Friday, June 22, 2007

Happy Halloween: Don't say "Boo" for 30 yr Treasuries

We do not need the 30-year bond to meet the government's current financing needs, nor those that we expect to face in coming years. Looking beyond the next few years, as I already observed, we believe that the likely outcome is that the federal government's fiscal position will improve after the temporary setback that we are now experiencing.

There are two less likely outcomes that we have also considered.

First, it is possible that the federal government will return to significant and sustained budget surpluses even more quickly than we now expect. In this event, maintaining current issuance levels of 30-year bonds would be unnecessary and expensive to taxpayers.


The date? October 31, 2001.

Could anyone really have believed this? Surpluses? Sad to read, now.

And then there was this.

Maybe it doesn't matter very much. The 10-year T-bond is the new benchmark, and has been.

It just made me feel nostalgic to think of surpluses. That Halloween, 2001 press release was so confident......

(Nod to JT)

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