Do the outlooks for the Japanese and European economies provide the basis for either the Japanese yen or the euro to replace the US dollar any time soon as the world's leading international reserve currency?

After many years of false starts, the Japanese economy may finally be set to boom—or at least to enter a period of sustained growth with a sharply rising stock market.

For the dollar to collapse, it would need to do so against the euro and the Japanese yen, both of which seem substantially weaker than the dollar itself.

Given Japan's central position in the global economy, the economic shock waves can be expected to emanate out from the epicenter like their physical counterparts.

Krishna Guha's article paints too pessimistic a long-term outlook for the U.S. dollar by not focusing on the basic fact that, for there to be a major further U.S. dollar depreciation, the dollar would need to depreciate substantially against the euro and the yen.

Political scandals surrounding the Democratic Party of Japan [DPJ], and its inability to deliver on campaign promises, could bring an abrupt end to the new era of hope and change the DPJ promised to bring about.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who faces the end of his political career, has decided to go out in a blaze of glory. Mr. Kan dramatically announced last month that Japan should end the country's reliance on nuclear power for electricity generation.

The experimental-drug phase of monetary policy has begun, and Japan is leading the way with a round of quantitative easing. Facing the looming threat of deflation, the United States will soon follow Japan’s lead.