The former speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week claiming that stablecoins could be a magic bullet to address the country’s looming fiscal train wreck. I normally don’t pay these sort of pieces much attention since they typically involve—as is the case here—a former politician shilling for whatever industry is paying them these days. This one, though, deserves more consideration than most.
Ryan, you may recall, made his name as a young firebrand in the Tea Party, a GOP faction devoted to fiscal prudence back when the Republican party still cared about such things. In his op-ed, he takes up his old crusade by pointing out correctly that the U.S.’s debt is spiraling out of control, and the day is coming when the Fed holds yet another Treasury auction to prop up the balance sheet—only to find there are no takers.
As Ryan notes, longtime buyers of U.S. debt like China…
