Living in a Former Imperial Capital by Bill Bonner

But there is a big difference, too. The U.S. Empire is built on the dollar, not the pound. It reached its apogee at a time when the dollar had become only an abstraction. This is another first. Not only is the U.S. Empire the first to squander its most precious resource in a war against nobody, it is also the first to do so with money of no value. Since 1971, the dollar has had no sure connection to anything of real value. It is only a piece of paper. You can buy things with it, but how much of anything you can buy with it depends.