The US government has once again run up against the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, interest payments on the debt keep growing.
The Treasury only added $6B of debt in December, allowing short-term debt to mature and replacing it with longer-term debt. This makes sense as long-term rates are below short-term rates with the inverted yield curve.
The Treasury added $175B in new debt during November, hitting the debt ceiling of $31.4T. New debt issuance was focused on the short end of the curve with $145B in Treasury Bills issued.
Over the last 18 months, the Treasury has aggressively converted short-term debt to longer-term debt. This can be seen in the chart below with the turquoise bars being negative.
The Fed has talked a big game lately. Many people (including me) assumed the Fed would fold a long time ago. There is a very good reason — the Fed will crush the economy and the US Treasury with higher interest rates.
In reality, the Fed is holding a losing hand and trying to bluff its way to victory.
The Treasury increased the total debt by $27B in June. Activity slowed in the latest month across all instruments, but particularly the conversion of short-term to long-term. After massive moves to extend debt maturity and shrink short-term debt by $530B over 4 months (shown below by the large negative turquoise bars), July went very quiet.
The Treasury reduced the total debt by $27B in April. This is not atypical since Tax Day falls in April. In April 2016 and 2018, the debt shrunk $78B and $21B respectively. April 2017 and 2019 were both flat due to a debt ceiling saga. 2020 and 2021 were exceptions because the tax deadline was extended.
While on the surface, it appears the Federal Reserve asset purchase taper has started, it’s not as easy to prove when you dig into the details.
The Fed is certainly not being as aggressive as they promised, and for good reason. As the Fed leaves the bond market, who will fill the gap? Since 2019, the Fed has quadrupled the Treasury purchases of international holders and has been one of the biggest players in the Treasury market.
The Fed added $82 billion in Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) and $65 billion in Treasuries to its balance sheet while allowing $22 billion in repo agreements to roll off the balance sheet. The net gain was $126 billion in the month that the “taper” was set to begin.
“Just because something is inevitable, does not make it imminent, but eventually the future arrives”
The US Government is on an unsustainable debt trajectory. Even though the Federal Reserve has acknowledged this fact, most mainstream pundits consider it a distant problem or even not an issue at all. They argue that debt fears have raged since the debt crossed $1T decades ago and no negative consequences have materialized.
