Super Committee Could Hurt Dollar's Reserve Currency Status

The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The decisions of the Super Committee are likely to have more far-reaching implications than are currently envisioned, as the deliberations have been cast only in political terms by the media. There are, however, significant long-term economic implications.

As we have seen over the past couple of weeks in Europe, contagion can spread like wildfire. The bond yield spreads to U.S. Treasuries or German Bunds on all European peripheral country debt, and even on the debt of AAA rated (at this writing) France, have widened significantly and are displaying huge volatility depending on the day's headlines.

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Luckily for the U.S., the dollar is still the world's reserve currency and, in a world of fiat currencies, shows up as the least risky because of its worldwide liquidity and its unabashed penchant to use its money printing press in a financial crisis. So, despite the imbalances clearly present in the U.S. today (see U.S. Debt Crisis: What's the End Game? ), there still exists a "flight to the lowest perceived risk" (formerly known as "flight to quality"), when crisis and uncertainty rear their ugly heads.

Benefits of Reserve Currency Status

The rapid spread of the contagion in Europe should be a wake-up call to U.S. policy makers, especially the Super Committee. Any stumble or failure to propose something significant in the form of deficit reduction could further jeopardize the dollar's reserve currency status and bring the day of reckoning perilously closer. The Nov. 14 edition of Barron's (Enter the Yuan) set forth five benefits of reserve currency status:

Investor willingness to hold your currency and paper;

The ability to print money to purchase foreign assets -- without paying any interest;

Easy issuance of debt and worldwide acceptance;

Deeper financial markets ultimately benefiting your financial institutions;

Conducting trade in your currency which avoids exchange rate risk and benefits your exporters.

Think of what could happen to the U.S. without reserve currency status. Like what has already happened in the European periphery countries, interest rates would rise. This will occur even if the U.S. shares reserve currency status, which is the most likely initial scenario. I (see Wow-II! That's A Lot of Interest!) and other prominent economists have estimated the cost of debt in the U.S. if rates rise. Some possible scenarios are truly frightening in that the cost of the debt relative to the federal budget and GDP could put the U.S.'s debt burden on par with or higher than that of Greece, Italy and the other countries involved in Europe's debt crisis.

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