Will the dollar get destroyed if the U.S. goes into recession?

I really did not like what I saw in the Q1 GDP report. Both personal consumption expenditures and state and local government spending was either slowing (PCE) or contracting (state and local gov't).

This is not good.

Maybe it's temporary like some are saying, perhaps due to weather.

We'd better hope so because at the same time, Federal Government spending is no longer growing vis-a-vis last year. I don't know if that's related to the debt ceiling or the budget or what, but if the Federal government is slowing along with household spending and local and state government's contracting then the economy is in real trouble and headed for recession.

What will happen to the dollar?

If the U.S. goes into recession I expect the dollar to get slammed.

The federal government spends more on Social Security than it does on any other single program. Uh ... so what?

Commentary by Roger Erickson

How Does Social Security Work?
  (hat tip John Lounsbury)
There's too much in this article to discuss all at once, but it starts with a zinger that's presumably supposed to stimulate our thinking. Anyone actually thinking yet? Well, here's what it immediately made me think of.  Our population spends more on all other programs combined, than it spends directly on the social security of itself. What are we to make of THAT fact?

Uh ... not much. Most direct spending on Social Security then gets spent throughout the economy, on the services that recipients want and need. The same is NOT true of un-pre-taxed spending on Corporate Welfare, which tends to accumulate as mounting Demand Leakages (i.e., much of our "fiat" is hoarded, unspent by our 1%, who simply hoard compulsively). You don't say!

Have YOU heard endless tales of people building up stupendous nest eggs of un-used fiat currency, stockpiled primarily from unused Social Security payments? Me neither.

What's the distribution of products and services that Social Security recipients spend their benefits on? Anyone know?

Have you noticed any extra Military Drones as one of those expenditures? And, note that neither Bernie Madoff or Jaime Dimon are dependent upon SocSec payments.

ps: "The Social Security program is funded by two sources of dedicated tax revenues."
  Only in their dreams! I suppose all the other fiscal outlays this country makes are also funded by prior taxes on the fiscal outlays it makes. Wait, is that an oxymoron?  Yup. They both are. For the umpteenth time, please see p.35 here.

ps: ps: The USA spends more on all the things it spends on, than all the things it DOESN'T spend on!!! What are we to make of THAT screaming reality? Well?