Posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009
By the Center for Geoeconomic Studies
The United States is rapidly approaching its legal debt limit of just over $12 trillion. As of September 2009, U.S. debt stood at $11.9 trillion. As these charts indicate, Congress has raised the limit four times in the past three years, as the need for financing has risen. Some hope that the limit will encourage fiscal responsibility. Others fear that this exercise raises the risk of a technical default, as nearly occurred in 1995, which would disrupt markets and potentially impose severe costs on a struggling economy.
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Posted in Fiscal Policy, U.S. | 0 Comments »
Posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009
By the Center for Geoeconomic Studies
Near zero T-bill yields throughout 2009 is keeping U.S. debt service low even though the amount of outstanding debt continues to rise. A forecast increase in U.S. interest rates, along with growth in the amount of debt, will lift interest expenses sharply over the next ten years. In fact, as this chart shows, interest payments are projected to surpass defense spending by 2017. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which collects data back to 1929, interest payments have never surpassed defense spending.
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Posted in Fiscal Policy, U.S. | 3 Comments »
Posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
By the Center for Geoeconomic Studies
This chart shows who financed the massive amounts of debt that the U.S. government issued in the first half of 2009. The total net issuance of treasuries and agencies is shown on the left, and economic sectors are ordered from left to right by the size of their total purchases. Given the federal backing of the GSEs – government sponsored entities such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae – it is best to look at the sum of treasuries and agencies rather than treasury issuance alone. Through the first two quarters of 2009, issuance has been financed primarily by official buyers. Official buyers often have motivations other than profit. The Federal Reserve is buying debt as a part of its quantitative easing program, while some foreign central banks are accumulating debt as a function of their currency policy. The Federal Reserve plans to slow and then stop its purchases by the end of the first quarter of 2010. This raises the question of who will replace this source of demand, and at what price.
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Posted in Capital Flows, Central Banks, U.S. | 8 Comments »
Posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009
By the Center for Geoeconomic Studies
This chart shows the U.S. federal gross debt issuance, the sum of debt refinancing and fiscal deficits, as a percentage of GDP. The U.S. Treasury must issue debt to finance expenditures in excess of receipts as well as to pay off debts that are due. Although it is often assumed that debtholders will recycle their capital into new debt, they have no obligation to do so. Concerns about the level of federal debt and the size of future deficits may make creditors reconsider their investment choices. If many creditors opt out of the U.S. treasury market as their bonds mature, the U.S. Treasury may have a difficult time finding buyers for the unprecedented level of issuance. This would create a complicated trade-off for the Federal Reserve between higher interest rates, which may smother a budding recovery, and monetizing the debt, which may stoke inflation and pose a serious risk to the dollar.
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Posted in Fiscal Policy, U.S. | 0 Comments »
Posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009
By the Center for Geoeconomic Studies
In a typical post-war recession, recovery would be well under way after twenty-one months. This time around, all that has emerged is limited optimism over ‘green shoots.’ Although conditions in financial markets have improved (e.g., the spread between AAA corporate debt and treasuries has narrowed by over 150 basis points since November 2008), the labor market has continued to deteriorate. The chart below indicates that the increase in unemployment since this recession began is worse than all post World War II recessionary spikes in unemployment.
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Posted in 2008/9 Downturn, Economic Cycle, U.S. | 1 Comment »
