Dollars: the Downside and the Upside

Could America Go Broke? Robert Samuelson's Washington Post column reminds us that a lot depends on confidence. When confidence vanishes, you get a run on the bank … or, in this case, a run on the country.

On the upside, the dollar looks strong in the art market. In other words, expected sales prices at upcoming auctions look like relative bargains.

Appropriately, one of the works expected to sell for the largest number of dollars is Andy Warhol's “200 One Dollar Bills.” In 1986 the estate of pop-art collector Robert Scull sold this early Warhol silk-screen painting at auction for $385,000. Now it's back on the auction block at Sotheby's, expected to sell for $8 million or more.