There's a growing sense that the current global economic "Plan A", i.e. substitute public debt for private debt and use fiscal stimulus to keep economies afloat until private demand kicks in, has failed. Not surprising to many of us; it was destined to fail, but now the reality of that is becoming undeniable so leaders are scrambling for Plan B. For the U.S., Plan B is to double-down on Plan A. Others are not so sure. One problem is timing. There are several Plan B's, but they all take 5-7 years to implement, e.g. yuan as reserve asset, SDR's as a new liquidity source, etc. The two-tier Euro plan is just another Plan B although it might possibly be implemented in 2-3 years rather than 5-7.

None of these plans is totally ridiculous, but they all suffer from the same weakness which is that they depend on continued faith in paper money in a world where that faith is rapidly eroding. So the meta-political question becomes: can one or more of these plans be implemented faster than the paper currencies collapse? My spot estimate is "no". The avalanche has already started; there is no way to push the snow back uphill; it's just a matter of time before the paper money village below gets buried. Plan A and the the system it represents will collapse before there's time for Plan B.