While the rest of the planet operates on debit cards and cash ledgers of IOUs, the United States wields the monetary equivalent of an Amex Black card.

For nearly a century, since the rise of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, Uncle Sam has been able to finance the world’s largest military, which ensures the ongoing victory of the free world over communists and jihadists, two-thirds of the developed world’s medical research and development, mankind’s exploration of space, nearly half of the world’s humanitarian aid, and our own vast cradle-to-grave welfare state. And we spend on all of this while racking up a debt-to-GDP ratio of 100%, at interest rates so historically low they would have made the most legendary absolute monarchs and emperors of the past weep with envy.