Monday, December 20, 2010

60 Minutes on Insolvent States



In 2007, it was absolutely obvious that the credit bubble extended far beyond "subprime" loans, but no one cared.

There is another good Hussman column this week. Here is an especially important quote:

It will be harder to inflate our way out of the Federal debt than investors seem to believe. [...] A significant portion of the U.S. Treasury debt is represented by short-duration paper, which makes the U.S. far more sensitive to rollover risk, and also makes the value of the debt less sensitive to inflation. See, if you borrow funds for 30 years, you can turn around and create a massive inflation to diminish the real value of that debt. But if you've borrowed funds for a year and then create a massive inflation, you'll find that investors will require a higher interest rate on the debt next year, which prevents the obligation from being diminished over time. This is good for the investors, but bad for the Federal government.
This is a point I have been making all year.

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