Bond Vigilantes Confront Obama as Housing Falters
For the first time since another Democrat occupied the White House, investors from Beijing to Zurich are challenging a president’s attempts to revive the economy with record deficit spending. Fifteen years after forcing Bill Clinton to abandon his own stimulus plans, the so-called bond vigilantes are punishing Barack Obama for quadrupling the budget shortfall to $1.85 trillion. By driving up yields on U.S. debt, they are also threatening to derail Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s efforts to cut borrowing costs for businesses and consumers.
Er, it's not the lightweight in the White House who is getting "punished" for his spendthrift ways - it's us as usual.
The 1.4-percentage-point rise in 10-year Treasury yields this year pushed interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages to above 5 percent for the first time since before Bernanke announced on March 18 that the central bank would start printing money to buy financial assets. Treasuries have lost 5.1 percent in their worst annual start since Merrill Lynch & Co. began its Treasury Master Index in 1977.
“The bond-market vigilantes are up in arms over the outlook for the federal deficit,” said Edward Yardeni, who coined the term in 1984 to describe investors who protest monetary or fiscal policies they consider inflationary by selling bonds. He now heads Yardeni Research Inc. in Great Neck, New York. “Ten trillion dollars over the next 10 years is just an indication that Washington is really out of control and that there is no fiscal discipline whatsoever.”
No kidding, Mr. Yardeni, but I think the characterization of these folks as "vigilantes" while catchy, gives what is going on the wrong flavor. They are merely investors, primarily foreign and often governments, who can't be strongarmed like the GM and Chrysler bondholders and are worried about the way the printing presses are running overtime in Washington.
The bond vigilantes are being led by international investors, who own about 51 percent of the $6.36 trillion in marketable Treasuries outstanding, up from 35 percent in 2000, according to data compiled by the Treasury.
“The vigilante group is different this time around,” said Mark MacQueen, a partner and money manager at Austin, Texas- based Sage Advisory Services Ltd., which oversees $7.5 billion. “It’s major foreign creditors. This whole idea that we need to spend our way out of our problems is being questioned.”
MacQueen, who started in the bond business in 1981 at Merrill Lynch, has been selling Treasuries and moving into corporate and inflation-protected debt for the last few months.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in March that China was “worried” about its $767.9 billion investment and was looking for government assurances that the value of its holdings would be protected.
The nation bought $5.6 billion in bills and sold $964 million in U.S. notes and bonds in February, according to Treasury data released April 15. It was the first time since November that China purchased more securities due in a year or less than longer-maturity debt.
You'd be nuts to buy long term US debt today without an inflation premium (if not a protection mechanism). Looks like inflating away his grotesque deficit isn't going to be an option for ole Mr. Hopey Changey. Still he may try it on the backs of all the average US citizens who aren't savvy or in any position to avoid it. Gee, what would be worse, watching your pension disappear down an inflation black hole or your adjustable rate mortgage spiral into the stratosphere? How about both?
