The 10-year Treasury yield can be thought of as a key barometer of the US dollar-based system
Bond yields move inversely to bond prices. When bond prices fall, bond yields rise
A rising 10-year Treasury yield signals trouble for the US dollar because it means investors are selling Treasuries, which pushes up the US government’s borrowing costs
The 10-year Treasury yield was 3.97% when the war started. Now it is around 4.60%, an increase of roughly 63 basis points.
At today’s debt levels, every 1 basis point increase in the government’s average borrowing cost adds roughly $3.9 billion in annual interest expense. So a 63 bps translates to nearly $250 billion in additional yearly interest costs
Higher yields mean the US government must pay tens or even hundreds of billions more in interest on its debt
At the same time, the global economy faces even greater added costs because Treasury rates serve as the benchmark for borrowing worldwide
Further, if Hormuz remains closed, drastically higher oil prices are all but certain
Higher energy prices mean higher prices across the economy and higher official inflation rates, which means investors will demand still higher yields to compensate
The problem is that interest on the federal debt is already over $1.2 trillion and is now the second-largest item in the budget
War spending is financed largely through debt, which is then, in large part, bought by the central bank with currency it creates out of thin air.
A more accurate equation is: War = Debt = Inflation
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The War Is Accelerating the US Debt Spiral—and Creating an Inflation Crisis