The $40 Trillion Problem: How America Is Rebuilding the Dollar System While the World Tries to Escape It

Stablecoins are becoming a new source of demand for U.S. government debt. BRICS nations are building alternative payment networks. Central banks are accumulating gold. Behind these developments lies a monetary mechanism that has quietly reshaped sovereign balance sheets before: financial repression.

What if the next monetary crisis doesn’t resemble a crisis at all? What if there are no dramatic bank closures, no overnight collapse of the dollar, and no official declaration that the financial system has fundamentally changed? Instead, imagine a transformation that unfolds through legislation, Treasury auctions, digital payment infrastructure, shifting reserve portfolios, and years of declining purchasing power. The institutions continue operating, markets continue trading, and governments continue servicing their obligations, yet the economic relationship between money, debt, and wealth gradually changes beneath everyone’s feet.

That possibility emerged as I began investigating several developments that are usually discussed as unrelated stories. The United States has accumulated more than $40 trillion in federal debt while the cost of financing that debt continues to rise. Cryptocurrency companies are becoming significant holders of U.S. government securities, supported by legislation that explicitly recognizes the role stablecoins can play in strengthening dollar demand. Meanwhile, BRICS countries are developing financial infrastructure intended to reduce their dependence on the traditional dollar-centered settlement system, and central banks have continued accumulating gold at historically elevated rates.

Individually, none of these developments establishes that a monetary crisis is imminent. Collectively, however, they expose competing pressures that could influence the next era of global finance. Washington needs a deep, reliable market for its debt. Private financial institutions want liquid assets capable of supporting increasingly digital forms of money. Foreign governments want greater control over their financial infrastructure, while investors and ordinary households must contend with the long-term consequences of inflation and rising borrowing costs.

The most revealing connection may be the historical relationship between sovereign indebtedness and financial repression, a process through which governments can reduce the real burden of debt without formally defaulting. Once that mechanism is understood, the significance of stablecoin regulation, Treasury demand, international reserve diversification, and the distribution of purchasing power becomes considerably clearer.

America’s Debt Problem Is Becoming a Financing Problem

The United States crossed the $40 trillion federal debt threshold in 2026, an extraordinary figure that reflects decades of accumulated deficits and expanding financing obligations. Although a portion of this total represents intragovernmental holdings rather than securities owned by outside investors, debt held by the public alone exceeds $32 trillion. The government is also spending approximately $1 trillion annually on interest, placing substantial pressure on federal finances before policymakers address infrastructure, defense, entitlement programs, or other spending priorities.

The immediate concern is not necessarily that the federal government will suddenly become unable to borrow. Unlike households or corporations, the United States issues debt denominated in a currency it controls, giving it monetary and institutional capabilities unavailable to ordinary borrowers. Nevertheless, those capabilities do not eliminate the economic consequences of excessive borrowing. Higher interest rates increase refinancing costs, and sustained deficits require investors to absorb additional securities year after year. Even when Treasury auctions function normally, the price required to attract buyers can become increasingly expensive.

Consider the Treasury auction conducted on October 7, 2026, when the government sold $39 billion in 10-year notes at a yield of approximately 5.30%. That was an exceptionally high financing cost compared with the near-zero interest-rate environment that prevailed earlier in the decade. Yet the auction attracted considerable demand, with bids totaling 2.77 times the amount offered. Indirect bidders received more than 80% of the allocation, while primary dealers absorbed a relatively small share.

Those results are important because they challenge the idea that investors have already abandoned American government debt. The Treasury market remains capable of attracting substantial capital, but investors are demanding greater compensation for lending to Washington. A functioning bond market and a deteriorating fiscal trajectory are not mutually exclusive. The government can continue refinancing its obligations while an increasing share of future revenue becomes committed to interest payments, leaving policymakers with less flexibility when economic conditions deteriorate.

This raises a question that deserves considerably more attention than it receives in mainstream financial discussion: as governments issue more debt, traditional investors reconsider their allocations, and international monetary relationships evolve, where will the next generation of Treasury buyers come from?

One increasingly important answer is emerging from the cryptocurrency industry.

Stablecoins Are Becoming Part of America’s Sovereign Debt Infrastructure

Stablecoins are usually discussed as tools for cryptocurrency trading, international transfers, and blockchain-based commerce. Their broader monetary significance, however, lies in the relationship between their circulating liabilities and the assets issuers hold to support redemption. A dollar-backed stablecoin is designed to maintain a value of one U.S. dollar, which requires its issuer to maintain adequate reserves. Depending on the issuer and regulatory framework, those reserves may include cash, short-term U.S. Treasury securities, and Treasury-backed repurchase agreements.

This creates a connection between global demand for digital dollars and the American government’s financing system. When a user purchases newly issued stablecoins, the issuer receives funds and must allocate assets to support the tokens. If part of those reserves is invested in Treasury bills, the transaction can contribute to demand for U.S. government securities. A person living in another country may never open an American bank account or purchase a Treasury security directly, yet their use of dollar-backed stablecoins can indirectly support the market that finances the U.S. government.

The scale of this relationship is no longer trivial. Tether reported approximately $184.6 billion in issued USDT at the end of the second quarter of 2026, with a reserve portfolio containing substantial Treasury exposure alongside gold and other investments. Circle, the issuer of USDC, reported approximately $75.2 billion in circulating tokens during September 2026, supported by reserves that include short-term government securities and other highly liquid assets. Coinbase participates economically through its distribution relationship with Circle, although it is important to distinguish Coinbase’s commercial role from Circle’s direct responsibility for issuing and managing USDC reserves.

Taken together, these companies illustrate the emergence of a new class of financial intermediary connecting global digital-dollar demand with conventional dollar-denominated assets. The relationship becomes particularly significant when viewed through the lens of public policy. In July 2025, the GENIUS Act established a federal framework for payment stablecoins, with requirements governing reserves, redemption, oversight, and eligible assets. The legislation does not require every cryptocurrency exchange to purchase Treasury securities, nor does it require all reserves to be invested directly in government debt. It does, however, establish a regulatory environment in which short-term Treasury assets are particularly useful for institutions issuing redeemable digital-dollar liabilities.

More revealingly, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly connected the legislation to the objectives of strengthening international dollar demand and expanding the market for U.S. government securities. This is a direct acknowledgement that stablecoins have strategic significance beyond the cryptocurrency industry. Washington recognizes that a widely adopted digital-dollar ecosystem could reinforce the international monetary position of the United States while creating additional demand for dollar-denominated reserve assets.

The U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee had already examined this relationship in April 2025. Its work considered the possibility that stablecoin adoption could increase demand for government securities, alter the composition of Treasury investors, and redirect capital away from commercial bank deposits or traditional money-market funds. This distinction is essential because not every dollar entering a stablecoin represents genuinely new demand for American debt. If an investor withdraws money from a Treasury-heavy money-market fund and uses it to acquire USDC, the transaction may simply transfer Treasury exposure from one intermediary to another.

The more consequential possibility involves additional international savings flowing into dollar-denominated instruments through stablecoins. If individuals and businesses that would not otherwise hold American financial assets begin using digital dollars, issuers may create incremental demand for the securities backing those tokens. At sufficient scale, that could become an important financing channel, particularly for short-term Treasury bills.

There is also a risk embedded in this arrangement. Stablecoin issuers operate with redeemable liabilities, meaning holders may demand cash when market confidence deteriorates. During periods of expansion, reserve accumulation can support Treasury demand. During periods of rapid contraction, issuers may need to generate liquidity through maturing securities, asset sales, or the unwinding of financing arrangements. If the industry becomes large enough, those transactions could influence the same short-term funding markets used by banks, dealers, and institutional investors.

What began as a technological alternative to conventional payment systems is therefore becoming increasingly connected to conventional sovereign finance. Stablecoins do not eliminate the underlying government debt. They change who intermediates demand for it, how dollar claims circulate internationally, and where some of the associated liquidity risks reside.

BRICS Is Building an Alternative While Washington Expands the Digital Dollar

At the same time the United States is encouraging broader adoption of dollar-backed digital instruments, BRICS countries are pursuing financial infrastructure that could reduce reliance on traditional dollar-centered international payment arrangements. These initiatives are frequently characterized as an attempt to replace the petrodollar, although the actual developments are more nuanced and potentially more significant than a simple substitution of one currency for another.

The September 2026 BRICS New Delhi Declaration acknowledged continuing work on cross-border payment interoperability and the greater use of member currencies in trade and investment. These initiatives reflect a longstanding concern among participating countries about dependence on financial infrastructure that operates through Western banking institutions and international payment networks. Sanctions, the freezing of sovereign assets, exchange-rate volatility, and geopolitical competition have strengthened incentives to develop alternative settlement arrangements.

The significance of these efforts lies in the infrastructure supporting international monetary relationships. Reserve currencies derive their position not simply from political agreements but from the depth of their financial markets, the availability of liquid collateral, the denomination of international debts, and the payment systems through which transactions are conducted. The dollar remains deeply embedded across these functions, which explains why its international role cannot be replaced simply by announcing a new currency or establishing bilateral trade agreements.

Indeed, the International Monetary Fund reported that the dollar still accounted for approximately 56.7% of allocated global foreign-exchange reserves during the second quarter of 2026. The figure reflects a gradual erosion of its historical share rather than an abrupt abandonment. Dollar-denominated financial markets remain exceptionally deep, and international investors continue to use Treasury securities for liquidity, collateral, and reserve management.

Nevertheless, the direction of financial infrastructure development deserves attention. Countries do not necessarily need to eliminate dollar reserves to reduce their dependence on dollar settlement. If more international transactions can be conducted through interoperable national payment systems, local currencies, or central-bank digital currency arrangements, certain forms of dollar intermediation may become less necessary.

This creates an unusual competitive dynamic. Washington is encouraging the international adoption of blockchain-based dollar instruments, while BRICS members are exploring mechanisms that facilitate trade outside established dollar payment channels. Both developments can progress simultaneously because official monetary policy and private financial preferences do not always align. A government may promote settlement in its national currency while businesses and citizens continue choosing dollar-backed stablecoins for international transactions, savings, or access to digital financial services.

The resulting system may not be characterized by the replacement of the dollar with a single rival currency. A more plausible possibility is an increasingly fragmented monetary architecture in which multiple settlement networks coexist, governments exercise greater control over domestic payment infrastructure, and private digital-dollar instruments compete for international users.

For the United States, stablecoins could become a means of preserving and extending dollar usage through channels that do not require the same traditional banking relationships. For countries seeking monetary independence, alternative payment networks could provide additional flexibility without requiring them to immediately abandon dollar-denominated assets. Understanding this competition requires looking beyond reserve-currency headlines and examining the actual mechanisms through which international money moves.

Gold Is Sending a Different Signal About Monetary Confidence

Another development unfolding alongside the rise of digital dollars and alternative settlement networks is the continued accumulation of gold by central banks. According to the World Gold Council, official-sector purchases reached approximately 1,092 tonnes in 2024 and 863 tonnes in 2025. Although annual purchases declined in 2025, the level remained historically elevated, reflecting sustained interest in an asset that occupies a fundamentally different position within the international monetary system.

Gold is distinctive because physical bullion does not represent another institution’s promise to pay. Unlike a Treasury security, bank deposit, or stablecoin, it has no sovereign issuer and carries no obligation requiring a government or company to deliver a nominal payment at maturity. That does not make gold immune to price fluctuations or guarantee positive investment returns. It does, however, make it attractive as one potential means of diversifying reserves away from the liabilities of specific governments and financial institutions.

The contrast with stablecoins is revealing. On one side of the monetary system, private users are increasingly adopting digital-dollar instruments backed partly by American government debt. On the other, some central banks are increasing exposure to a physical monetary asset that exists outside the credit obligations of any particular sovereign. These developments are not inherently contradictory because private payment users and official reserve managers have different priorities, but they illustrate a broader reconsideration of financial dependence, counterparty exposure, and monetary security.

The movement toward gold does not establish that central banks anticipate an imminent dollar collapse. Reserve diversification can reflect multiple objectives, including geopolitical risk management, portfolio construction, and concerns about inflation or sanctions. Nevertheless, it belongs in the same investigation because it shows how different participants are responding to uncertainty surrounding sovereign liabilities and the international monetary order.

Financial Repression: The Historical Mechanism That Changes the Entire Discussion

The interaction between debt, stablecoins, international reserve diversification, and monetary policy becomes particularly consequential when viewed through the history of financial repression. This mechanism offers an explanation for how heavily indebted governments have reduced the real value of their obligations without formally refusing to repay creditors.

Consider a government that has accumulated substantial fixed-rate debt while facing limited political willingness to raise taxes or reduce public spending. If inflation increases faster than the interest paid on its existing obligations, the purchasing power of those future payments declines. A bondholder may receive every dollar contractually promised, yet the money received purchases fewer goods and services than anticipated when the original investment was made.

For example, suppose a government pays a nominal interest rate of 4% while inflation averages 9%. The approximate real interest rate is negative 5%, meaning the creditor’s purchasing power is declining even as nominal interest continues to accrue. Sustained across large debt portfolios, this relationship can reduce the real burden of outstanding obligations. The total effect depends on fiscal deficits, economic growth, refinancing requirements, and the maturity structure of the debt, but the underlying mechanism is straightforward.

Financial repression goes beyond inflation alone. It generally involves policies that constrain interest rates, direct institutional investment toward government securities, restrict capital movement, or otherwise encourage certain financial institutions to hold sovereign debt at returns below those that might prevail in an unrestricted market. The result can be an implicit transfer of purchasing power from creditors and savers toward borrowers, including governments.

This process has historical precedent. Economists Carmen Reinhart and M. Belen Sbrancia documented how financial repression contributed to reductions in government debt burdens following World War II. Their research examined interest-rate ceilings, directed lending, capital restrictions, and periods of negative real interest rates across advanced economies. In the United States, the Federal Reserve supported Treasury borrowing during the 1940s by maintaining ceilings on certain government securities yields, an arrangement that eventually became incompatible with efforts to control inflation and contributed to the 1951 Treasury-Fed Accord.

The historical lesson is not that every government with substantial debt will inevitably pursue the same policies. It is that nominal repayment and preservation of purchasing power are fundamentally different concepts. Governments can satisfy their contractual obligations while inflation redistributes economic value between debtors and creditors.

This is where the growth of regulated stablecoins becomes especially interesting. If digital-dollar adoption creates additional demand for short-term Treasury securities, it could improve the government’s ability to finance its obligations. If inflation simultaneously exceeds the returns earned by holders of those securities for sustained periods, the real value of outstanding debt could decline.

However, connecting these possibilities does not establish that a coordinated financial-repression strategy is already underway. Stablecoin reserve requirements can create demand for Treasury securities without requiring issuers to accept negative real yields. Likewise, elevated nominal Treasury yields may reflect investors demanding greater compensation for inflation and fiscal risk rather than evidence that borrowing costs are being successfully suppressed.

The important question is whether financial regulation, government financing incentives, and monetary policy could eventually converge in a way that systematically favors sovereign borrowing at the expense of real returns to savers. Historical experience demonstrates that such arrangements are possible. Determining whether one is emerging today requires examining real interest rates, regulatory incentives, Treasury ownership, and actual changes in the purchasing power of financial claims.

The People Who Ultimately Bear the Cost

The consequences of monetary policy extend far beyond Treasury markets and international finance. Inflation, interest rates, and the availability of credit influence the distribution of wealth across households, businesses, and generations. When inflation persists, the impact is rarely experienced equally because people differ in their access to assets, borrowing arrangements, earning power, and financial flexibility.

Individuals who own productive businesses, equities, property, or other assets may have opportunities to adapt as prices change. Companies with pricing power can sometimes protect revenues by raising prices, while certain asset values may adjust upward in nominal terms over time. Investors may also diversify their portfolios or acquire assets that respond differently to inflation and changing interest rates. None of these protections is automatic, however, because real estate, equities, and commodities can all lose value, particularly when financing conditions tighten.

Households relying primarily on wages and cash savings often have fewer options. If housing, food, transportation, utilities, healthcare, and insurance become more expensive faster than wages increase, purchasing power deteriorates even when nominal income remains stable or rises modestly. A savings account can maintain its stated dollar balance while the economic value of those savings declines. For younger households attempting to accumulate enough capital for homeownership or retirement, that difference can become substantial over time.

This is one reason financial repression has historically been described as a form of implicit taxation. The burden is not necessarily collected through an explicit government assessment but through the declining real value of certain financial claims. The distributional effects depend on who owns government debt, the structure of household assets and liabilities, and the relative movement of wages, prices, and investment returns.

The larger issue is that monetary stability cannot be assessed exclusively through whether banks remain open or Treasury auctions continue clearing. A financial system may function operationally while producing prolonged deterioration in the purchasing power available to portions of the population. That possibility deserves as much scrutiny as more dramatic scenarios involving sudden institutional failure.

A Liquidity Crisis Is Still Possible, but the Warning Signs Are More Complicated

The banking system introduces another layer of vulnerability because modern finance depends on continuous access to short-term funding and the marketability of collateral. Banks hold securities that fluctuate in value as interest rates change, primary dealers finance inventories of government debt, and money-market funds provide large amounts of liquidity to short-term financing markets. Treasury securities connect these institutions through their role as investment assets and collateral.

One prominent concern involves the Federal Reserve’s overnight reverse-repurchase facility, whose balance declined dramatically from the multitrillion-dollar levels reached earlier in the decade. Some analysts have presented this reduction as a countdown to an unavoidable funding crisis, suggesting that once the facility approaches zero, Treasury issuance must overwhelm dealers and trigger an interbank seizure.

That interpretation oversimplifies how money moves through the system. When money-market funds shift cash from the Fed’s facility into Treasury bills or private repurchase agreements, the money does not simply vanish. It changes where it is invested and how it supports financing activity. Nevertheless, the migration can matter because a previously substantial source of readily redeployable cash has already been absorbed into other financial instruments. Future increases in Treasury supply must be accommodated through additional investor demand, changes in bank reserves, dealer balance sheets, and other funding channels.

The failures of Silicon Valley Bank and other institutions in 2023 demonstrated how quickly confidence can deteriorate when depositors withdraw funds from banks holding long-duration securities with substantial unrealized losses. Modern withdrawals can occur rapidly through digital channels, potentially forcing institutions to realize losses on assets that might otherwise have been held until maturity. These episodes exposed the danger of combining interest-rate risk, concentrated funding, and inadequate liquidity management.

Such vulnerabilities do not mean that all banks are insolvent or that the depletion of a single Federal Reserve facility must produce systemic collapse. They do, however, underscore the importance of monitoring repo funding rates, Treasury auction demand, emergency central-bank borrowing, collateral market liquidity, and changes in deposits. A genuine crisis would be more convincingly identified through a deterioration across several of these indicators than through one isolated balance approaching zero.

Stablecoins introduce an additional dimension because large issuers increasingly operate within short-term securities and secured financing markets. If those markets experience significant disruption while stablecoin holders demand redemptions, pressure could transmit between digital-dollar instruments and conventional finance. Conversely, strong reserve management and orderly maturities could reduce the need for destabilizing sales.

The relevant issue is not whether cryptocurrencies and traditional banks are separate systems. It is how extensively their funding arrangements and liquidity needs are becoming intertwined.

The Physical Economy Creates Constraints Monetary Policy Cannot Remove

The relationship between monetary stability and physical resources is another important consideration, particularly during periods of energy-market disruption. As of October 2026, renewed conflict-related risks in the Middle East and elevated oil prices have intensified concerns about transportation costs, global supply chains, and inflation.

A central bank can influence interest rates, provide liquidity to eligible counterparties, and conduct securities transactions within its legal authorities. It cannot immediately increase oil production, replace damaged energy infrastructure, reopen a disrupted shipping route, or eliminate physical shortages through monetary intervention. This distinction becomes economically significant when inflation is driven partly by constraints on the availability of essential goods rather than solely by excessive demand.

Higher energy prices can increase the cost of manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, and electricity. If those increases persist, they may influence inflation expectations and place additional pressure on longer-term bond yields. Higher yields can then raise borrowing costs for governments, businesses, and households while reducing the market value of existing fixed-rate securities. In a highly leveraged financial system, the resulting adjustments can contribute to broader funding stress.

This creates difficult trade-offs for policymakers. Measures intended to ease financial conditions may stimulate demand at a time when physical production cannot expand quickly enough, while policies designed to restrain inflation can intensify refinancing pressure and slow economic growth. The challenge is not necessarily an imminent systemic collapse but the possibility that fiscal, monetary, and physical constraints become increasingly difficult to manage simultaneously.

These interactions matter because they reveal the limitations of viewing sovereign debt as a purely accounting problem. Governments can create nominal monetary claims, but the purchasing power of those claims ultimately depends on an economy’s capacity to produce and distribute real goods and services.

The Dollar May Not Be Dying. Its Infrastructure May Be Changing.

The larger pattern emerging from these developments is not necessarily the collapse of the dollar or the immediate replacement of the American financial system. It is the possibility that the mechanisms supporting dollar demand, sovereign debt financing, and international settlement are changing significantly.

Traditional institutions such as banks, pension funds, foreign central banks, insurers, and money-market funds remain foundational to Treasury-market demand. Stablecoin issuers are becoming an additional class of intermediaries that can connect international digital-dollar users to short-term government securities. At the same time, countries seeking greater financial independence are developing alternative payment networks, while some central banks continue diversifying reserves into gold.

These developments can occur without a centrally directed plan because the participating institutions are responding to their own incentives. The U.S. government benefits from broad and reliable demand for Treasury securities. Stablecoin issuers need liquid reserve assets that support redemption. Foreign governments have reasons to diversify their payment infrastructure, and reserve managers have reasons to reduce concentration in particular sovereign liabilities. Highly indebted governments also face persistent incentives to avoid politically and economically painful fiscal adjustments.

The resulting system may become more technologically sophisticated without becoming inherently more stable. Digital-dollar networks can improve the efficiency and accessibility of payments while introducing new dependencies on private issuers and reserve managers. Alternative settlement systems can increase national financial autonomy while fragmenting liquidity across currencies and institutions. Expanded Treasury demand can help finance federal borrowing without resolving the structural causes of persistent deficits.

Financial repression remains an important possible outcome, but not a demonstrated inevitability. Whether governments increasingly rely on negative real returns, regulatory preferences for sovereign debt, or other mechanisms to reduce debt burdens will depend on future policy decisions and market conditions.

This is why focusing exclusively on dramatic collapse predictions can obscure the more consequential developments already taking place. Financial systems rarely transform through a single event. They evolve through accumulated policy choices, market incentives, technological changes, and shifting economic relationships that eventually produce a different institutional structure.

The Real Question Is Who Benefits From the Transition

The most important issue may not be whether the dollar remains the world’s dominant reserve currency, whether BRICS successfully develops alternative settlement infrastructure, or whether stablecoins become a trillion-dollar market. Those questions matter, but they are only parts of a larger transformation involving the ownership of sovereign obligations and the distribution of monetary risk.

If international digital-dollar adoption expands, stablecoin issuers and their financial partners may become increasingly important intermediaries in the market for government securities. If foreign official institutions continue diversifying while private financial demand grows, the composition of Treasury ownership could change even without a collapse in total demand. If inflation persistently erodes the value of fixed nominal claims, the economic consequences will differ significantly between borrowers, savers, asset owners, and households whose incomes cannot keep pace with rising costs.

None of these outcomes requires a sudden declaration that the global monetary system has been reset. The transformation could occur gradually through legal frameworks, changing reserve portfolios, payment networks, fiscal decisions, and adjustments in the real returns earned by different participants.

There are also clear indicators that can help distinguish a structural transition from a developing financial crisis. Treasury auction demand and financing costs reveal how investors value government obligations. Real interest rates provide evidence about the purchasing-power returns available to bondholders. Stablecoin reserve disclosures and issuance trends show how much digital-dollar demand is entering short-term asset markets, while foreign Treasury holdings and central-bank reserve data offer insight into international portfolio changes. Repo funding conditions and bank liquidity indicators help determine whether financial stress is becoming systemic.

Taken together, these measures offer a more useful understanding of monetary risk than arbitrary predictions of a banking collapse within a fixed number of days.

The United States is not necessarily witnessing the end of the dollar. It may instead be participating in a significant reconstruction of the financial architecture through which dollars are distributed, held, invested, and settled around the world. That process could strengthen certain aspects of dollar dominance while creating new vulnerabilities and intensifying longstanding questions about government debt, inflation, and the purchasing power of ordinary households.

The greatest monetary transformation of our lifetime may therefore arrive without a dramatic market collapse or a new currency replacing the old one. It may emerge through a financial system that remains operational, increasingly digital, and deeply interconnected while the economic consequences of its design accumulate over time.

The defining question of the next monetary era may not be whether the dollar survives, but who earns the returns from holding its underlying assets, who finances the obligations supporting the system, and who ultimately bears the cost when the purchasing power of money changes.

That is the monetary story worth watching.