The “strong-dollar guy.” That’s not how I want to be remembered, although it surely couldn’t hurt if my loyal subscribers would talk up this point to friends and acquaintances who might be shopping for a guru with a very different slant on the economy. Regarding the curiously strong dollar, I like Bob Hoye’s explanation best: Post-bubble contractions have always caused the senior currency to strengthen, and, eventually, interest rates to collapse. It was thus in 1873, and in 1929, so why should we expect the financial system to behave differently this time?

Hoye, who I am told does not use a computer, is a self-described apostle of “the rational fringe.” We are used to seeing the word “fringe” paired with “lunatic,” but in times such as these it is only at the fringes of economic discourse that we discern anything remotely resembling sanity. Marc Faber has shed light on this seeming anomaly with the observation that people feel safest crossing a frozen river where pedestrian traffic is heaviest. If you were shuffling along with them, you would not ordinarily be anxious or fearful. But catch a glimpse of a solitary figure crossing the river a hundred yards distant from the crowd, and your scalp might tingle with sudden fear.

And so it is on Wall Street and in the pundits’ salons and drawing rooms. Everyone can think of a dozen good reasons why the dollar “should” be falling; yet, it continues to rise. Shouldn’t those who are paying even a mote of attention be getting queasy about this? Alas, the ice is so thick with dollar-deprecating bears that no one seems to have noticed the lone grizzly downriver. Actually, two grizzlies: me and Bob Hoye – and my apologies if there is another that I have overlooked.

I’ve said it before, but after Friday’s explosive “surprise” in the dollar, it’s worth repeating: Nothing short of helicopter inflation is going to stop the dollar’s rise. And as long as there is an all but unlimited supply of dollars available to borrowers for speculative purposes, the demand for dollars will continue to grow. This is bad news for debtors, since someday, when we are pressed to settle up, dollars will be much, much harder to come by.