Let’s investigate US treasury debt issuance by month and year.
Chart Notes
- Bills: Treasury bills are short term debt ranging from four weeks to 52 weeks. Bills are sold at a discount or at par (face value). When the bill matures, you are paid its face value.
- Notes: Treasury Notes have terms of 2, 3, 5, 7, or 10 years. Notes pay a fixed rate of interest every six months until they mature.
- Bonds: Treasury Bonds have a term of either 20 or 30 years. Bonds pay a fixed rate of interest every six months until they mature.
- TIPS: Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) are designed to protect against inflation. Unlike other Treasury securities, where the principal is fixed, the principal of a TIPS can go up or down over its term.
- FRN: Floating Rate Notes (FRNs) are relatively short-term investments that mature in two years, pay interest four times each year, have an interest rate that may change or “float” over time.
The above descriptions from Treasury Direct.
Cumulative Issuance
- From 2013-2019 the total amount of treasuries outstanding rose from $11.854 trillion to $16.663 trillion. That’s an increase of $4.809 trillion in six years.
- From 2019-2023 the total amount of treasuries outstanding rose from $16.673 trillion to $26.366 trillion. That’s an increase of $9.693 trillion in four years.
Net Treasury Issuance Change From Year Ago
The years of under $1 trillion issuance have come and gone. One might have thought the pandemic surge was over, but thanks to Biden’s inflation reduction act another surge is underway.
Net Treasury Issuance Change From Month Ago
Over the last 12 months treasury issuance is at an average pace of $211 billion a month, a total of $2.536 trillion.
Most of the issuance is short-term Treasury Bills which will keep getting rolled over because we certainly are not paying down any debt.
There’s also steady steam of Treasury Bond issuance between $30 and $45 billion a month.
Pending in Congress
President Biden along with warmongers in both parties want to spend another $100 billion on Ukraine and Israel with no strings attached.
The Wall Street Journal constantly moans about deficit spending except for every warmongering project it sees.
I wrote about these Op-Eds this morning in Hoot of the Day: WSJ Complains of Biden’s Inability to Use the Bully Pulpit
Child Tax Credit Expansion
Amazingly, House Republicans got suckered into child tax care credit expansion.
On January 17, I asked How Much Will That GOP Deal on Child Tax Credits Really Cost?
The unfortunate answer is $1.5 trillion over ten years.
Transfer Receipts
What Are Transfer Receipts?
Transfer receipts are government payments for which no services were performed.
With every recession, transfer receipts as a percentage of real personal income rises.
For discussion, please see How Much Do Food Stamps, Social Security, and Medicare Support the Economy?
Some objected to my comment “Transfer receipts are government payments for which no services were performed.” Sorry, but that’s the definition.
Regardless of how anyone feels, Social Security and Medicare are about to explode.
Employment in Age Groups 60+ Will Drop by ~12.5 Million
Due to age demographics, I expect employment in age groups 60 and over to decline by about 12.5 million. Let’s go over the math to see how I arrived at that number.
For discussion, please see In the next 5 years employment in age groups 60+ will drop by ~12.5 million
12.5 million boomers will stop working and start collecting Social Security and Medicare.
US Treasury issuance is poised to soar. The Fed thinks inflation will be under control. I think otherwise.
With such a great economy how come? us primary deficit has been expanding the past year, and even more explosion through 2024?
For every single penny given, 5 Pennie’s should be cut from spending.
Ten million new illegal workers pay into Social Security, but will never receive a dime for it. Just the last three years of Chaos caused by Biden will slow the Social Security “insolvency”.
But they get a lot of the growth in other entitlements, and public assistance.
The bipolar immigrants receive more from the public trough than they give.
Dunno why ,a Orbison song pops up in me mind…..cryyyyyiing oveeer ….the US of A….it is goin fckn bankrupt …. like most, living above their means westerners…..Don t you worry though ; WW3 will sort it ALL out …We are busily working on it !
The US is terrified of entering a war. It would show that the emperor wears no clothes. All our complex expensive weapons systems would fail or be blown up within half a year. Biden has already waved a flag of surrender concerning Red Sea passage. Imagine an actual war.
Offers for Treasuries are not the same as bids, and there was NEVER any intention of paying off the debt (other than possibly with inflated dollars). The Ponzi scheme ends when we cannot “persuade” others to buy our debt, especially at these low risk-adjusted rates, when we are antagonizing historical buyers like China.
Mish you forgot to mention those special IOUs stuffed into the SSI trust fund. But then those are not growing but being redeemed at an ever faster rate ( and thus transferred to bills, notes and bonds.)
The government ponzi schemes are coming home to roost. That coupled with neocon wars, corporate bailouts and general incompetent and irresponsible government spending have marched the US to the edge of a fiscal cliff. The US is headed for third world status. I suppose that was always the plan, with the oligarchs living in their guarded compounds, venturing out occasionally to grab some cute kids off the street for the sick pleasures. Time to stand up against the Sabbatean oligarch’s plan.
Adam Taggert interviews ex Fed governor Thomas Hoenig. Great and honest discussion of our fiscal problems.
link to youtu.be
well well – for past 15-20 years(nirp/zirp) has provided govt to STEAL from retirees/boomers
to extent of $1 TRILLION per year for past 20 years
I’m doing taxes now and had to add few thousand for CD I have
just more STEALING via FIAT $dollar
0% FED Funds rate and a 10% ten tear treasury bond yield very possible. The FEDs long term terminal rate is 0%.
Few believe it, but 10% still may not entice investment in a losing business known as the Federal government.
Most of the population peak of the boomers has already signed up for SS.
link to bankrate.com
56% take SS before FRA, and a full quarter at FRA. The born in ’57 crowd is reaching FRA now, and the ’58 crowd reaches FRA starting this fall.
The ’59 cohort signs up for Medicare this year.
The Control P button is going to take a beating.
Re “In the next 5 years … 12.5 million boomers will stop working and start collecting Social Security and Medicare.” … and will be replaced by a near-equivalent number of slightly younger workers who are now 5 years older where the so-called boomers used to be.
“12.5 million boomers will stop working and start collecting Social Security and Medicare.” I think this sounds worse than it really is because there will also be many who die off in the same time frame and no longer receive benefits. The net difference is what matters, which I’m sure will increase, but not by 12.5 million.
In 2022, about 3.4 million people started drawing Social Security. Multiply by 5, and you get about 17 million. The 12.5 million figure already takes many/most deaths into account.
Since billionaires only get the same $250k FDIC protection on their savings in banks, dont we owe them an opportunity to get the same protections on higher amounts, like with Treasuries? This way, even the rich are protected. Its the least we can do for everything the rich have done for us ….
Silicon Valley Bank bailout way back in 2023.
“How Much Treasury Issuance Does the US Add Every Month to Finance Debt?”
I feet this is a rhetorical question.
So I will offer a rhetorical answer.
They always – always – issue “enough.”
Often they seem to issue more than necessary.
From time to time they issue way the hell more than they should.
would you please show a chart of the monthly debt service payments, going back 10 or 20 years and coming forward up to date…..I see you are already excluding the debts being held by the Federal Reserve, thats fine…….
Re “I see you are already excluding the debts being held by the Federal Reserve, that’s fine” …
No. It used to be fine, back when the all interest on those was paid back to US Treasury. But you need to look again at what’s going on.
Nowadays the Federal Reserve is paying out 5%+ in Interest on Reserves, to banks with reserve deposits… that never used to be a thing, and where is that Interest coming from? Seems to me that Interest on Reserves reduces remittances to US Treasury. In other words, interest which rightfully belongs to the taxpayers appears to be going now to the bankers.
This ain’t right, the Fed is way out of its lane, acting far outside its original mandated scope.
This is exactly right. FED is acting like gangsters now. Way way outside of where they are allowed by making up new processess and instruments out of whole cloth.
Gangster Rap: Raise the Debt Ceiling
link to m.youtube.com
“Daddy if we need more money for better Christmas presents, cant we just print more?”
– Hank age 8
“Dad if the government needs more money to fix roads and buildings, cant they just print more?”
– Hank age 14
Apparently duhmerica and other idiot nations have raised young and naive and never answered those questions properly or answered them at all. So now the idiots and “economists” believe its perfectly fine to employ the simple solutions of an 8 year old
WE ARE F’d
This will continue as long as grandchildren and great-grandchildren go along with it.
Those dumb Americans were the baby boomer who rigged everything for themselves and screwed their kids.
Well. I guess this will be the real world experiment of MMT. Oh wait, that was Argentina.
Argentina is by no means the first.