by SLAWOMIR SIERAKOWSKI
(translated from Polish by MACIEJ LEPKA)
If the pope lost faith in God, he would inevitably get fired. For a similar reason, we should not stop believing in America.
We can look at the crisis in the U.S. with envy. We surely would not be able to live the way people do there. The U.S. is on the verge of bankruptcy, and everyone is more than willing to lend it money. That is the American dream of the 21st century: A beggar is treated like a millionaire. Even if the U.S. ceased to pay off its debts, there would not be any worldwide financial crash. It is the way of the world — that someone is regarded as credible, even if this might be a great misconception. Nowadays, a credible country no longer has to be solvent or honest. The only requirement to be perceived as such is having the trust and confidence of the rest of the world. Can others lose faith in America?
If the pope lost faith in God, he would inevitably get fired. For a similar reason, lack of confidence in the U.S. would probably backfire on businessmen, stockholders, bondholders, governments, or even credit rating agency presidents. They make their millions when the U.S. remains credible. It is this country that replaced God in our secularized society, right after capitalism ultimately took over Christianity.
Losing faith in America borders on not believing in what is written on a banknote. If I do not trust your banknotes, you will automatically stop trusting mine.
The most tangible evidence of the above claim are the rates the U.S. pays for its bonds, which have not had anything to do with the amount of the country’s budget deficit for a long time. What happens to emerging markets when the U.S. runs into trouble? In Poland, the dollar exchange rate is more likely to increase than go down since when faced with an uncertainty in the global economy, people fall back on the strongest currency.