this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28103623

The upheaval in stocks has been grabbing all the headlines, but there is a bigger problem looming in another corner of the financial markets that rarely gets headlines: Investors are dumping U.S. government bonds.

Normally, investors rush into Treasurys at a whiff of economic chaos but now they are selling them as not even the lure of higher interest payments on the bonds is getting them to buy.

The freak development has experts worried that big banks, funds and traders are losing faith in America as a good place to store their money.

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[–] b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 1 day ago

Love how they use the word “freak” as if it’s some kind of unknown anomaly.

The entire world wants to see the evil empire burn to the ground.

[–] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I can't imagine why 🤷‍♂️

[–] knighthawk0811@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago

must be that laptop

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

Well that's one way to balance the budget, no more credit. We're fuuuuuucked.

[–] Lightbender@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Crazy how fast we lost our standing.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 5 points 19 hours ago

Yes, though Rome didn’t collapse in a day. This has been developing for decades.

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

[–] eric5949@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

These stupid fucking people blasted the foundation of our economic empire to smithereens on a fucking gamble trump could stave off dedollarization and now we're going to have another fucking recession and the debt will finally be the fucking problem republicans want it to be.

It's really, really hard to just not be filled with blind rage for the idiots that asked for this.

[–] Greyghoster@aussie.zone 14 points 1 day ago

It’s all built on trust and stability which is hard to earn but oh so easy to throw away.

[–] g4nd41ph@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I got rid of my federal government bonds a few weeks ago because I didn't want to be lending money to Trump and his cronies. I replaced them with corporate bonds.

Will get local municipal bonds instead if my stocks go down enough that I can cash shit out in my taxable account without paying a shitload of capital gains tax.

Looks like I wasn't the only one doing this.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I got rid of my federal government bonds a few weeks ago because I didn’t want to be lending money to Trump and his cronies.

That’s not how any of this works. The purpose of US Treasury securities is to give the wealthy a safe & profitable place to park their capital, outside of the real economy. The government doesn’t need to borrow your dollars when it has an infinite supply of them.

[–] ctrl_alt_esc@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

That's wrong, first of all it's the central bank that controls money supply, which is independent from the government. In addition, even if the government could magically create all the money it needs to pay its debt, without borrowing more, it would completely devalue the dollar.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

first of all it’s the central bank that controls money supply, which is independent from the government.

Michael Hudson on the Federal Reserve System

Congress constitutionally has the power of the purse, and the it’s the US Treasury that creates money[^1]. When Congress created JP Morgan’s Federal Reserve, it partially cede its monetary sovereignty to the cartel of private US banks, and it can destroy the Federal Reserve in the same way that it created it, with the stroke of the pen.

even if the government could magically create all the money it needs to pay its debt, without borrowing more, it would completely devalue the dollar.

I see that you didn’t engage with the materials that I provided. Someone always says this, which is why I provided information on precisely this in my link about hyperinflation.

[^1]: There’s a second way that money is created: Congress deputized the private banks to create money out of thin air in the form of debt, meaning loans & mortgages. Each of those dollars is destroyed when the debtor pays down the principal.

[–] thedruid@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

The feds are not representing us. No taxation without representation