Monday, November 14, 2011

When will the market say 'no more' to U.S. debt binge?

Soaring interest rates on Italian government bonds over the last five weeks show how quickly the market can send a powerful message to debtor nations: You've borrowed enough. So where is that market comeuppance for the U.S. Treasury, the world's single largest debtor, with nearly $15 trillion borrowed?

The LA Times' Blog writes that it now appears that the congressional "super committee" set up to rein-in the government's massive deficit spending could fail to arrive at an agreement by its Nov. 23 deadline. Yet that seems unlikely to trigger a surge of selling in Treasury bonds that would drive up interest rates from their current near-record-low levels.

As I note in my weekend column in The Times, the U.S. is benefiting from Europe's unrelenting debt crisis by looking like the best house in a deteriorating neighborhood. And there are other factors as well that are likely to hold U.S. bond yields down for the time being….

Learn more at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/11/us-treasury-bond-yields-deficit-super-committee-deadline-europe.html

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