I wrote this for something else, but I thought I'd put it up here too.
It’ll go on for a while. No other country has the financial clout yet to take over. They talked about the Yen in the 80’s, and the Euro more recently, but it never happened. The new currency will need political stability, a strong middle class, and lots of foreign investment around the world; again, no one is there yet.
Once the US recovers, seriously recovers and starts cutting spending, increasing taxes, and having surpluses, you will see inflation go up considerably, with the intent of paying off a chuck of the debt with high inflation dollars.
We, the west, US, Europe, Canada, Japan and some others need high paying jobs in bother the service and manufacturing sectors, otherwise we will be debt financing for many more years. We need to create wealth, not borrow it.