The US government is increasingly relying on the Federal Reserve to prop up the Treasury market and absorb the trillions of dollars in bonds it’s issuing in order to fund its massive budget deficits. The Fed now holds a record 16.5% of US debt. And it’s going to have to buy trillions of dollars of additional Treasuries in 2021 to keep pace with government borrowing.
In other words, there is no end in sight to quantitative easing. In fact, the central bank will have to double its scheduled monthly QE in 2021 to catch up to where it was in 2020.
Over the last year, the US government had borrowed over $4.2 trillion. The national debt now stands well above $27 trillion. There is no end in sight to the borrowing and spending and that raises a significant question: who is going to buy all of the bonds necessary to finance the government spending machine?
Not too long ago, Uncle Sam could count on foreign investors to gobble up a big chunk of his IOUs, but times are changing. In 2008, foreign investors held more than half of the outstanding Treasury debt. Today, that amount has plunged to the lowest level since the turn of the century.
The US government has borrowed $4.2 trillion in the last 12 months, pushing the total national debt to over $27 trillion. In order for Uncle Sam to borrow, somebody has to lend. So, who is buying all of these government bonds?
Foreign and domestic investors, commercial banks and US government entities all buy US debt, but increasingly, the Federal Reserve is backstopping the market and making this borrowing binge possible.
If you thought maybe the federal government would try to rein in the spending after running a recorded budget deficit of $3.13 trillion in fiscal 2020, you were sorely disappointed. Uncle Sam has not kicked his spending habit.
October was the first month of FY 2021 and the federal government kicked off the year with a $284.1 billion budget deficit, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement. It was the largest October budget shortfall in American history.
Gold and silver sold off big and the Dow surged Monday on the announcement the Pfizer had successful coronavirus vaccine trials. But Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey says investors should maybe tap the brakes on thinking that a coronavirus vaccine is a cure-all. In this episode, the looks a little deeper at the long-term ramifications of a vaccine. He also breaks down the newest budget deficit numbers.
The FY2020 budget deficit came in at $3.13 trillion. At some point, the US government will have to reckon with the debt and spending. But according to recent analysis from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget, neither Trump nor Biden appear prepared to do so. In fact, its analysis shows Trump would only be slightly better than Biden when it comes to spending and debt.
Gold has been trading sideways for several weeks. But there are all kinds of reasons to be bullish on the yellow metal. So why isn’t the price of gold rising faster? Where are the gold bulls? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey tries to answer that question and discusses some of the reasons people should be buying gold.
The fiscal 2020 budget shortfall totaled $3.13 trillion as Uncle Sam added another $124.6 billion to the deficit in September, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement.
That more than doubles the previous record deficit of $1.4 trillion set in 2009 at the height of the Great Recession.
Regal Cinemas shut down all of its US theaters this week. The company said the closure is temporary, but it reveals the deeper strain in the retail sector. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey digs deeper into the retail mess and talks about what it is telling us about the broader economy. He also discusses the ongoing stimulus debate and the national debt news that nobody is talking about.
The April federal budget deficit came in at a staggering $738 billion as government coronavirus stimulus began flowing through the pipelines and revenue dipped due to the government lockdowns.
