Daily Inspiration Quote by Robert C. Solomon

Solomon’s line lands like a polite academic aside with a quietly radical implication: global monetary prestige isn’t a trophy you win, it’s a bill you agree to pay. He’s pointing to the structural bargain behind “reserve currency” status: for the rest of the world to hold your money, your money has to flow out in bulk. That usually means running external deficits - importing more than you export, or exporting capital so aggressively that foreign balance sheets fill up with your liabilities.

The intent is corrective. In the late-1990s/early-2000s glow around the euro, Europe’s elites often imagined reserve status as a pure upside: influence without sacrifice, power without mess. Solomon punctures that fantasy by treating reserve currency demand as a balance-of-payments problem, not a branding problem. The subtext is blunt: you can’t be the world’s cash drawer while insisting on the moral cleanliness of permanent surpluses.

Context matters. “Euroland” was still young, politically fragmented, and culturally attached to fiscal rectitude. Solomon is channeling the logic commonly associated with the Triffin dilemma: the issuer of a leading reserve asset must supply liquidity to the world, but supplying it can erode domestic comfort with deficits and external indebtedness. He’s also hinting at a governance mismatch: the euro might aspire to global heft, but without a unified fiscal authority and a shared tolerance for imbalance, it risks wanting the benefits of hegemony while refusing hegemony’s costs.