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But then in April of 1985 the dollar began a sharp decline. The dollar's trade weighted value fell 23 percent in just 12 months and by a total of 37 percent by the beginning of 1988.

Lost dollars are simply harder to replace than gained dollars are to lose.

When the dollar collapses, it's not doing it in a vacuum. If the dollar loses value, it's doing so relative to some other currency. So the purchasing power that we lose, somebody else gets.

The Fed has the ability to put money out, it's got the ability to take money back in, and if they don't do that, we will have hyperinflation worse than we had in 1980 and 1981.

Over time, there's a very close correlation between what happens to the dollar and what happens to the price of oil. When the dollar gets week, the price of oil, which, as you know, and other commodities are denominated in dollars, they go up. We saw it in the '70s, when the dollar was savagely weakened.

What would a loss of confidence in the dollar actually look like? Gold going absolutely nuts.

The more competitive value of the dollar turned around the trade deficit.

Our fiat currency is under increasing stress with our large and growing trade deficits. We have a federal deficit that is calculated in the trillions when we take into account the net present value of the future Social Security and Medicaid obligations we are creating today.

I remember being in the Ontario Legislature and the Liberals yelling over at me about the fact that the dollar was rising, and that was bad for business, and didn't I realize that. And I thought, 'What are you talking about?' The value of the currency in part, large part, reflects the world's view of the state of our economy.

The dollar went up some eighty percent in real terms as I recall now or something like that - from '80 to '85.