A Letter to Haym Salomon (also Solomon; April 7, 1740 – January 6, 1785)
Dear Haym,
In 1776, the United States dollar did not technically exist yet.
Which feels like a dangerous way to start a revolution.
The colonies declared independence from the most powerful empire on Earth while lacking a stable national currency, functioning central bank, reliable taxation system, or coherent financial infrastructure. The American economy operated through a chaotic patchwork of foreign coins, barter systems, colonial paper notes, tobacco receipts, personal credit arrangements, and sheer improvisational optimism.
A remarkably American beginning.
And perhaps no coin mattered more than the Spanish milled dollar.
The famous “piece of eight.”
For over a century, Spanish silver dollars circulated widely across North America because British coins were scarce and inconsistent. The Spanish dollar possessed reliable silver content, broad international acceptance, and practical usefulness in daily commerce.
The future American dollar would eventually model itself directly upon it.
Even the phrase “two bits” came from cutting Spanish dollars into eight smaller pieces called reales.
Quarter-dollar slang born from physically chopping money apart with knives.
Economic policy was wonderfully tactile back then.
And because hard currency remained perpetually scarce, colonists often relied on barter and alternative systems. Tobacco receipts functioned as currency in parts of Virginia. Deer hides helped inspire the slang term “buck.” Colonies issued their own paper bills of credit denominated inconsistently in pounds, shillings, pence, or occasionally dollars.
Money itself remained fragmented.
Which becomes a problem quickly when trying to fund a revolution.
So in 1775, the Continental Congress began issuing paper money known as “Continentals” to finance the Revolutionary War.
And this is where things became economically spicy.
Without meaningful taxing authority or stable reserves backing them, the Continentals rapidly inflated. Congress printed enormous quantities hoping confidence alone might sustain value while Britain simultaneously counterfeited the currency aggressively to destabilize the colonial economy further.
The result?
Disaster.
By the war’s later years, Continentals had become nearly worthless, giving birth to the phrase:
“Not worth a Continental.”
One of history’s harshest Yelp reviews for monetary policy.
And yet despite the chaos, the dollar itself survived conceptually.
Because revolutions often begin as acts of imagination before becoming functioning systems.
And perhaps no one understood the fragile relationship between finance and survival more intimately than you, Haym.
A Jewish immigrant financier who helped fund the Revolution repeatedly through loans, fundraising, and financial coordination, you quietly supported the American cause when the government itself often stood broke and disorganized.
The republic owed survival partly to men trusted enough to keep credit alive while the nation itself barely existed.
Money, after all, depends heavily upon belief.
Then came the 19th century.
And the American dollar evolved through chaos, speculation, panic, expansion, and argument into something approaching national coherence.
Barely.
The early republic lacked a unified paper currency system entirely. Thousands of state-chartered banks printed their own notes with wildly varying reliability. Some banks operated responsibly.
Others operated essentially as financial raccoons wearing waistcoats.
These “wildcat banks” issued paper money often backed by little more than optimism, rumor, and geographic inconvenience. Counterfeiting flourished because Americans could not realistically memorize the appearance of thousands of competing banknotes.
Commerce became an elaborate trust exercise.
Meanwhile, foreign coins still circulated widely. Spanish and Mexican silver dollars remained legal tender until 1857 because the nation still lacked sufficient domestic coinage.
The republic literally depended upon foreign money while building national identity.
Then came gold.
The California Gold Rush flooded America with precious metals, while the Coinage Act of 1853 effectively pushed the nation toward the gold standard. Silver dollars gradually disappeared from circulation as gold increasingly anchored monetary value.
Money became tied directly to metal.
Which felt reassuring psychologically.
People trusted gold because gold physically existed.
Unlike politicians.
Then came the Civil War.
And once again, war detonated monetary stability.
To fund the Union effort, the federal government issued paper money called “Greenbacks” beginning in 1861. These notes were not fully backed by gold or silver, making them revolutionary financially.
The government essentially declared:
“This paper has value because we say it does.”
An astonishing leap of collective faith.
Inflation surged. By 1864, Greenbacks traded at less than forty cents on the dollar compared to gold. But the experiment also changed America permanently. The federal government established centralized authority over currency through the National Banking Acts, gradually eliminating the wildcat banknote chaos.
America finally began speaking financially in one voice.
Then came the great silver debates.
The discovery of enormous Western silver deposits reignited political warfare over what should back American money. Farmers and debtors generally favored expanding silver coinage because inflation helped borrowers repay debts more easily.
Bankers and creditors preferred gold stability.
And suddenly monetary policy became emotional warfare.
Few speeches captured the conflict more dramatically than William Jennings Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech in 1896 condemning gold standard orthodoxy.
“You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
Economic policy delivered like biblical thunder.
Then came the 20th century.
And the dollar transformed from national currency into global empire.
The first great turning point arrived in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve System.
The Fed emerged partly because repeated banking panics revealed how unstable the American financial system remained. The central bank would manage interest rates, stabilize banks, regulate currency supply, and increasingly shape the economy itself.
A quiet institution with enormous power.
Then came World War I.
Then the Great Depression.
And suddenly gold itself became problematic.
In 1933, amid catastrophic banking collapse, Franklin D. Roosevelt effectively ended private gold ownership domestically while revaluing the dollar against gold under the Gold Reserve Act.
The relationship between money and metal loosened.
The relationship between money and government strengthened.
Then came World War II.
And afterward, the Bretton Woods Conference changed global finance permanently.
Delegates from forty-four nations agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar while the dollar itself remained convertible to gold at $35 per ounce.
The dollar became the world’s reserve currency.
The British pound stepped aside.
American economic dominance arrived carrying spreadsheets.
And then came 1971.
The famous Nixon shock severed the dollar’s direct convertibility to gold entirely.
The gold window closed.
Money became fully fiat currency.
Meaning the dollar now derived value primarily from government authority, economic productivity, military power, market confidence, and collective belief rather than precious metals sitting physically inside vaults.
Civilization collectively agreed paper and digital numbers represented value because everyone else agreed too.
Economics occasionally resembles mass psychological theater with calculators.
Then came globalization.
Computers.
Electronic banking.
Credit cards.
High-frequency trading.
Digital transactions.
By the late 20th century, the dollar no longer moved merely through wallets and cash registers.
It flowed invisibly through global financial networks at electronic speed.
Now we arrive in 2026, Haym, where the U.S. dollar remains the dominant reserve currency on Earth despite endless predictions of its collapse.
Roughly 58% of global foreign reserves are still held in dollars. Oil trades largely in dollars. International commerce relies heavily upon dollar-based systems. During global crises, investors still rush toward American assets seeking safety.
The dollar remains financial gravity.
Even people criticizing American power often store wealth in dollars simultaneously.
A remarkable contradiction.
And yet domestically, Americans increasingly feel anxious about money itself.
Inflation surged sharply during the early 2020s, eroding purchasing power dramatically. A dollar in 2000 now buys barely half what it once did. Housing costs exploded. Healthcare costs soared. Education debt ballooned.
People technically possess more dollars…
…but those dollars often feel weaker emotionally.
The modern economy increasingly runs digitally too. Physical cash usage declines yearly while credit cards, apps, online banking, cryptocurrencies, and mobile payment systems dominate daily commerce.
Money became invisible.
And invisible systems often feel less trustworthy psychologically.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies emerged challenging the dollar conceptually for the first time in generations. Bitcoin enthusiasts argue decentralized digital currencies free people from government manipulation and central banking systems.
Critics view crypto markets as speculative casinos wrapped in libertarian philosophy and enough jargon to frighten ordinary humans away from asking follow-up questions.
Both perspectives occasionally feel correct simultaneously.
And then there is the Federal Reserve itself, now one of the most powerful economic institutions on Earth. Interest rate decisions by unelected officials can shift mortgage costs, employment levels, stock markets, global capital flows, and political fortunes almost instantly.
The modern dollar is no longer merely currency.
It is infrastructure.
Power projection.
Geopolitical leverage.
And perhaps most strangely, the dollar now exists largely as data. Most money never appears physically at all. Salaries arrive electronically. Investments fluctuate algorithmically. Markets trade automatically through machines operating at speeds beyond human cognition.
Civilization built an economy increasingly too fast for human intuition.
Still, despite inflation, volatility, debt fears, de-dollarization debates, and technological disruption, the dollar endures because underneath all monetary systems lies one fragile requirement:
Trust.
Trust the government survives.
Trust the institutions function.
Trust tomorrow still resembles today enough for paper, coins, or numbers to retain meaning.
Trust is the true reserve asset.
Haym, if you could witness America in 2026, you would likely stand astonished watching trillions of dollars move invisibly through satellites, fiber-optic cables, servers, and financial algorithms while ordinary citizens buy coffee using phones connected wirelessly to global banking networks.
The scale would feel almost supernatural.
But We suspect you would also recognize something timeless beneath the technology.
People still bargaining with uncertainty.
Still trying to transform belief into stability.
Still building societies upon collective confidence vulnerable to panic at any moment.
With admiration, caution, and one extremely nervous piggy bank,
—The Radical Left 💵🖤
And dear reader, perhaps this is the deeper question the dollar asks us after 250 years: what actually gives money value?
Gold?
Government?
Labor?
Military power?
Markets?
Shared belief?
And if modern economies increasingly rely upon invisible digital systems few citizens fully understand, how much of civilization ultimately depends upon trust fragile enough to disappear during panic?
Because from Spanish silver coins rattling through colonial taverns to algorithmic trillion-dollar markets humming silently through server farms, the American dollar has always been less about paper or metal…
…and more about whether people still believe the future will honor today’s promises.