2d ago

Freak sell-off of ‘safe haven’ US bonds raises fear that confidence in America is fading

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.

16 comments

No one is losing anything. Faith in America is dead. Any lag we're experiencing is the time it takes to figure out the complexity of smoothly divesting from America. It's simply impossible to trust this won't happen again. You can't put it back in the bottle. The US is fucked
- Yeah, the first time around was like, shit... Okay maybe they'll recover. Biden comes along, okay maybe it really was a fluke. Then the current nightmare ensues... Fuck, it wasn't a fluke. Okay then time to decouple from the damage.
  Most Canadians I talk to give significant likelihood that the US won't recover from this. Even if it recovers from the fascism. At least not in a long time. We see that the system of checks and balances is more of a theatre that only appeared to be working, likely because capital wasn't hungry enough. Right now the US looks like a functional dictatorship with no obvious path to recovery. Even if the Democrats take the house.
  
  We see that the system of checks and balances is more of a theatre that only appeared to be working
  Seems it was rather based on a gentlemen's agreement, which is fine as long as gentlemen get in power, or at least someone believing in the rules of the game. As soon as someone gets behind the controls who clearly dislikes the rules, that's a huge issue.
- And often when it comes to the stock market .... if you see signs of things headed in a direction, it's already too late and whatever you think is going to happen has already or is in the process of happening and you've already lost money and wealth.
  Yes America is fucked but it's going to take a lot of time for everyone to figure that out. We're all just going to pretend it isn't so and that it won't hurt us financially (but it probably will)
- It's weird that nobody even considers systemic change as a possibility anymore
  I mean obviously we'll need to hold another election before we can get somebody else in there and even see an opportunity, but if actual accountability were implemented that targets this, if citizens united would stop leaking billionaire influence into our groundwater, you COULD restore faith in America.
  I guess the issue is, how possible is any kind of anti-oligarchism policy, when they hold the whole government? And once, IF, we get the chance, is there anyone with the competency to get it implemented? Or will we blow it like we have every time since the reconstruction?
  
  we’ll need to hold another election
  It depends on how likely you think this is to happen, I guess. Trump stated in his campaign that if he is elected no one will ever need to vote again. He is now talking about there being ways he could have a third term. He may fail at his plan, but it seems he is planning to remain president for a long time. We saw what happened last time he lost an election, and he seems more brazen now than he was then.
  
  The thing is many people consider Trump to be the systemic change they've been so desperately seeking.
  It's almost understandable too, given how much has been frozen/worsening for so long.
  
  Bold of you to think you’re getting another election

16 comments