"Its not the confidence in the dollar thats weak, its the confidence of outside investors have in the US economy."

I agree with most of what you said but not the above. I think there is very little confidence in the dollar. The Fed keeps printing dollars and Treasuries which the Chinese, the Japanese and the GCC continue to buy. The dollar is not backed by anything and the US is sitting on a mountain of debt the likes of which the world has never seen before. The dollar is in real trouble. What happens when the holders of all this debt start dumping it? The dollar will fall further.

The US economy is weak and interest rates are falling and will fall again today. This is putting further downward pressure on the dollar. I do agree that the oil producing countries will ditch the dollar. They have no choice.

Ironically while Americans may well become poorer, American businesses may well become richer as the compete and discover new markets. The big growth area for American companies is in selling services to the rest of the world. Americans are good at that.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. Mahatma Gandhi