- cross-posted to:
- BoycottUnitedStates@europe.pub
- cross-posted to:
- BoycottUnitedStates@europe.pub
Investors are selling off bonds from the U.S. government, as part of a trade known as “Sell America.”
The United States government has had to pay more to borrow in the global debt markets. On Wednesday, the Treasury department found that there was tepid demand for an auction for $20 billion worth of bonds, and ended up paying a slightly higher interest rate (or yield) than expected.
This has spooked markets. Yields on 30-year U.S. Treasuries have spiked above 5% this week — an unusual, and unsettling, surge in the price that the U.S. government pays on its long-term debt. An increase in bond yields is particularly damaging to the economy because it jacks up the interest rates on many things that consumers pay, such as on mortgages and other loans.
That’s insane, here (Denmark) we can borrow to purchase a house and pay over 30 years at 4% fixed rate interest rate!! https://www.totalkredit.dk/boliglan/nyhedsoversigt/2025/05/renteudsigten/
So the US government has worse credit rating than an average house buyer in Denmark. 😱 🤣 🤡
PS
before Trump took over the presidency, USA was one of the best performing economies in the world!
I feel like trump could completely destroy the economy and cause the US to split apart and fall into ruin, and people would still think the Republicans are “good for the economy”
Yes it’s crazy! 😜
But that’s propaganda for you. People fall for it, even when the evidence is there to show otherwise.
If this ends up in the Balkanization of the US, it’s gonna be the blue coastal and some Midwest states that are actually economically productive (perhaps as some sort of related-but-technically-separate merged regional unions), and then the south + flyover states descending into 3rd world status.
And like… I’m kinda over giving a shit about confeds. Have the day you voted for.
Edit: geoeconomic idea for Canadia: invest more in US>CA>US transit routes. Make a great-circle-pathed rail line from near Seattle to VT/NH/Maine, with a spur down towards Buffalo too, perhaps.
Problem is, the US only really works when every state is in sync. Economies of scale and all that. Stuff will be a lot more expensive if you are just buying for the west coast and Colorado. and you’ll have people from fucked up states trying to move to good states, bringing their terrible ideas.
And then the non-shit states will have ✨ immigration and customs ✨ for all the white supremacists and y’all qaeda types.
All I mean is that there is a LOT of stuff in the “Find Out” chapter of this book if all these chucklefucks insist on exploring the story in its entirety.
what do you wanna name the West Coast bloc when the us collapses? I’m partial to 2Pacistan
Pacifica.
lol
More seriously, the United Pacific States.
Us over in the upper right corner can be the Arcadian Union
I can see Texas being relatively well off. Quality of life for the poor is going to drop, but the state has a relatively diversified economy.
I could legitimately see Texas bringing back slavery if they become their own country, tbh
Probably, likely starting as a prison sentence.
That’s actually a real thing at a bunch of corporate prisons here in the states, particularly in the south. They’ll “rent out” inmates as laborers.
Irony is dead.
Wasn’t it Texas talking about how people should die for the economy?
But they already have 3rd world status outcomes for maternal mortality, so don’t expect it will get better for the middle class. But I’m sure the rich will get richer!
I’m not expecting it to get better for the middle class. However, Texas has enough resource extraction and high value manufacturing where the state probably could weather independence.
People confuse being a dick to poor people with being “good for the economy”
Insert the meme about eggs and how previously it’s the pres fault but now there’s an explanation because it’s thier pres.
IIRC during his first presidency our credit rating was downgraded from AAA to AA. This mentally impaired baboon is going to bankrupt us, just like he did to all his companies.
I just heard the cost of maintaining the current debt is about $1 trillion per year!
Now with worse credit rating that price will go up, and with the bill to cut taxes the deficit will grow even faster, adding further to the cost.
8 years ago, I bought a house at 3.25% interest on a 30 year loan. We are currently looking to move and interest rates are damn near 7% because of all the fuckery going on and it is probably going to keep going up since no one trusts anything in the economy right now.
I’d hate to have to buy a house in USA right now. High interest rates and I’d worry about the possibility of a collapse in house prices too.
That’s unlikely to happen, and in my layperson’s understanding, that’s probably as bad as a collapse in housing prices.
The U.S. housing market is currently supply constrained, according to this Brookings podcast.
Between the above supply constraints, corporations/venture capital funds snapping up houses, yo-yoing tariffs either driving up costs or creating uncertainty for builders, and climate change rendering millions of homes uninsurable/unfixable in case of disaster, the demand will only increase.
At the same time, a weakening dollar and soaring rates will make houses more expensive to buy and finance.
There will be a real-estate reckoning. I just don’t see it happening irrespective of other factors. I’m more worried about people who don’t have a house or don’t have some way to protect themselves from the economic hell that has yet to unfold.
Interesting, I never thought of it that way, I just thought bad economy would lead to lower house prices.
Yeah - I mean. I’m not an economic analyst by any means, but a lot of people keep expecting a housing market “correction” in the U.S., but one keeps not materializing.
Usually consumer sentiment is self-fulfilling, but the market and the government seem intent on white knuckling their way through this, through whatever shenanigans they have to pull. Ultimately, I sort of think a hyperinflation scenario is becoming more likely.
Yeah that’s where we are at, sellers still think they are worth covid prices and the broader market is in complete chaos. If we weren’t out of room from having a smaller house with 2 kids, I would be more receptive to sticking it out but the chaos has become less manageable so we are looking for more room despite not really wanting to make any decisions right now.
This is the situation I’m in. We’re pretty much forced to, to move in my wife’s disabled mom. And still when we find a house we kinda like there are four bids on it above asking price, made sight unseen.
Around here (houston metroplex) there is not a bidding war but sellers are acting like there is or should be one. There are several houses we liked that have been on the market for upwards of half a year and the sellers are unwilling to negotiate on prices that are significantly higher than market value or prices of comps. We had an offer on a house that we walked away from recently where the seller outright refused to negotiate on price after the inspection found it needed a new roof and 2 new ac units despite being priced higher than it should have been already.
Can you take out a mortgage and use it to buy 30-year US treasuries?
Yeah you can do this. However, it’s not typically profitable, as large financial institutions will bot it until the bond yields drop. The reason it’s profitable here is because bankers are pricing in the (high) probability that in 30 years the US won’t exist to pay out.
In prior periods this was often possible, it’s called arbitrage. But now our markets are essentially automated and there’s little opportunity for humans to do it.
No it needs to be on real estate in Denmark to get that kind of loan.
Given that some Danish savings accounts had negative interest for a while, I’d believe it.
When we bought our house a few years before COVID we paid 0.5% interest on our fixed rate loan. But it wasn’t long after, that you could loan to buy a house at negative rates! But those were not the fixed rates. But fun times. 😋
And yes bank accounts also had negative interest rates, but usually you were spared if you had less than $30k in the bank.
Lols :) Clown world…