Posted on 11/28/2014 5:30:08 PM PST by xzins
The Daily Treasury Statement that was released Wednesday afternoon as Americans were preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving revealed that the U.S. Treasury has been forced to issue $1,040,965,000,000 in new debt since fiscal 2015 started just eight weeks ago in order to raise the money to pay off Treasury securities that were maturing and to cover new deficit spending by the government.
During those eight weeks, Treasury took in $341,591,000,000 in revenues. That was a record for the period between Oct. 1 and Nov. 25. But that record $341,591,000,000 in revenues was not enough to finance ongoing government spending let alone pay off old debt that matured.
Record Revenue through Nov. 25, 2014
The Treasury also drew down its cash balance by $45.057 billion during the period, starting with $126,568,000,000 in cash and ending with $81,511,000,000.
The only way the Treasury could handle the $942,103,000,000 in old debt that matured during the period plus finance the new deficit spending the government engaged in was to roll over the old debt into new debt and issue enough additional new debt to cover the new deficit spending.
This mode of financing the federal government resembles what the Securities and Exchange Commission calls a Ponzi scheme. “A Ponzi scheme," says the Securities and Exchange Commission, “is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“With little or no legitimate earnings, the schemes require a consistent flow of money from new investors to continue,” explains the SEC. “Ponzi schemes tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask to cash out.”
In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in October 2013, Lew explained why he wanted the Congress to agree to increase the federal debt limit—and why the Treasury has no choice but to constantly issue new debt.
“Every week we roll over approximately $100 billion in U.S. bills,” Lew told the committee. “If U.S. bondholders decided that they wanted to be repaid rather than continuing to roll over their investments, we could unexpectedly dissipate our entire cash balance.”
“There is no plan other than raising the debt limit that permits us to meet all of our obligations,” Lew said.
“Let me remind everyone,” Lew said, “principal on the debt is not something we pay out of our cash flow of revenues. Principal on the debt is something that is a function of the markets rolling over.”
The vast amount of debt that the Treasury must roll over in such a short time frame is driven by the fact the Treasury has put most of the debt into short-term “bills” and mid-term “notes”—on which it can pay lower interest rates—rather than into long-term bonds, which demand significantly higher interest rates.
At the end of October, according to the Treasury’s Monthly Statement of the Public Debt, the total debt of the federal government was $17,937,160,000,000.
Of this, $5,080,104,000,000 was what the Treasury calls “intragovernmental” debt, which is money the Treasury has borrowed and spent out of trust funds theoretically set aside for other purposes—such as the Social Security Trust Fund.
The remaining $12,857,056,000,000 was “debt held by the public.” This part of the debt included $517,029,000,000 “nonmarketable” Treasury securities (such as savings bonds) and $12,340,028,000,000 in “marketable” Treasury securities, including bills, notes, bonds and Treasuring Inflation-Protected Securities.
But only $1,547,073,000,000 of the $12,857,056,000,000 in marketable debt was in long-term Treasury bonds that mature in 30 years. These bonds carried an average interest rate of 4.919 percent as of the end of October, according to the Treasury.
The largest share of the marketable debt--$8,192,466,000,000—was in notes that mature in 2,3,5,7 or 10 years, and which haf an average interest rate of 1.807 percent as of the end of October.
Another $1,412,388,000,000 of the marketable debt was in Treasury bills, which carry “maturities ranging from a few days to 52 weeks,” says the Treasury. These $1.4 trillion in short-term Treasury bills had an average interest rate of 0.056 percent as of the end of October, according to the Treasury.
The continual rolling over of these short-term, low-interest bills helped drive over the $1-trillion mark the new debt the Treasury had to issue in the first eight weeks of this fiscal year.
The Treasury has taken out what amounts to an adjustable-rate mortgage on our ever-growing national debt.
If the Treasury were forced to convert the $1.4 trillion in short-term bills (on which it now pays an average interest rate of 0.056 percent) into 30-year bonds (on which it now pays an average interest rate of 4.919 percent) the interest on that $1.4 trillion in debt would increase 88-fold.
But seriously, this government profligacy is an affront to the teachings of Almighty GOD.
Our trajectory is not sustainable, and it *WILL* come to an end.
In GOD’s time. I would have thought it would already have happened, but I am most certainly not Him.
Praise GOD that we who believe in Him have a breathing space within which to prepare, as best we can.
FRegards, and GOD’s blessings on you. In JESUS’ name.
No problem, the Fed will just create new money to buy the debt.
What comes after a trillion?
>> What comes after a trillion?
A trillion-and-one.
I got this one off FR a few months ago. Don’t remember who to credit, but it sure does make you think.
__________________________________________
Stay with this one. It is good (makes sense).
It’s a slow day in the small town of Pumphandle and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.
A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night. As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
(Stay with this..... and pay attention)
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.
The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her “services” on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.
No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town now thinks that they are out of debt and there is a false atmosphere of optimism and glee.
And that, my friends, is how a “government stimulus package” works!
They can do that; but this devalues the US dollar and makes it unsuitable for storing reserves. At some point countries will stop accepting the USD for international settlements... and what will the US be buying Chinese junk with? This is important - the country does not have enough manufacturing facilities to satisfy domestic demand. To China the US market is something like 20% to 25%, and they can survive losing it. (Besides, what other options do they have?) To the US, Chinese manufacturing supplies 90% of all the goods, and that is not survivable without major restructuring of the society. This will create lots of jobs - but at the same time will starve everyone on social security because there will be no social security (it will lose value if $500 buys you only a few bath towels, or one frying pan, or half of a 12V car battery.)
Maybe we should get Joe Biden to oversee the implementation of the new debt. He has experience in overseeing the implementation of the stimulus package. He should know how to follow the money.
I wonder how he did with the stimulus? I can only imagine.
>> I wonder how he did with the stimulus? I can only imagine.
You mean you didn’t keep up with the MSM journalists from every network and paper who dogged crazy uncle Joe’s every step as he supervised the stimulus?
(must... keep... straight... face...)
It simply assures that the elite’s government will have plenty of money to spend on the products and services it buys - from businesses whose boards are controlled by the elites.
It also assures that taxes on sheeple who earn money will remain cripplingly high in the future.
It keeps the elites’ bankers firmly in the saddle over the US gubmint, since it has to borrow from the bankers and thus agree to their borrowing terms, as the amount financed is so large it can only be arranged by a syndicate of all the major banks of the world. Of course, the elites control the boards of all those banks.
Government has no need to borrow from bankers as it can print its own money.
LOL - I must have fallen asleep for a few years while we all forgot about it.
I don't know if you heard about this, but three people from Brazil were killed in Iraq not to long ago. Denis McDonough came in the oval office and informed Obozo that three Brazilian people lost their life in Iraq. The CinC hung his head and then looked and McDonough and asked, ‘Denis, just how many people is three Brazilian’. True story. No joke. (must... keep... straight... face...)
>>I don’t know if you heard about this &etc
I ordinarily don’t repeat scurrilous unfounded gossip, but in this case I plan to make an exception. ROFL
lol
Looks to me like we have a few FReepers that are smarter than all the Treasury bureaucrats put together.
I had an EX-wife that did that...
Of course it is, just ask Corzine how it’s done
For Ben bump...
“Let me remind everyone,” Lew said, “principal on the debt is not something we pay out of our cash flow of revenues. Principal on the debt is something that is a function of the markets rolling over.”
That’s the Secretary of the Treasury saying we don’t pay down our debts, we just pay interest (while taking on more debt).
I did that a couple times in college, when life was cheap and I wanted to screw off. The USA has done that since 1956.
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