Financial panics are indeed dramatic and, for many private individuals and economic policymakers, traumatic. They are rarely of lasting significance to the fate of nations or their
currencies, however, as the prompt recovery of Korea, Mexico, and Russia from their travails a decade ago demonstrates—as indeed does the lack of any lasting impact from the United States’ closing of the “gold window” on the dollar’s standing or on U.S. economic performance, Adam S. Posen, the Deputy Director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics writes:

Though such calm is difficult to maintain while the United States experiences a panic in its many interlocking asset-backed securities markets, following years of large current
account deficits and a concurrent sell-off of the dollar against the euro, it would be a mistake to read too much into recent developments.

Source : http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/posen0408.pdf