Posted on 03/24/2010 3:45:26 PM PDT by CutePuppy
The results of today's Treasury auction were a shot across the bow of the government.
And, according to David Zervos, head of fixed income strategy at Jeffries, may be an indication of just how skittish some investors are feeling about the fiscal soundness of the United States, in light of big government spending for health care and other costly programs.
“It’s the health-care realization trade,” Zervos told CNBC, post-auction, from the firm’s trading floor. “We’re coming to grips with the fact that we have a Congress that’s ready to go, and spend.”
Zervos, who worked at the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC last year as a visiting advisor, also characterized the government’s recent initiatives as a “fiscal train wreck” that shows a lack of restraint. He predicted the health-care bill will yield trillions of dollars in debt (marketable).
Investors showed scant interest in the latest round of debt auctions: Depressed demand today in five-year note sales pushed Treasury yields up. The $42 billion sale drew a yield of 2.065 percent, full 10 basis points, or 0.10 percentage points—up from the where the five-year was trading when the results came out at 1 p.m.
Jefferies’ Chief Financial Economist Ward McCarthy agreed with his colleague and told CNBC, “There’s a lot of concern about what’s happening on a fiscal basis. We have enormous budget deficiencies, and Congress and the Administration really have done nothing to address that. In fact, the recent legislation on health care is going to increase our budget deficits by over a trillion dollars.”
In a related discussion, McCarthy also told CNBC the economic rebound is moving forward, but his expectations were muted: He predicted a “fair to middling” recovery, and added that “it’s going to take some time before we generate strong growth.”
Reported by Steve Liesman, written by Michelle Lodge
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Titanic Ping
In my view, lending money to this government is not only a bad investment. It is an immoral act.
The United States Is Being Destroyed
We MUST get every Repub running for the House to sign a pledge that the FIRST thing they will do is vote to DEFUND Obamacare on day one.
The Senate and Obama will not be able to do anything about it. The libs starved Terri Schivo. This bill needs to be defunded.
10 basis points in a five year note is not exactly a catastrophe.
“- the reason why this recovery is not nearly as robust...”
:::::::
RECOVERY ??? The author must be talking about some other country....
This is exactly why the FED must be killed.
Without the FED, massive Gov’t spending and borrowing would have had a forced a common-sense reaction from the markets long ago. Without the FED supporting it, the Government could never pursue these crazy social engineering and big-Govt schemes.
Loose cannons in the White House and on Capitol Hill.
It’s worse than that. We are sitting on a ticking time-bomb, and the threat of total economic collapse is nowhere near zero. Some smart guys put it at 50% last year, maybe a little less this year, but it’s about like predicting the next earthquake...all you can do is look for signs and precursors but you won’t know for sure until it hits.
Obama is doing everything wrong. Healthcare is tossing a lit match (or in his case, a cigarette butt) in the general direction of a puddle of gas, hoping it won’t blow...right away. But keep doing it, and the odds become pretty predictable.
Catastrophe, no. Warning, yes. And the author of the piece is a strong Democrat supporter.
Yes, but th US dollar is being destroyed along with it as well.
A currency crisis approaches.
Paddle Faster!
LOL, The FED was probably the only one there buying today....
10 basis points isn’t much....but it may be the beginning of a trend. The first move toward higher interest rates is going to have a huge effect on the bond market.
Deliberately!
This will kill the stock market and the housing market if there is one somewhere and the economy
The FED is uconstitutonal.
And getting rid of them would be a good way to implode the ponzi scheme the marxists rely on to buy their votes.
Getting rid of the FED is probably more important than getting rid of health care. It is that foundational.
This is gonna be a train wreck of Biblical proportions. 0 has already been adding about 1.4 trillion a year to our debt WITHOUT the health care. Add in Cap and trade, increased immigration and the massive additional drag that puts on social services, increased union clout to suck up billions in monies they don’t earn, and the incredible interest it takes to service that debt and the result is inevitable. In fact, the result is already inevitable - all we can effect now is “when” not “if”.
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