Our quality of life relies solely in our unique ability to import the goods and services that we use and need on a daily basis, while exporting US dollars. We’ve been able to print trillions of U.S. dollars into existence over the last couple of years - monetary policy that is anything but sound, regardless of whether or not your currency has global reserve status – because of the luxuries afforded to us by the dollar’s global reserve status.

But this reserve status, and the $30 trillion in debt we have accrued and convinced ourselves we will never have to pay, quickly go from being long-term liabilities that we can theoretically ignore to current liabilities that we must address if the dollar is ever legitimately challenged.

And while a week or two ago I was only worried about China and Russia, now that the world has been forced to pick economic sides, other nations are throwing their respective hats in the ring, too.

As The Wall Street Journal notes, the Saudis have “traded oil exclusively in dollars since 1974, in a deal with the Nixon administration that included security guarantees for the kingdom.”

Far be it for me too be a harbinger of too many uncomfortable predictions at once, but, as I wrote last year, I also strongly believe that China will eventually back its forthcoming digital currency with gold to further strengthen its economic and monetary posture globally.

The contrast between a forthcoming divided global economy would be stark: nations like China and Russia seem genuinely interested in the idea of sound money backed by commodities, while the United States seems preoccupied with [printer go brrrr].

If given the choice between the two ideologies, where do you think the world is going to wind up?

I’m not sure we’re ready to embrace the answer here in the United States, but we better get ready to.