Every few years, the same headline resurfaces: “The dollar is about to collapse.”

This time, the catalyst is a new geopolitical flashpoint. A recent Morningstar article (link) argues that a potential Iran-centered conflict could mark the beginning of the end of the petrodollar system—the decades-old arrangement that helped cement the U.S. dollar as the world’s dominant currency.

It’s a seductive idea.

• War in the Middle East

• Oil flows disrupted

• Global alliances shifting

The kind of moment that feels like a hinge of history.

But like most “end of the dollar” narratives, it confuses what is visible with what is fundamental.

The petrodollar story is real. It’s just not the whole story.

The Original Deal: Oil for Dollars, Dollars for Power

To understand the argument, you have to go back to the 1970s.

After the collapse of Bretton Woods in 1971, the U.S. dollar lost its gold backing. Suddenly, the world’s reserve currency was backed by little more than trust—and American power.

That trust needed reinforcement.

The solution came in the form of a quiet geopolitical arrangement: the United States and Saudi Arabia agreed to price oil exclusively in dollars. In return, the U.S. provided security guarantees and military support.

The result was elegant:

• The world needed oil

• Oil was priced in dollars

• Therefore, the world needed dollars

And what did oil exporters do with those dollars? They recycled them into U.S. financial assets—primarily Treasury bonds. This is super critical to understand.

Thus, the petrodollar system was born.

It wasn’t just about energy. It was about creating a self-reinforcing loop of global dollar demand.

I wrote about this in-depth last year:

What the Iran War Narrative Gets Right

The Morningstar article correctly identifies something important: the dollar is no longer a neutral instrument.

Over the past decade, the U.S. has increasingly used its control over the global financial system as a geopolitical tool. Sanctions on Russia, Iran, and others have demonstrated that access to the dollar system can be restricted—or removed entirely.

That has consequences. Countries are adapting. Adaptation is key to survival.

• China is pushing for yuan-denominated trade

• Russia has rerouted energy exports outside dollar channels

• Central banks are accumulating gold at the fastest pace in decades

• Bilateral trade agreements are increasingly bypassing the dollar

In this context, a conflict involving Iran could accelerate these trends. Not because war changes the fundamentals overnight, but because it reinforces a growing realization:

Dependence on the dollar comes with political risk. And now, with a national debt near $40 Trillion, financial risk.

That’s the strongest insight in the article.

What It Gets Wrong: Oil Is Not the Foundation

Where the argument breaks down is in its central premise—that shifting oil trade away from the dollar could meaningfully undermine the dollar itself.

This is the enduring myth of the petrodollar.

It assumes that global demand for dollars is primarily driven by oil. That if oil pricing shifts, the dollar falls with it.

But the modern global economy doesn’t work that way.

Oil is important, but it is not the core driver of dollar dominance. Consider what actually sustains the system today:

• The U.S. Treasury market is the deepest and most liquid in the world

• The dollar is the primary currency for global debt and financing

• International banks rely on dollar funding markets (the eurodollar system)

• The dollar dominates trade invoicing far beyond energy

In other words, the dollar is not just a currency. It is the infrastructure of global finance.

Even if a meaningful portion of oil trade moved to yuan or euros, the world would still need dollars—for liquidity, for collateral, for stability.

The Morningstar thesis treats the global system like it’s still anchored in 1974.

It isn’t.

The Real Shift: Fragmentation, Not Collapse

That doesn’t mean nothing is changing. It means the change is happening somewhere else.

What we are witnessing is not the end of the dollar, but the beginning of a more fragmented system.

Instead of one dominant currency, we may see multiple overlapping spheres:

• A dollar-centric system anchored by the U.S. and its allies

• A yuan-influenced trade network centered on China and parts of the Global South

• A growing layer of non-aligned settlement mechanisms—gold, bilateral swaps, digital currencies

In this world, oil becomes less important as a driver and more important as a signal.

If Saudi Arabia prices some oil in yuan, it’s not about oil. It’s about geopolitical alignment.

If Iran sells oil outside the dollar system, it’s not innovation. It’s necessity.

The shift is political first, monetary/financial second.

How Reserve Currencies Actually Die

There is a deeper flaw in most “end of the dollar” narratives: they assume collapse.

History suggests something else.

Reserve currencies don’t fail suddenly. They erode.

The British pound did not collapse after World War I. It declined over decades as the United States built deeper capital markets and greater economic power.

The same pattern is visible today.

The dollar’s share of global reserves has gradually declined—not dramatically, but persistently. At the same time, alternatives are slowly emerging, none yet capable of replacing it, but collectively capable of diluting it.

This is what real change looks like:

• Incremental

• Uneven

• Often invisible until it isn’t

No single war—not even one involving Iran—will end the dollar’s dominance.

But a series of geopolitical shocks, combined with strategic adaptation by other countries, will slowly reshape it.

The More Interesting Question

The real question is not whether the petrodollar will end.

It already has—at least in its original form.

Oil is no longer the central pillar of dollar demand. Finance is.

The more interesting question is this:

What happens when the financial system itself begins to fragment?

That is a much slower, more complex process. And far more consequential.

Conclusion: The Dollar After the Petrodollar

The petrodollar was never a permanent feature of the global economy. It was a solution to a specific historical problem.

And like all solutions, it has a shelf life.

The Morningstar article captures a real shift—but misidentifies its cause. The risk to the dollar does not come from oil markets alone, or even primarily. It comes from a world that is becoming less willing to operate within a single, U.S.-dominated system.

That shift is already underway. Not as a collapse. But as a quiet rebalancing.

And those are the changes that matter most.

In Part 1, we covered the spark:
A collapse in confidence about what mortgage-related assets were actually worth. You can read about that here:

Today’s Economic Primer is about what poured fuel on that spark.

Two things mattered most:

1. Credit rating agencies gave risky assets a false sense of safety

2. A derivatives market multiplied exposure far beyond the actual mortgages

Neither caused the initial loss of confidence. But together, they made sure that once confidence cracked, the damage spread everywhere—like a PG&E negligence-fueled wild fire.

Let’s break it down.

One: Ratings Weren’t Opinions—They Were Permissions

Most people think of bond ratings as advice. They weren’t.

In the years leading up to 2008, credit ratings functioned as permission slips. If something was rated:

• “AAA”

• “Investment Grade”

Then:

• Pension funds were allowed to buy it

• Banks could hold it with little capital

• Regulators treated it as safe

• Risk managers stopped asking questions

In short:

Ratings didn’t just describe risk—they defined what institutions were allowed to own.

That made rating agencies systemically important.

Two: The Models Behind the Ratings Were Fragile

So what went wrong? The ratings on mortgage securities relied on models that assumed:

• Housing markets in different regions wouldn’t fall together

• Mortgage defaults would be scattered, not correlated

• Pooling loans reduced risk no matter what

• Past data from good years applied to bad ones

Those assumptions weren’t crazy. They were just too confident. When housing prices began falling nationally, those models didn’t bend.

They broke.

Three: “AAA” Turned Out to Mean “Model-Dependent”

Here’s the key problem. Mortgage-backed securities didn’t suddenly stop paying interest. What changed was belief.

Once investors realized:

• The models might be wrong

• Correlations might spike

• Losses could cluster

Then “AAA” stopped meaning “safe” and started meaning:

“Safe as long as the math works.”

And once that doubt set in, ratings collapsed fast. Not slowly. Not gradually. All at once.

That triggered forced selling by institutions that were no longer allowed to hold downgraded assets.

Four: Derivatives Didn’t Spread Risk—They Replicated It

Now let’s talk derivatives. The most important one was the credit default swap (CDS).

In theory:

• CDS were insurance against default

• They were supposed to reduce risk

In practice:

• Anyone could buy CDS without owning the bond

• The same mortgage risk could be insured many times

• No new capital was created to back those promises

This meant:

Mortgage risk didn’t move—it multiplied.

One mortgage pool could generate:

• Direct losses

• Synthetic losses

• Counterparty exposure

• Margin calls across the system

Five: Derivatives Created Invisible Chains

Derivatives did something else that turned out to be fatal. They linked institutions together invisibly. Banks didn’t just face mortgage risk. They faced:

• Counterparty risk

• Collateral risk

• Liquidity risk

No one knew:

• Who owed whom

• Who could pay

• Who would fail next

So when confidence cracked:

• Everyone pulled back

• Funding froze

• Trust vanished system-wide

This is how firms that never wrote a mortgage still ended up in danger.

Six: When Valuation Broke, Everything Else Followed

Here’s the crucial ordering—and this is where Part 1 and Part 2 connect.

1. Mortgage values became uncertain

2. Ratings lost credibility

3. Downgrades triggered forced selling

4. Derivatives magnified losses

5. Margin calls exploded

6. Counterparty trust vanished

None of this required fraud (though there was a lot of it). None of this required mass defaults (again, there was a lot of this, too).

It only required disagreement about value. Once prices were no longer trusted, the entire structure built on those prices collapsed.

The Big Idea (Still No Econ Degree Required)

Here’s the clean takeaway from Part 2:

• Ratings told the system what was “safe”

• The models behind them were brittle

• When confidence broke, ratings failed suddenly

• Derivatives multiplied exposure without adding capital

• Losses spread faster than anyone could track

Ratings and derivatives didn’t start the fire. They made sure it couldn’t be contained.

Why This Matters (Before We Get to Part 3)

Any time you see:

• Complex assets rated as “safe”

• Heavy reliance on models

• Risk being “insured” without new capital

• Exposure that’s hard to see or trace

You’re looking at the same basic structure. Different assets. Same dynamics.

Coming Next: Part 3
Why this crisis logic didn’t end in 2008—and where it shows up today.

That’s where we tie this all together.

Stay tuned.

Most people remember the 2008 financial crisis as a story about reckless borrowers, greedy banks, and a housing bubble that popped.

That story is comforting. It’s also incomplete.

What actually blew up the global economy was something quieter, more technical, and more dangerous:

A sudden collapse in how mortgage-related assets were valued—and trusted.

Let’s break it down, Sixpack-style.

One: Mortgages Became the Foundation of the Financial System

Mortgages weren’t just loans between a homeowner and a bank anymore.

They had been:

1. Bundled together

2. Chopped into pieces

3. Repackaged into securities

4. Sold around the world

5. Used as collateral for borrowing

In plain English:

Mortgages stopped being just loans—they became building blocks of modern finance.

Banks, pension funds, insurance companies, and foreign institutions all depended on them. (This is how it became a global financial crisis, or GFC as it’s known.)

Two: Prices Were Based on Models, Not Reality

Here’s a key idea most people miss. Mortgage securities weren’t priced by:

• Looking at each homeowner

• Estimating who might default

• Collecting interest and waiting it out

They were priced by models that assumed:

• Housing prices rarely fall everywhere at once

• Defaults are spread out

• Risk can be diluted by mixing loans together

As long as those assumptions held, the assets looked safe. Very safe. Sometimes “AAA safe.” The bond rating agencies were instrumental in the takedown of the mortgage industry and all its derivatives.

Three: The Problem Wasn’t Defaults—It Was Doubt

When housing prices stopped rising in 2006–2007:

• Defaults ticked up a little

• Losses were still manageable

• The system could have absorbed them

But something more important happened:

Investors stopped agreeing on what mortgage assets were worth.

Once people couldn’t confidently price them:

• Trading slowed

• Buyers disappeared

• Prices fell sharply—not because cash flows vanished, but because belief vanished

This is called a valuation shock.

Four: Leverage Turned Small Losses into Big Trouble

Banks weren’t holding these assets with lots of cushion. They were:

• Borrowing heavily

• Operating with thin capital

• Funding long-term assets with short-term money

That means:

• A 3–5% drop in asset value could erase their equity

• Even “temporary” price drops became existential threats

So when mortgage assets were marked down:

• Balance sheets shrank

• Capital ratios collapsed

• Survival was questioned immediately

Five: Funding Froze Before the Economy Did

This part matters. Banks didn’t fail because everyone defaulted. They failed because no one would lend to them anymore.

Short-term lenders:

• Demanded more collateral

• Raised haircuts

• Pulled funding entirely

This happened:

• Before mass unemployment

• Before foreclosure waves

• Before the recession fully hit

The financial system seized first. The real economy followed. When businesses, many of whom operate on a week-by-week cashflow, can no longer borrow against accounts receivable, they fail.

Six: The Recession Was the Aftershock, Not the Explosion

Once banks were forced to:

• Shrink balance sheets

• Stop lending

• Hoard cash

The rest was inevitable:

• Businesses couldn’t borrow

• Jobs were cut

• Spending collapsed

• Homeowners defaulted in larger numbers

This is the part people remember—but it was downstream.

The recession didn’t cause the financial crisis. The financial crisis caused the recession.

The Big Idea (No Econ Degree Required)

Here’s the clean takeaway:

1. Mortgages became systemically important

2. Their value depended on shared assumptions

3. Those assumptions broke

4. Prices collapsed under uncertainty

5. Leverage amplified the damage

6. Credit froze

7. The economy followed

This wasn’t just a housing crash. It was a confidence collapse in the value of mortgage-based finance, which had become a major component of the overall financial world.

Why This Still Matters

Any time you see:

• Assets priced mainly by models

• Heavy leverage

• Short-term funding

• “Everyone agrees this is safe”

You should ask:

What happens if we all stop agreeing at once?

That question—more than bad loans or bubbles—is the real lesson of 2008.

FUN FACT: I coined the term “Mortgage Meltdown” in April 2008. I wrote about it 93 times between 2008 and 2012. If you want to read any of the articles, click here.

Coming Next: Part 2
How credit rating agencies and derivatives didn’t just miss the risk — they multiplied it. Stay tuned!

Taiwan’s exports reached a record $640.75 billion in 2025, according to government data reported by Reuters, marking growth of more than 43% year-on-year. Shipments to the United States surged, while exports to China continued to expand, underscoring Taiwan’s central role in the world’s technology supply chain.

At the heart of this surge is Taiwan’s dominance in advanced chip manufacturing. Companies such as TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, are critical suppliers to U.S. technology giants including Nvidia and Apple, whose products underpin everything from smartphones to artificial intelligence data centers.

Yet Taiwan’s success has also amplified its vulnerability.

A Single Point of Failure

Taiwan produces an estimated 60% of the world’s foundry semiconductors and roughly 90% of the most advanced chips, making it one of the most strategically important manufacturing hubs on the planet. Economists describe this concentration as a “single point of failure” for the global economy.

Any serious disruption—whether from conflict, natural disaster, or trade restrictions—could cripple industries ranging from automotive manufacturing to cloud computing.

“The same forces that are driving Taiwan’s export boom are also magnifying the downside risk,” said one regional economist. “There are very few substitutes for Taiwan’s most advanced chips.”

Rising Geopolitical Tensions

The largest threat remains geopolitical. Tensions between China and Taiwan continue to simmer, with Beijing maintaining its claim over the island and increasing military pressure through exercises and air and naval patrols.

While most analysts see a full-scale invasion as a low- to medium-probability event in the near term, the risk of “gray-zone” actions—cyberattacks, blockades, or economic coercion—is considered far higher. Even limited disruptions could unsettle global markets.

Trade and Policy Uncertainty

Trade policy adds another layer of risk. Taiwan’s exports face a 20% tariff on certain shipments to the United States, and while semiconductors are currently exempt, future policy shifts remain uncertain as Washington and its allies seek to reduce dependence on Chinese-linked supply chains.

At the same time, Taiwan’s economy has become increasingly concentrated in AI-related demand. A slowdown in global technology investment or a correction in the AI sector could quickly reverse export gains.

Natural and Physical Risks

Taiwan’s geography presents additional hazards. Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the island is prone to earthquakes and typhoons. Semiconductor fabrication plants are highly sensitive to power and water disruptions, meaning even brief outages can have global consequences.

Global Consequences of a Taiwan Shock

A severe disruption in Taiwan would reverberate far beyond Asia. Analysts warn of immediate semiconductor shortages, production halts at automakers and electronics firms, sharp sell-offs in global equity markets, and renewed inflationary pressure as supply chains seize up.

Such a scenario would likely force governments in the United States, Europe, and Japan to accelerate reshoring efforts and emergency industrial policies, reshaping globalization for decades.

For now, Taiwan’s export engine continues to run at full speed. But as the island’s importance to the global economy grows, so too does the cost of failure—a risk the world is watching with increasing unease.

The US jobs report came out today. Here’s how it looks:

Source: WSJ

Employers added 50,000 jobs in December, far fewer than economists expected. Hiring was weaker than November, weaker than October once revisions were tallied, and dramatically weaker than the boom years that followed the pandemic. And yet the unemployment rate fell to 4.4%. Remember, though, that October 2025 is missing because of the federal government shutdown.

In another cycle, numbers like these might have signaled an economy on the brink. Instead, they closed out a year in which the United States kept growing—sometimes briskly—even as the labor market quietly cooled into something new: a low-hire, low-fire equilibrium that has left workers uneasy, employers cautious, and policymakers unsure how much further they can safely push.

The U.S. economy entering 2026 is neither hot nor cold. It is productive, restrained, and unusually sensitive to policy decisions made far from the factory floor.

Growth without hiring

The central puzzle of 2025 was how the economy kept expanding while job creation nearly stalled.

By the end of the year, payroll growth averaged just 49,000 jobs a month, down sharply from the 168,000-a-month pace in 2024. Entire sectors—retail, transportation, warehousing—shed workers outright. Hiring clustered narrowly in health care, education, and leisure, leaving broad swaths of the workforce stuck in place.

And yet output told a different story. Gross domestic product surged at a 4.3% annual rate in the third quarter, its fastest pace in two years. Consumer spending held up. Business investment rose, particularly in technology and automation. Corporate profits remained healthy.

Why?

In the third quarter, U.S. productivity jumped nearly 5%, allowing companies to produce more without adding workers. Unit labor costs fell at the same time, relieving inflation pressure even as wages cooled. For employers, it was the best of both worlds. For workers—especially younger ones trying to break in—it was something closer to limbo.

This is the anatomy of the current expansion: fewer job openings, fewer layoffs, less churn, and far fewer opportunities to trade up.

Inflation’s retreat—and its limits

Inflation, which dominated public life only two years ago, receded steadily through 2025. By November, consumer prices were rising at about 2.7% year over year, with core inflation near 2.6%.

That progress gave the Federal Reserve room to act. Over the course of the year, it cut interest rates three times, bringing its benchmark rate down to the 3.5%–3.75% range, a three-year low. Borrowing costs eased. Financial conditions loosened modestly. The economy kept moving.

But inflation never quite disappeared. Energy prices swung sharply. Housing costs remained stubborn. And looming over everything was trade policy—specifically, the return of sweeping tariffs as a defining economic force.

Tariffs operate differently from inflation shocks driven by demand. They raise costs selectively, unevenly, and often unpredictably. One announcement can change sourcing decisions overnight; one exemption can shift pricing power across an industry. The result is not necessarily runaway inflation, but persistent friction—just enough to keep central bankers on edge.

The tariff economy

Trade policy in 2025 reshaped corporate behavior as much as any interest-rate decision.

The Trump administration’s reciprocal tariffs unsettled global supply chains already strained by geopolitics and post-pandemic realignment. Companies responded not with mass layoffs, but with hesitation: slower hiring, delayed investment, and a renewed push toward automation and domestic capacity where feasible.

In some industries, tariffs encouraged onshoring and capital spending. In others, they raised input costs without offering a clear alternative. Across the economy, they injected uncertainty—an invisible tax that discourages risk-taking even when demand is strong.

This helps explain why job growth sputtered without collapsing. Firms were not pessimistic enough to fire workers en masse, but not confident enough to expand payrolls aggressively. Instead, they leaned on technology, productivity gains, and longer work hours for existing staff.

Globally, the effects rippled outward. Trading partners adjusted supply routes, absorbed costs, or prepared retaliation. Efficiency suffered. Resilience improved. Growth became more fragmented.

A confident economy, anxious consumers

The contradiction of 2025 was emotional as much as economic.

Objectively, the economy performed well.

• GDP grew.

• Inflation fell.

• Interest rates came down.

• Corporate earnings were solid.

• But consumer sentiment sank.

Surveys showed Americans increasingly worried about job security, prices, and their future prospects.

That disconnect reflects how the expansion has been experienced. Wage growth cooled. Promotions slowed. Job switching—once the fastest path to higher pay—became rare. For younger workers, entry-level opportunities thinned. For older ones, staying put became the safest option.

The economy, in short, stopped feeling dynamic.

The road ahead

Looking toward 2026, the path forward hinges on a narrow set of questions.

1. Can productivity gains continue without hollowing out entry-level employment?

2. Will tariffs stabilize enough to let companies plan confidently?

3. Can inflation keep drifting lower without renewed pressure from trade policy or energy markets?

There are plausible paths to renewed momentum. Lower rates and tax changes could support hiring. Investment in artificial intelligence and automation could raise long-term growth. A calmer trade environment could unlock deferred expansion.

There are also risks. A tariff-driven inflation flare-up could tie the Fed’s hands. A productivity boom without job creation could deepen labor-market anxiety. Geopolitical shocks could test the economy’s newly re-engineered supply chains.

For now, the United States sits in a rare economic moment: growing steadily, hiring sparingly, and balancing policy choices that matter more than usual.

It is not a boom. It is not a bust. It is an economy learning how to move forward without the engine that has powered nearly every recovery before it—rapid job growth—and hoping that productivity, investment, and confidence can fill the gap.

The biggest wildcards right now are consumer confidence, tariff anxiety, and world leaders acting like colonists from years gone by.

Picture this: It’s 1944, World War II is still raging, and 44 countries send their smartest money people to a sleepy little town in New Hampshire called Bretton Woods. They’re there to figure out one thing: How the hell do we rebuild the world economy once the shooting stops?

They could have argued for weeks (and they did), but one thing was obvious: The U.S. was loaded. We had more than half of the world’s gold, a booming industrial machine, and—small detail—the only economy not reduced to rubble. If the world economy was going to have a backbone, it was going to be green and say “In God We Trust.”

So they made a deal: Every major currency would be tied to the U.S. dollar, and the dollar itself would be tied to gold at $35 an ounce. That meant if you had dollars, you basically had gold—without having to lug a bunch of shiny rocks around.

Why the Dollar Stayed on Top

After Bretton Woods, the dollar wasn’t just America’s problem anymore—it was the world’s problem. Countries held dollars as “reserves” to trade and settle debts. Oil was priced in dollars. International loans were made in dollars. Basically, the dollar became the global referee.

Even when President Nixon killed the gold standard in 1971 (because we were spending like a college kid with their first credit card), the dollar’s dominance stuck. By then, trust in the U.S. economy was so high that countries kept using dollars out of habit—and because there wasn’t a better alternative.

What That Means for You

Being the world’s reserve currency is like having the economic cheat codes. The U.S. can:

• Borrow money more cheaply than anyone else.

• Create more money without tanking the currency (up to a point).

• Keep demand for dollars high, which makes imports cheaper for Americans.

It’s like always having the house edge in a casino—you might lose a hand or two, but the game is rigged in your favor.

Could the Dollar Lose Its Crown?

Absolutely. And people have been predicting it for decades.

China’s pushing the yuan. The EU wants the euro to matter more. Some countries are making side deals to trade in other currencies. And if enough big economies decided they’d rather not use the dollar, demand could drop, making everything from gas to iPhones more expensive for you.

And then there’s crypto. Bitcoin fans dream of a borderless, non-government-controlled currency replacing the dollar. Realistically? Crypto isn’t close to dethroning it—volatility, regulation, and adoption barriers are still huge. But central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), like China’s digital yuan, could be a more serious long-term challenger if enough countries decide they’re tired of the greenback running the show.

Still, the problem for challengers is that the U.S. still has the deepest, most stable financial markets, a legal system (usually) seen as fair, and a military presence that makes people think twice about messing with us.

But that could be changing a lot faster than we bargained for. And then there’s…

The Trump Tariff Factor

Trade policy can nudge the dollar’s role, too. When Trump slapped tariffs on imports from China and other countries, it didn’t just change product prices—it signaled that the U.S. might use its dominant trade position more aggressively. In the short term, tariffs often strengthen the dollar because they reduce demand for foreign goods (and currencies). But over time, heavy-handed trade moves can push other nations to set up payment systems that bypass the dollar entirely—which is precisely what some U.S. rivals are working on.

The Real Threat

The dollar won’t vanish overnight, but if the U.S. keeps racking up insane debt, playing politics with the debt ceiling, and undermining trust in our own institutions, other countries might not want to keep their savings in Uncle Sam’s checking account. That’s when you start hearing the words “currency crisis” on the nightly news.

Bottom line: The dollar is still king—but kings have been overthrown before. If that happens, it won’t just be an economics story. It’ll be the story, and your wallet will feel it first.

Fun fact: The conference at Bretton Woods took place at a luxury hotel. So yes, the fate of the global economy was decided over cocktails and buffet dinners. Truly, some traditions never die.