Though this is dated by a few weeks it is very pertinent
The current economic problems in the Western world are shared by most countries. It mostly boils down to unprecedented debt levels and too many promises by governments in unsustainable social welfare states. However, the US is suffering the most from this disease. One could compare it with cancer that is more advanced in some specific places. The US has taken debt to a level unparalleled, beyond anything the government had promised.
Even Japan, with the highest debt to GDP ratio in the developed world, is in a better situation than the US. If a crisis in Japan hits before the collapse of the dollar, it might postpone the dollar crisis simply because money would flow into the dollar. For all the debt that Japan has, the country is not nearly in as bad a shape as the US. “They have been trying to keep the Yen weak in order to export to America, which is a foolish strategy,” according to Schiff. The Japanese have more than a trillion dollars of Treasuries. “They could sell part of their Treasuries to cover at least a part of their debts. It would hurt the US if they started selling.”
Because of the privilege of the US having the dollar as the world reserve currency, the US economy has been able to evolve in a way that no other nation could. Like no other country in the world, the US is dependent on debt, cheap money, artificially low interest rates, and imports. Schiff explains: “When all this comes to an end, the US economy will suffer like no other. Maybe it will be a wake-up call to other countries in what the US did wrong in terms of the destruction of the country.”