When the world relies on a single reserve currency, Triffin argued, that currency's home country must issue lots of assets (usually government bonds) to lubricate global commerce and meet the demand for reserves.

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For starters the government should issue a lot of 30-year bonds, as long as the yields are below 5%.

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Things were so good that in 2000 some market watchers were worried that the government would never issue 30 year Treasury bonds again, robbing us of a valuable benchmark.

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This created a demand for Treasury bonds that was in excess of their economic merits, possibly leading the U.S. government to run larger deficits and thus issue more bonds than it would have otherwise.

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Hamilton insisted that the federal government take over those debts and issue bonds for them, and he also insisted, in the face of considerable opposition, including that of Thomas Jefferson, on setting up a strong national bank.

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