And if America can’t find anyone willing to finance its deficits, what then? Well, the luxury of issuing debts in the currency you also print is that you can print money to pay for them. Technically, you can never become insolvent when you enjoy this privilege. The Fed, for example, can create new money to buy debt issued by the Treasury, funding deficits ad infinitum.
November 3rd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 5 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "deficits"
Debt and Deficits Do Matter
We are told that for example debt doesn’t matter because if a company takes out a certain level of debt, say a very low level of say 10% debt to equity, that’s irrelevant to the company’s value because the person buying shares in that company can take out 90% debt to equity ratio.
September 9th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 2 comments | Continued
China Reduces Holdings of Treasury Securities
The Obama administration announced that it expects $9 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years. One of the great mysteries of our time is: where will the money come from? As we pointed out last week, even if every dollar of US savings is applied to the task…
August 25th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 4 comments | Continued
Fortunately Private Debt is Not Inheritable
When you were born 20-some years ago, the nation’s total debt per person was less than $90,000 – adjusted to ‘09 dollars, of course. While that was a lot of money, it was nothing compared to what was coming.
June 1st, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 7 comments | Continued
Choking on Debt in the Unfolding Anglo-Saxon Bond Crisis
“You will always be a child of two worlds, and fully capable of deciding your own destiny,” Spock’s father Sarek tells him in the latest Star Trek movie. Which brings us to Australia’s place in this emerging new world order. Which place will it be? De-industrialised deadbeat debtor or something else?
May 27th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 1 comment | Continued
Fed Willing to Print Money to Buy More Bonds to Keep U.S. Interest Low
Meanwhile all sorts of mischief is afoot in financial markets and the Australian energy market. U.S. stocks fell over 1.5% in Thursday trading. The minutes of the Federal Reserve’s April meeting were published. The notes said there were “significant downside risks” to the U.S. economy and that the global financial system remains “vulnerable to further shocks.”
May 22nd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 0 comments | Continued
The End of the Range
How strange. Stocks are up this morning. Hang on…we’ve just had a look again. They’re down now. Sigh. There’s so much bad news about in the land that stocks moving up in such a climate is noteworthy. It means everyone’s talking about how bad things are, but there aren’t any sellers left. So are there any sellers left?…
February 20th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 1 comment | Continued
Bad News for Bond Prices
The big news yesterday was the sell-off in the bond market. “All eyes on sudden spike in US Treasury yields,” says the headline in the Financial Times. The yield on the U.S. 10-year note rose above 3% for the first time in three months. The two-year note, meanwhile, moved above 1% yield. What does it mean? We are bearish on U.S. government paper – in all its forms…
February 11th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 8 comments | Continued
U.S. Recession: Is the End Nigh?
One of the positive indicators, Frank Holmes says, is that the current recession is now 13 months old, whereas the worst recessions since the Great Depression only lasted 16 months (and there were two of them: 1973-75 and 1981-82). Then he quickly defuses the situation by saying, “Just because every recession since the 1930s ended in 16 months or less doesn’t mean this one has to as well”…
February 5th, 2009 | Mogambo Guru | 1 comment | Continued
The Deficit is Expected to Reach Beyond $500 Billion
“When Dick Cheney told Paul O’Neill deficits don’t matter,” we found ourselves explaining to the audience after Saturday night’s screening of I.O.U.S.A. at the Maryland Film Festival “he didn’t mean that they don’t matter economically.
May 6th, 2008 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued