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Forty years ago, the US government said the $100 bill would be its highest-denomination note. With the Federal Reserve now trying to print its way out of the financial crisis, it may be time to revisit that decision.

Reinstating $10,000 or $100,000 notes — which existed in limited fashion years ago — won’t cut it. In today’s, “Brother, can you spare a trillion dollars?” economy, we need to think bigger — a $1 million bill may be in order.

And picking a person to grace this bill offers a unique opportunity to single out someone who has played a key role in the dollar’s downfall. More in a moment on the many candidates who deserve this dubious honor.

There is the chance that fears over the dollar’s demise are overblown. After all, the greenback’s most recent slide may simply reflect an unwinding of the global flight to safety that bolstered the currency’s value following the implosion of Lehman Brothers.

The danger that the dollar will be replaced as the world’s reserve currency seems remote. It would take decades and significant changes in the global economic order for, say, the Chinese yuan or a basket of currencies to fill the dollar’s shoes.

Still, investors are on edge due to the prospect of runaway US budget deficits — the fiscal-year 2009 deficit is pegged at $1.4 trillion — and the Fed’s expansion of its balance sheet to $2.2 trillion from less than $1 trillion.

The dollar has fallen almost 3 percent over the past two weeks against a basket of six major currencies. The greenback has dropped 20 percent against the euro since early March.

Reflecting investor angst, BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research analysts recently held a conference call titled, “How Damaged is the Dollar?” Google searches for the phrase “dollar collapse” have doubled since the start of 2008, according to financial Web site Clusterstock.

The dollar may not easily snap back. US policy makers and economists “actually argue for depreciation of the dollar to bail out America and make it more competitive,” said Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report. “Nobody in the world has ever become rich by devaluing the currency, but that’s what they’re advocating in America.”

This raises for some the prospect of a dollar crash and runaway inflation. That is why it may pay to start thinking about the design of a $1 million bill.

So whose face should adorn this new bill? Here are some candidates with the winner at the end.

Ben S. Bernanke: The Fed chairman, who once proposed that the central bank drop dollars from helicopters to avert a crisis, has to top anyone’s list of dollar debasers. Under him, the Fed has become the global lender of last resort and has printed money to prop up financial institutions and markets. All the while he has professed having the magical ability to quickly mop up all the excess dollars if and when inflation becomes a concern.

Bernard L. Madoff: Plenty of folks believe the US has become nothing short of a giant Ponzi scheme. It would only be fitting then to have the Ponzi King front the currency.

George W. Bush: By pushing through tax cuts even as he embarked upon wars in two countries, the second President Bush helped run up the federal deficit, which has helped to undermine the dollar.

Wen Jiabao: It may be time to acknowledge what seems to be China’s inevitable rise on the global stage. The Chinese prime minister’s visage would also serve as a reminder that China has acted as the US’s drug dealer for years, feeding America’s debt addiction.

Richard Nixon: In 1971, then President Nixon broke the last link between currencies and gold, saying the US would no longer redeem dollars for gold. To many, this was the starting gun for the dollar’s decline.

Alan Greenspan: The former Fed chairman’s decision earlier this decade to keep interest rates too low for too long contributed to the credit and housing bubbles. That killed the economy, taking the dollar’s prospects down with it.

And the winner is: A little mirror that allows US consumers to see their own reflection. These consumers, who in most cases are also voters, bear responsibility for the politicians and policy makers who got the dollar into its current mess. They also gladly took part in the credit feeding frenzy that led to today’s trouble.

So long as they and the government try to borrow their way out of this jam, the dollar’s best days will be behind it.


David Reilly is a Bloomberg columnist.