We Don’t Need No Stinking Reserve Currency

From Reuters:

MOSCOW, June 2 (Reuters) - The world needs a wider range of reserve currencies because the economic crisis in the United States has changed perceptions of the dollar, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview published on Tuesday.

A comment From Megan McArdle on the deficit:

Democrats have largely been treating debt and spending as if they were largely a political problem.  What will the taxpayers tolerate?  Quite a lot, it turns out, in time of crisis.  And so Democrats seem to have settled on a strategy of passing as much spending as they can now, while the American public is still reeling from debt sticker shock, and figuring out how to actually pay for it later.
Roosevelt could do this because people felt that America faced an actual existential threat.  But that urgency rarely, maybe never, exists outside of total war.    Obama needs to please the bond market, as well as the taxpayers.  And the bond market is more educated and attentive than the average voter.  You can’t just tell them that you’re going to achieve fabulous cost savings through health care IT.  You have to prove it.  The administration hasn’t been super-convincing about specifics.  So there’s a real worry that the bond-holders won’t buy it.