when his boss rushed through, yelling at everyone to buy Hong Kong dollars.

Within hours, the authorities pegged the currency to the US dollar

at a tiny profit for those local currency holders.

Then and since, Hong Kong dollars weakness has typically been related to fears about its relations with China.

But now the currency is nearing its weakest point in a decade,

and for once, the city's future is not the reason.

The Hong Kong dollar slide is really a side effect of years of worldwide easy money.

The territory's in the unique position of having monetary policy

pegged to the US and its future prospects tied to China.

Over the past decade, those two factors have produced a massive boom and several bubbles.

Hong Kong's position as the world's most expensive property market,

where car parks sell for three billion dollars, is just one example.

Now with China slowing and the US raising rates,

this, in theory, should have trapped the city between a rock and a hard place.

But that hasn't happened because so much money is still available

that its the banks haven't needed to follow

the Hong Kong monetary authority in tracking US rate rises.

On Monday, the gap between three-month money in the US

and its Hong Kong equipment hit the widest point since the aftermath of Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008.

Also on Monday, the US dollar traded above 7.82 Hong Kong dollars for only the third time in ten years.

The question now is how the HKMA will manage to defense the peg

if the currency nears the weaker edge of its permitted range between 7.75 and 7.85.

With four hundred billion US dollars in reserves,

it has to funds available and few, if any, expect breaking the peg.

The HKMA does not even have to wait until the limit is breached to sell dollars,

and it might do so soon if it feels that will help ease market jitters.

But the real problem here is those market themselves.

Years of easy money risk having bred complacency.

The weak side of the peg has not been tested since 2005 either.

Back in 1983, Hong Kong's traders were used to uncertainty and expensive money.

Those today are not, but they might wanna think about what that looks like.