If the U.S. doesn't make the next technological revolution, foreigners don't need to hang onto U.S. dollars to be ready to buy up the future.

Why Japan Is Eating America's Lunch On Broadband

When you don't have competition, with few exceptions, you don't get nearly as much progress or better products. And so the U.S. has worse broadband. It has worse wireless. It has worse (and deliberately crippled) phones. It's falling behind in the very industries it invented. All because a few gatekeeper corporations don't want to have to compete and because the Bush administration and conservative justices believe in concentration of wealth rather than progress and competition.
The U.S. will keep falling behind as long as this remains the case. Americans like to think that they are the most technically advanced nation in the world, but except in military affairs, and perhaps biotech, that's generally not the case. The best and most advanced cars aren't made in the U.S. The U.S.'s trains are a joke compared to ultra-fast trains in Japan, China and Europe. The U.S.'s consumer electronics are not as good with very few exceptions. And the U.S. is falling behind on all types of telecommunications that don't involve spying on someone.
If the U.S. doesn't make the next technological revolution, foreigners don't need to hang onto U.S. dollars to be ready to buy up the future. And since the U.S. needs foreigners to subsidize American overconsumption and the overvalued dollar, that's a bad place to be. If the future isn't in America, then buying America suddenly doesn't seem like such a good deal...