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Russia cuts Treasury holdings in half as foreigners start losing appetite for US debt

Pedestrian said:
Well far too many still suffer from the 'what I want to believe' mindset...rather than the fact based mindset.

The US has n e v e r ever printed up money. The US will n e v e r print up money.
I guess it is just a far too easy and intellectually vacuous for the uninformed to keep on that even though it thus...serves no argument.

To help everybody's understanding of this charge, printing up money means actually creating new currency, with new serial numbers and entering them into circulation.
Give this some slightly interesting thought. The US has according to 'printing up money' crowd. printed up trillion$. So ok, let's try ONE Trillion in a year.

That's 10 Billion $100 bills in a year. (by the GPO's Bureau of Engraving and Printing) So if we give them time, [they] would need to be pretty fast.

That's over 27 million new bills every day, NOT even close to possible. (over 1.1 million new bills per hour 24/7)

What people too often do, is to think of the evils the-other-side is doing and try to paint a picture of doom and gloom around it.

Pick one, Bush II, Obama, ok even all of them gong back to Reagan...****, Hoover !! NONE presided over a fed or treasury printing up money,
yet partisans try to claim it to try to demonize the govt. at the time, into the position of being the whole problem.

Now even though over the last 40 years, the repubs seem to love spending your children's and your children's children's money, none has
ever 'printed up' [sic] money. That's how and why we call it borrowing...debt and the repubs are determined to party on it for as far as the eye can see.
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Ok, not actually print, but simply create it in computers somewhere.
We have more dollars in circulation than are printed.
 
Pedestrian said:
A complete reversal of Reagan's ridiculous supply-side [sic] tax rate cuts policy, (the first 1993 bill of which the repubs unanimously voted against)
a pay-as-go agreement with the house, welfare reform and spending cuts. Resulted in approx. 4% growth in GDP adding 22.7 million jobs.
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As I recall it was the GOP congress who forced welfare reform and spending growth cuts on him. He also signed tax cuts in 1997. Furthermore, GDP grew 4% (and as much as 8% one year) under Reagan. And debt under Clinton grew almost as much as Reagan. 1.4T vs 1.8T. Other than raise taxes on the rich, I dont see where Clinton really had any economic ideology.
 
Pedestrian said:
Defense spending started down during Bush I the so-called peace dividend. It was reduced further during Clinton and sure enough,
elect a repub and soon back to cutting taxes, not defense. (there goes your surplus) to starting two wars (in come the profiteers and borrowing $8 trillion)

Ah yes, the neocons gave us the 'war on terror' which is now the perpetual gift that keeps on giving as indicated by the following:

Then after reaching $690 billion under Obama, it was pared down a little. But we all know right ? Anything less than say about 50% to 55% of discretionary
we remain very scared and afraid, so spending or oh boy, with Trump, time to party hardy again...we get $700 billion. So no, the defense budget is not going down

AND those so-called entitlements left over, are paid for...the war making and corp. entitlements...are not.

$700 billion is still hey, only $1O0 billion more than TWICE the highest defense spending during the height of the cold war.

America is living in a continuous war time economy and many fully expect that to continue.

Here's the best part blogroids, ok, one of the best parts. Just...JUST those 100 cruise missiles just recently fired into Syria could have built
4 new 600 student middle schools.

No kidding 'debaters' we are going to need a new war soon. We have to keep the gravy train going.
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How are entitlements paid for? We collect 1.3 trillion in payroll tax and we spend 2.5 trillion in social spending.
 
gdgyva said:
we have a few of those people on this site...that say that "debt doesnt matter"

as an accountant by trade, and a guy who has made a living looking at balance sheets....debt DOES matter to me

and yes, as rates go up....our servicing amount is going to increase exponentially

but rates have been historically low for years now....and that hurts the savers....the only place you can invest and gain more than 3% is in the market...i dunno where we go from here....i dont have a crystal ball, and my name isnt Kreskin

every president has inherited debt...some have drastically increased it...

that rainy day many have been talking about for years may be coming around the corner
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Well we battle a culture here.

Yes, we battle against what even the Catholic church tells us is...a culture of prosperity. Prosperity meaning, as (financially) successful as you can be, while
little else in life really matters near as much.

Let's take this opportunity to learn a little more truth. All T-bill holders from time to time, sell them. Almost always, to raise cash in US$.

Theses numbers are almost nothing. Last year Belgium sold $30 billion of T-notes, so ? China sold less and almost all, simply just need the cash.

Let's get this straight...capitalism IS debt. In the US, there is a combined public & private debt of some $70 trillion.

Unfunded commitments (liabilities) $113 trillion going up $7 million/MINUTE. The dollar in your pocket is a loan from the fed on which we pay interest.

That's why it is called a 'Federal Reserve NOTE' it is a debt instrument.

However, debt becomes a problem if the interest goes way up which can be precipitated by more sellers than buyers.

However also, 10 yr. T-bills an accepted benchmark in [its] debt are now again at less than 3% which is very near historical lows.
 
Pedestrian said:
Well far too many still suffer from the 'what I want to believe' mindset...rather than the fact based mindset.

The US has n e v e r ever printed up money. The US will n e v e r print up money.
I guess it is just a far too easy and intellectually vacuous for the uninformed to keep on that even though it thus...serves no argument.

To help everybody's understanding of this charge, printing up money means actually creating new currency, with new serial numbers and entering them into circulation.
Give this some slightly interesting thought. The US has according to 'printing up money' crowd. printed up trillion$. So ok, let's try ONE Trillion in a year.

That's 10 Billion $100 bills in a year. (by the GPO's Bureau of Engraving and Printing) So if we give them time, [they] would need to be pretty fast.

That's over 27 million new bills every day, NOT even close to possible. (over 1.1 million new bills per hour 24/7)

What people too often do, is to think of the evils the-other-side is doing and try to paint a picture of doom and gloom around it.

Pick one, Bush II, Obama, ok even all of them gong back to Reagan...****, Hoover !! NONE presided over a fed or treasury printing up money,
yet partisans try to claim it to try to demonize the govt. at the time, into the position of being the whole problem.

Now even though over the last 40 years, the repubs seem to love spending your children's and your children's children's money, none has
ever 'printed up' [sic] money. That's how and why we call it borrowing...debt and the repubs are determined to party on it for as far as the eye can see.
Click to expand...

That's not what "printing money" means. In economics-speak, printing money is what happens when the central bank buys bonds in exchange for reserves and account balances.
 
jonny5 said:
How are entitlements paid for? We collect 1.3 trillion in payroll tax and we spend 2.5 trillion in social spending.
Click to expand...

The payroll tax was to be dedicated tax to fund soc, sec....ONLY !! With the Reagan/Greenspan 'reform' simple...they tripled payroll taxes.
Every successive congress and pres. has sanctioned borrowing the resulting overpayments. Thus, the Soc. Sec. fund is now the largest creditor of the US.

All social spending includes that additional $1.2 trillion in other spending paid out of general revenues not earmarked for Soc. Sec.

So we sort out just what IS an entitlement and we find that all of the social spending in the US is not all that much more if at all, than
corp. handout, subsidies and price supports not to mention the financial liabilities assumed by America's single-payer 'health' corporations.

Those liabilities have over time been in the countless billion$ now reaching trillion$ for wall street/banker socialism.

Govt. social safety net and retirement money will soon be less than all of the other spending on defense, corp. food stamps and bank/farm welfare.

Payroll taxes are 34% of all revenues, would have left plenty to cover Soc. Sec. if our great govt, of, by and for people...didn't borrow and squander it.

So your complaints are misdirected.
 
JohnfrmClevelan said:
That's not what "printing money" means. In economics-speak, printing money is what happens when the central bank buys bonds in exchange for reserves and account balances.
Click to expand...

Well you can call it that but it doesn't make it so. Words do have meaning and maybe those who 'call it' printing money do us a favor in trying to scare us.

However, those in the know as it were, know what ? That QE etc. is a hit on a keyboard reflecting a performing asset in exchange for a non performing
asset on the banks books. It did not change interest rates (set by the fed) or add currency.

With QE beneficiary bankers could have lent more didn't. They became newly risk averse, i.e., no more selling of bathroom tissue. But also didn't lend unless you were IBM or GE etc. So no great recovery which so pleased the repubs, of course they were and usually are pretty dumb there.

I knew Obama would get a second term on election night 2008. Don't know why the repubs didn't and could have done the country a lot of good.
But hey for repubs of all groups, partisanship is king and ever since Reagan taught them how.

Go look at Argentina and one can get a pretty good/bad view of what happens when a govt. does literally print up new money.

It causes almost immediate inflation and it can be demonstrated without money, without currency or gold.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Printing money to pay for deficits works well. Just look at Germany in the 1920's and Zimbabwe

Printing money leads to higher inflation (higher than it otherwise would be). Print to much and you can get hyper inflation. Don't print any and you can see deflation assuming the economy is still growing
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While that is generally true, the US has been the "gold standard" of international currency. Though the Euro and GBP have threatened its dominance, it still remains the foundation of all world currencies. As long as that is the case, we have a fair amount of discretion (not absolute) to simply print money without much adverse consequence. However, Trump's unilateralism and his trade wars to threaten our position as the gold standard, in which case, the magic could fall of the US Dollar and would could subject ourselves to the problems of 1920's Germany.....

Unlike 1920's Germany where their economic woes let to the fascist dictator, it seems we put our fascist dictator in place first, and now he can guide us to the economics woes.
 
The Mark said:
Ok, not actually print, but simply create it in computers somewhere.
We have more dollars in circulation than are printed.
Click to expand...

No. In circulation means just that. If you mean other accepted forms of M1, then you feel as if bank CDs or other convertible notes represent
currency in circulation. They do not. No debt instrument is currency and the best is federal debt and still not counted as cash. Counts as reserves or collateral.

Describe for me money in circulation that was not printed ?
 
upsideguy said:
While that is generally true, the US has been the "gold standard" of international currency. Though the Euro and GBP have threatened its dominance, it still remains the foundation of all world currencies. As long as that is the case, we have a fair amount of discretion (not absolute) to simply print money without much adverse consequence. However, Trump's unilateralism and his trade wars to threaten our position as the gold standard, in which case, the magic could fall of the US Dollar and would could subject ourselves to the problems of 1920's Germany.....

Unlike 1920's Germany where their economic woes let to the fascist dictator, it seems we put our fascist dictator in place first, and now he can guide us to the economics woes.
Click to expand...


I agree with you about Trump to a degree but we are borrowing cheap capital but we are not...printing up money.
 
Pedestrian said:
I agree with you about Trump to a degree but we are borrowing cheap capital but we are not...printing up money.
Click to expand...

Writing yourself debt is pretty much printing money. In fact, a dollar bill is nothing but an IOU from the Federal Reserve. It is called a Federal Reserve Note as it is a demand note.

Though I dislike using personal finances to explain the US budget as they are not the same, paying for something with credit card is, in the eyes of a creditor, no different than paying for it with cash.
 
jonny5 said:
As I recall it was the GOP congress who forced welfare reform and spending growth cuts on him. He also signed tax cuts in 1997. Furthermore, GDP grew 4% (and as much as 8% one year) under Reagan. And debt under Clinton grew almost as much as Reagan. 1.4T vs 1.8T. Other than raise taxes on the rich, I dont see where Clinton really had any economic ideology.
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You remember poorly. Clinton campaigned on welfare reform and cutting spending
 
The Mark said:
It doesn't help that I've listed to an economist or two say the deficit doesn't matter at all, since we can print as much money as we need to pay it off.

Combined with the more standardized talk of how it's bad, also from economists...
Click to expand...

We can ameliorate certain long term obligations quantitatively but making our debt attractive to investors is one way we justify it in an economic sense. We cannot per se "print AS MUCH money" as we need, but we can ease and cushion shocks.

That doesn't mean that deficits don't matter or that excessive debt is nothing to worry about, but the bigger thing to worry about is the fact that since nearly the entire world operates on fiat debt based currency, buying debt is an essential and if no one wants to invest by buying your nation's debt, it then costs more and more to service that debt, especially in the short term.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
Hmmm....is it is it Putin, Xi and Abe punching the orangatan in the gut, or is it their wanting cash for a trade war? Meanwhile, with Italy doing the slow implode and the US stock market getting nervous, T's are holding their own. I'm more bothered with rates nearly inverting.
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For the top one percent, or shall we more accurately say the "top one tenth of one percent", this will be a bonanza.
All they need to do is hold off on investments till the crash, then vacuum up all the assets at fire sale prices and resell them all over again.

The bigger the crash, the better the fire sale prices.
 
jonny5 said:
As I recall it was the GOP congress who forced welfare reform and spending growth cuts on him. He also signed tax cuts in 1997. Furthermore, GDP grew 4% (and as much as 8% one year) under Reagan. And debt under Clinton grew almost as much as Reagan. 1.4T vs 1.8T. Other than raise taxes on the rich, I dont see where Clinton really had any economic ideology.
Click to expand...

Clinton ran budget surpluses for years and Bush came in and doubled our debt. That is always what a Republican does. Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.
 
sangha said:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/rus...igners-start-losing-appetite-for-us-debt.html



This is how it begins. The reluctance of foreign nations to buy our debt means higher interest rates and higher costs to service our debt.
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Russia's economy is tanking and it needs money. Thus, they are selling assets.

facebook.png
 
Pedestrian said:
Well you can call it that but it doesn't make it so. Words do have meaning and maybe those who 'call it' printing money do us a favor in trying to scare us.
Click to expand...

Well, that is the accepted definition of "printing money." Assigning your own definition to already-defined terms just clouds the issue.

The fact is that all government liabilities (bonds, reserves, and cash) are similar, and perfectly interchangeable. The Treasury issues bonds to pay for deficit spending. The Fed buys (and sells) bonds in exchange for reserves, which the Fed creates. And banks exchange cash for reserves (and vice versa) as customer demand to hold cash dictates. So there is little effective difference between holding cash and holding a Treasury bond.

Those government liabilities increase every year. That is certainly a form of "printing money" by your definition; any bondholder can easily cash in and spend the proceeds if he wishes. There is no hard limit on the amount of cash in circulation - that's just a matter of demand.

The deficits, and the resulting debt, have not led to inflation, high interest rates, or any other problems. Nor has the large increase in MB. More people should start to question why that inflation hasn't happened over the years, instead of sticking with their old, monetarist beliefs and constantly fretting that it's just around the corner.
 
Pedestrian said:
The payroll tax was to be dedicated tax to fund soc, sec....ONLY !! With the Reagan/Greenspan 'reform' simple...they tripled payroll taxes.
Every successive congress and pres. has sanctioned borrowing the resulting overpayments. Thus, the Soc. Sec. fund is now the largest creditor of the US.

All social spending includes that additional $1.2 trillion in other spending paid out of general revenues not earmarked for Soc. Sec.

So we sort out just what IS an entitlement and we find that all of the social spending in the US is not all that much more if at all, than
corp. handout, subsidies and price supports not to mention the financial liabilities assumed by America's single-payer 'health' corporations.

Those liabilities have over time been in the countless billion$ now reaching trillion$ for wall street/banker socialism.

Govt. social safety net and retirement money will soon be less than all of the other spending on defense, corp. food stamps and bank/farm welfare.

Payroll taxes are 34% of all revenues, would have left plenty to cover Soc. Sec. if our great govt, of, by and for people...didn't borrow and squander it.

So your complaints are misdirected.
Click to expand...

Actually social security is the one entitlement that pays for itself, for now. Now medicare....
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
For the top one percent, or shall we more accurately say the "top one tenth of one percent", this will be a bonanza.
All they need to do is hold off on investments till the crash, then vacuum up all the assets at fire sale prices and resell them all over again.

The bigger the crash, the better the fire sale prices.
Click to expand...

Jut like it started in 1907 again when Morgan and co. knocked 6000 private banks out of business and

.....like 1930 when the remaining 15,000 banks went bankrupt which of course, is a word we don't need anymore thanks to the
government single-payer insurance program for banks kicking in (FDIC) and they go into receivership.

The definition of capitalism does not include serving all of society...only the investor class.
 
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upsideguy said:
Writing yourself debt is pretty much printing money. In fact, a dollar bill is nothing but an IOU from the Federal Reserve. It is called a Federal Reserve Note as it is a demand note.

Though I dislike using personal finances to explain the US budget as they are not the same, paying for something with credit card is, in the eyes of a creditor, no different than paying for it with cash.
Click to expand...

Ordinary private and corporate debt, is again, not printing up money. It is renting somebody else's money already in circulation.
 
JohnfrmClevelan said:
Well, that is the accepted definition of "printing money." Assigning your own definition to already-defined terms just clouds the issue.

The fact is that all government liabilities (bonds, reserves, and cash) are similar, and perfectly interchangeable. The Treasury issues bonds to pay for deficit spending. The Fed buys (and sells) bonds in exchange for reserves, which the Fed creates. And banks exchange cash for reserves (and vice versa) as customer demand to hold cash dictates. So there is little effective difference between holding cash and holding a Treasury bond.

Those government liabilities increase every year. That is certainly a form of "printing money" by your definition; any bondholder can easily cash in and spend the proceeds if he wishes. There is no hard limit on the amount of cash in circulation - that's just a matter of demand.

The deficits, and the resulting debt, have not led to inflation, high interest rates, or any other problems. Nor has the large increase in MB. More people should start to question why that inflation hasn't happened over the years, instead of sticking with their old, monetarist beliefs and constantly fretting that it's just around the corner.
Click to expand...

If you wish to describe debt as printing up money, that's your right and as I've written...that is incorrect. But the problem in what is actually an attempt to redefine it because the problem one runs into is that are glaring examples of countries that have actually printed up money (same words) that has caused and continues to cause hyperinflation.

Liabilities and govt. debt, is also not printing up money. They are financial liabilities that can be reduced by law and again, debt is renting money...already in circulation.

The hard limit of currency in circulation is just that...hard. That means that we are not adding any more money into circulation.
 
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Pedestrian said:
No. In circulation means just that. If you mean other accepted forms of M1, then you feel as if bank CDs or other convertible notes represent
currency in circulation. They do not. No debt instrument is currency and the best is federal debt and still not counted as cash. Counts as reserves or collateral.

Describe for me money in circulation that was not printed ?
Click to expand...
The money that exists only in computers.
 
jonny5 said:
Actually social security is the one entitlement that pays for itself, for now. Now medicare....
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I see medicare deducted from paychecks and seniors pay billion$ in premiums.
 
iguanaman said:
Clinton ran budget surpluses for years and Bush came in and doubled our debt. That is always what a Republican does. Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.
Click to expand...

Well the real problem is, we are better off without any president's economic ideology. Most are self-serving (constituent) anyway.
 
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