With everything else going on, this is a small peeve. But I wish reporters would stop saying that the U.S. trade deficit has a lot to do with the special role of the dollar. We're not the only country that runs persistent deficits; here's a comparison 1/ 
I use 5-year averages to smooth out the noise. What you see is that all of the major English-speaking countries run deficits, and that except for Canada during the commodity boom of the 2000s, have run those deficits persistently for decades 2/
The pound, the loonie, and the Aussie dollar aren't reserve currencies; so it's really not about that. It's probably about low saving and relatively favorable demography. So why do people keep talking about the special role of the dollar? 3/
I think it's a combination of mysticism and laziness. The less people know about international currencies, the more they seem to think they matter. And it's easier to talk about the special role of the dollar than about determinants of capital flows. Anyway, this is a bad take 4/
