yesterday:
The long end of the curve is rising because investors correctly price the trajectory of U.S. debt and deficits. Instead of confronting the structural problem — runaway spending — the administration is trying to jawbone and then literally buy the price signal away. This is the opposite of laissez-faire. It is the referee becoming a player, subsidizing its own borrowing at the expense of savers and future taxpayers. The dollar's immediate decline shows markets see through the tactic: if the Treasury must intervene to keep yields down, the underlying fiscal picture is worse than advertised.
Bessent Buys the Long End — Treasury Debt Buybacks Signal Panic Over Yield Spike | Eulerpool
https://eulerpool.com/news/economics/bessent-buys-the-long-end-treasury-debt-buybacks-signal-panic-over-yield-spike
today:
Dow tumbles 700 points, S&P 500 falls as Treasury plan to subdue yields fails
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/stock-market-today-live-updates.html?link_source=ta_bluesky_link
Saw that and thought about posting... but decided I complain too much about the debt.
But we need to be real. It's not just runaway spending. It's also an unwillingness to do anything on the revenue side. Bush 41 raised taxes (hard for a Republican even then - "read my lips") and Clinton did a good job on the spending side (hard for a Democrat and much despised on the left for it), but we ran a surplus for the only time in my life.
Now it's unlimited spending and unlimited tax cuts and no willingness to even enforce the tax law we have and collect what's actually due under current law. Multiple estimates from the IRS and other auditors have put the unpaid tax bill at a trillion dollars.
And you know what they say. A trillion here, a trillion there and it starts to add up.