair.

12:20 While Britain was committed to globalization that made it rich to be fair,

12:24 the US and Germany developed their industries

12:26 behind massive tariff walls only to unleash them

12:29 on the world when they reached such massive scale

12:31 that it would be almost impossible to overtake them.

12:34 Meanwhile, like the Dutch before them,

12:36 cheap money allowed the British state to overextend itself.

12:39 Fighting for more and more colonies in, for example, Africa,

12:42 that did not do much to increase Britain's industrial [music] power.

12:47 Yet, the power of the British pound helped

12:49 Britain fight off a new continental challenger, Germany.

12:53 Britain's army again could not defeat Germany on its own.

12:56 But thanks to its exorbitant privilege,

12:58 it funded both France and Russia to fight on its behalf while the mighty

13:02 British Navy [music] starved Germany of vital

13:05 resources which ultimately led to its financial collapse.

13:08 Yet this again meant the British state had to borrow

13:10 to the hilt and had to limit convertability to gold.

13:14 However, this time unlike after Napoleon,

13:16 there was now an alternative to the British pound, the US dollar.

13:20 But this was honestly quite a surprise for Britain.

13:23 You see, just before the war,

13:25 the US dollar was not seen as a serious alternative to the pound,

13:29 despite the US's industrial and economic strength.

13:32 This all changed in 1913 when the US created the US Federal Reserve.

13:36 On top of that, it removed tight restrictions on foreign

13:39 US bank branches and allowed them to fund foreign trade.

13:44 These changes meant there was now suddenly

13:46 a true alternative to the British pound.

13:49 So unsurprisingly, as Britain exited the First World War with sky-high debt,

13:54 increasingly people began to doubt that Britain's

13:56 pound was as actually as good as gold.

14:00 This is when Britain made the choice that the Dutch were never able to make.

14:04 It decided to defend the pound

14:06 reserve currency status by increasing interest rates.

14:09 These sky-high interest rates depressed Britain's economy for much of the 1920s.

14:15 However, it allowed Britain to hang

14:16 on to the other exorbitant privileges a little longer.

14:20 And while the US dollar actually overtook the pound in the 1920s,

14:24 high British interest rates and the loss

14:26 of trust in the stability of the US during

14:28 the Great Depression actually meant that the pound

14:30 regained its position before the Second World War.

14:34 So unlike the Dutch in 1795,

14:37 Britain had some of its exorbitant privilege when it faced yet

14:41 another existential threat from the rising of a new European power.

14:46 Specifically, the dominance of the pound in its current and former colonies

14:49 allowed the [music] UK to borrow trillions from its empire during the war.

14:54 However, by this time, its main financial rival,

14:56 the US, had already lost trust in the pound.

14:59 Anything the UK bought from the US had to be paid for in gold till 1941.

15:05 And after that, when Britain was effectively broke,

15:08 it paid the US by handing over British

15:10 military bases and by dismantling British trade protections.

15:14 So by the end of the war,

15:15 the British state had essentially maxed out its exorbitant privilege.

15:20 It had borrowed more than it ever had before,

15:23 while its main monetary rival now held about

15:25 80% [music] of all the gold in the world.

15:27 So when 44 nations came together to design the monetary

15:30 system of the new world at the Bretonwoods conference,

15:34 Britain had almost no leverage.

15:36 It joined a system that officially made the dollar

15:39 the only reserve currency that would be convertible to gold.

15:42 Yet, Britain managed to cling on to some of its

15:44 exorbitant privilege for a long time through the so-called Sterling area,

15:49 which included much of its former colonies like Australia, New Zealand,

15:54 as well as much of the Middle East, [music] South Asia, and Africa.

15:57 And since all of these nations committed

15:59 to continue most of their reserves in pounds,

16:02 Britain continued with its exorbitant privilege

16:05 and this allowed it to repay its massive war

16:08 debts much faster than it otherwise would

16:11 by keeping interest rates much lower than inflation.

16:14 [music] Yet despite this, much like the Dutch Republic had before it,

16:19 Britain's declining currency coincided with a century

16:23 of relative stagnation, where, for example,

16:26 it kept becoming poorer compared to the US,

16:30 as well as compared to continental European powers that had

16:33 for decades been poorer like Germany and its old rival, the Netherlands.

16:38 On top of that, Britain faced relatively volatile decades where the value

16:43 of the pound took major hits in major currency crisis in for example 1976,

16:49 the early 1980s around Brexit and again in 2022 when the prime minister

16:54 Lististras seemed to have forgotten that Britain

16:57 had long lost its exorbitant privilege.

17:00 So what can Britain's run tell us about the fate of the dollar today?

17:05 The first lesson I think is that despite the changing

17:08 times and massive power differences between the British and the Dutch,

17:12 the three benefits of exorbitant privilege remained the same.

17:16 Britain could borrow at lower rates and it could borrow more.

17:18 And crucially crucially during times of crisis, it could borrow more, not less,

17:24 allowing it to defeat major threats like

17:27 France and Germany by subsidizing foreign armies.

17:30 But while Britain's fate was less dramatic than that of the Dutch,

17:34 they also first faced major volatility followed

17:37 by a rapid loss of geopolitical power, a financial meltdown,

17:41 and a century of relative stagnation that is arguably still going on today.

17:47 So, what can we learn today from this experience?

17:50 Well, I think that the presence of alternatives is what really matters.

17:55 This insanely high Napoleonic war debt could have

17:58 stopped the rise of the pound in its tracks.

18:00 But because there was no real alternative, Britain's currency, power,

18:04 and economy surged, allowing it to prosper and repay its debts.

18:08 On the other hand, while the dollar looked non-threatening in 1913,

18:12 just a few policy changes made it overtake the pound in 1920.

18:16 Yet, thanks to major sacrifices, the pound made a comeback,

18:19 arguably helping Britain survive yet another war.

18:22 But still, we now know that the pound was on its way out ever since 1920.

18:28 Is this the case for the US dollar as well?

18:31 Not so fast because the dollar has been here before and unlike the pound,

18:36 it came back stronger than ever.

18:39 So to truly understand what we can expect from the dollar,

18:42 we need one more historical story.

18:45 The story of the rise and fall and rise of the US dollar.

18:51 Okay, this story starts in 1944 when

18:53 the dollar became the undisputed king of global finance.

18:57 But the following Bretonwood's era unfolded in an eerily similar way

19:01 to the eras [clears throat] of the Dutch and British dominance.

19:04 The US started out as the undisputed industrial and financial power

19:09 and this essentially guaranteed that gold always flowed back to the US.

19:13 The US financial system supplied the world

19:16 with dollars through loans and Marshall Plan subsidies.

19:19 This gave the US the exorbitant privilege to build the biggest navy in the world

19:24 and to subsidize allies fighting against rivals

19:27 and to fight wars all around the world.

19:29 Meanwhile, its financial elite got more and more powerful while

19:32 they funded emerging industrial rivals who were protected behind tariff walls.

19:38 [music] Finally, exorbitant privilege led

19:40 to overspending by the US government until

19:43 so much gold had left the US that it was forced [music] to

19:47 suspend temporarily the convertability of the dollar

19:50 into gold or other reserve assets.

19:53 Sounds familiar, right?

19:54 But just as there were clearly no superior

19:57 alternatives to the pound after Napoleon was defeated,

20:00 there was no clear alternative to the US dollar in the 1970s.

20:05 Instead, the Reagan administration convinced allies

20:07 to realign their currencies with the dollar,

20:10 just as how Britain convinced the world

20:12 to join its gold standard in the 19th century.

20:15 However, this is where the similarities to history end.

20:19 You see, while Nixon temporarily suspended the convertability to gold in 1971,

20:24 we now know that this suspension was not temporary.

20:28 And that makes sense.

20:29 Why would you want to tie your currency to a yellow rock?

20:33 The British had shown that currencies can actually

20:36 survive without [music] it for short periods of time.

20:39 And now the Americans would prove that the dollar

20:41 could not just survive without being backed by gold, it [music] could thrive.

20:46 But make no mistake, just as with the pound under Napoleon,

20:50 today the US dollar is not backed by nothing.

20:53 The dollar is backed by the US state,

20:55 which taxes its [music] citizens in dollars and which

20:58 forces all US citizens and companies to accept dollars.

21:01 For a foreigner like me,

21:03 this means I know I can spend my dollars on anything made in America.

21:06 And since everyone in the world knows this, I can

21:09 also spend my dollars on foreign goods and services as well.

21:13 [music] Importantly though, abandoning the gold standard completely changed

21:17 the way a reserve currency works.

21:19 Instead of lending money to the world,

21:21 which would then always flow back to the main financial center,

21:24 America now spends its money into the global economy.

21:28 And instead of the world borrowing [music] from the global financial center,

21:31 the world now lends to America.

21:34 So ironically, where spending more than you earned used

21:37 to be a death sentence for your reserve currency,

21:41 economists like Michael Pettis now argued that this is

21:43 exactly what makes the dollar so dominant today.

21:47 Conclusion.

21:48 So why is the fiat dollar so dominant?

21:51 Well, you see, while global investors will

21:53 always choose the currency that is most convenient,

21:56 foreign governments can and do influence this in a major way.

21:59 For example, when Russia was shut from dollars and euros in 2022,

22:04 its companies switched to renmi in no time.

22:07 On the flip side, the political union of the sterling zone

22:10 prolonged Britain's exorbitant privilege way

22:12 longer than it otherwise would have.

22:14 And today many developing nations especially in Asia

22:18 have chosen to set up their economic

22:20 development model in such a way that they grow by exporting to the US.

22:24 The only country in the world that makes

22:27 its currency easily available through its spending.

22:31 This has two major implications for what we can expect from the dollar next.

22:35 The first is that it will be really much more difficult today

22:39 than it was back then for any currency to dethrone the dollar.

22:43 Yes, China already has the industrial strength to do it.

22:47 And much like the US did in 1913,

22:49 they could really surprise the world by making money much safer

22:53 and easier to store in Shanghai with just a few rule changes.

22:57 However, that will probably not be enough.

23:00 The dollar is extremely attractive for exportoriented

23:03 economies precisely because Americans spend so much

23:07 making it the reserve currency that is

23:10 relatively safe to build your economic model around.

23:13 [music] However, now we are getting to implication number two.

23:17 Make no mistake, the US can still push this system too far.

23:22 The US's exorbitant privilege still depends on the willingness

23:26 of foreigners to lend or to invest in the United States.

23:30 Together, relatively low inflation and the rule of law kept your dollar safe.

23:34 Heck, America's incredible stock markets made holding

23:37 many dollar as it's very profitable indeed.

23:40 But first, Biden undermined the dollar's perceived safety

23:43 by freezing reserves from nations that it didn't like,

23:46 [music] something the Dutch never dared and the British only

23:50 did to nations that they were in a full-scale war with.

23:54 Then second, Trump shocked the world when his administration announced sky-high

23:58 tariffs against allies and even discussed to potentially tax foreign reserves

24:03 in the US as a means to bring the value

24:06 of the dollar down which he he believes has become an exorbitant burden.

24:11 This can explain why the US immediately

24:13 experienced the first signs of losing exorbitant privilege,

24:17 increased volatility, and losing the ability to borrow more thanks to a crisis.

24:23 If this trend continues, the US will likely see a massive reduction

24:27 in its ability to wage war all over the globe.

24:30 And given that the status of the dollar now

24:32 largely comes from foreigners investing ever more in the US,

24:36 the end of foreign trust will probably tank the [music] American stock markets.

24:40 and lead to a century of relative stagnation.

24:44 Because as we've seen, losing your exorbitant privilege does not mean

24:48 you lose your exorbitant burden as well.

24:50 And to get an idea how much weaker the US may become, consider this.

24:54 The American economy is just as big

24:56 as the EU and quite a bit smaller than China.

25:00 If we just look at all the goods and services that are produced there,

25:03 it's only thanks to the awesome power of the dollar

25:05 that America still has the biggest economy in the world by far.

25:09 Luckily for Trump, history has shown

25:11 that even if you lose reserve currency status, it may [music] be recovered.

25:15 Heck, given that both the EU and China have far worse demographics,

25:19 if the US starts playing it safe from now

25:22 on, the dollar may even come back stronger than ever.

25:25 [music] But of course, this all depends on what Trump will do next and whether

25:29 or not his successor will appreciate the dollar's exorbitant privilege again.

25:34 But yeah, [music] that is my take.

25:37 one that is honestly a bit less scientific

25:39 than usual because unlike when it comes to migration,

25:43 gun violence, and war economies,

25:45 we simply don't have that much data on reserve currencies,

25:49 especially not fiat reserve currencies like the US dollar is today.

25:54 Therefore, for this video, I heavily relied on the work

25:56 of economists that have studied history extensively,

25:59 such as Barry Iiken Green, Yan De, and Michael Pettis.

26:03 Still, to get the full picture,

26:05 I highly recommend you check out other analysis about

26:08 what a world with a weaker dollar will look like,

26:10 such as the excellent analysis done by our advertising sponsor, The Economist.

26:16 Specifically, I recommend you check out this analysis on why

26:20 the current fall of the dollar may not have been about selling,

26:23 but rather about hedging behavior by foreign investors.

26:27 Then follow up with this analysis about why

26:29 the dollar may have much further to fall.

26:32 And then this analysis on why years after its fall as a global currency,

26:38 why the pound is still strangely popular today.

26:41 [music] As these articles show, I believe the economist delivers insights to let

26:46 you see the bigger picture and think for yourself.

26:48 This is why I used each of these articles as a source

26:51 for this video and why I highly recommend you subscribe to The Economist,

26:55 which I'm excited to say has agreed to give

26:58 a special 35% discount for Money Macro viewers.

27:02 Whether you want daily journalism in the Economist app,

27:05 or you are like me and prefer to catch up on the global

27:08 economy during the weekends with a cup of coffee and the paper edition,

27:12 you'll always stay on top of the latest

27:14 global developments no matter where you are.

27:16 and signal to others in the meantime that you care

27:19 about factual information and the values of integrity and responsibilities.

27:24 So don't miss out.

27:24 Click the link in the description or top comment below

27:27 or head over to economist.com/moneymacro to claim your exclusive 35% discount