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Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

reuters.com

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Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#171

Post by senordevnyc »

nostrademons wrote: post #120
echelon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no way to grow the US economy AI and robotics. Engineering is becoming cheaper. Graphics design is becoming cheaper. Lawyering is becoming cheaper. Entertainment, film, and gaming (not hardware) is becoming cheaper. This will eventually hit manufacturing and logistics and critical inputs. We'll be able to have an entire robotic supply chain domestically save for raw materials. It will hit drug design and m…

It's always possible to make the number go up by divorcing the number from any real-world meaning. I think the "Singularity", as AI proponents call it, will actually happen, and will likely happen pretty close to its predicted date of 2029. It's just that the form it'll take will be "I'll have your AI talk to my AI", AI botnets clickfrauding AI ad networks, AI newspapers serving up content to AI social media users, A…

But in terms of real products that affect people's lives in positive ways, capitalism has a problem. There are going to be fewer real people in the future, which means a shrinking market for everything, which makes it harder to justify technological improvements and amortize their R&D costs over a large market.

I thought the US population was predicted to peak in like 2080.

Also, hasn’t per-capita consumption in real dollars gone up way more than 10x over the last century? So even if the population in 2126 is slightly lower than in 2026, people’s actual consumption could be much higher.

What am I missing?

Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#172

Post by nostrademons »

senordevnyc wrote: post #171
nostrademons wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always possible to make the number go up by divorcing the number from any real-world meaning. I think the "Singularity", as AI proponents call it, will actually happen, and will likely happen pretty close to its predicted date of 2029. It's just that the form it'll take will be "I'll have your AI talk to my AI", AI botnets clickfrauding AI ad networks, AI newspapers serving up content to AI social media users, A…

But in terms of real products that affect people's lives in positive ways, capitalism has a problem. There are going to be fewer real people in the future, which means a shrinking market for everything, which makes it harder to justify technological improvements and amortize their R&D costs over a large market. I thought the US population was predicted to peak in like 2080. Also, hasn’t per-capita consumption in real…

The peak has been moved up by decades in the last year. The 2080 figure is from Nov 2023 [1], before Trump administration cuts in immigration. The Jan 2026 CBO report predicted a peak of 2056 [2]; a similar Institute for Family Studies report from July 2026 [3] predicts a peak in 2054.

The delta is entirely because of immigration. If you count only natural fertility (births - deaths), population growth nearly went negative during COVID (distorted somewhat by the high death rate), briefly recovered, and is predicted to cross again for good in 2030. The Trump administration's signature campaign promise is to clamp down on immigration, and even get an estimated 12-15M illegal immigrants to self-deport. If this happens, the population will immediately shrink. Immigration and immigrant families are what is propping up the population; if you assume net-zero migration (which IIRC was one of the scenarios modeled in the Census projection), the population already peaked in 2023.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IN/HTML/IN123...

[2] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61879

[3] https://ifstudies.org/report-brief/the-demographic-dead-end-...

Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#173

Post by CursedSilicon »

method_capital wrote: post #168
CursedSilicon wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you want "libertarianism" then. Not the original kind, the Ayn Rand kind That always works out well. Until the bears come [1] [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...

He didn't say what he "wanted". We're so blinded by partisan stupidity we can't even be bothered to read, understand, and think anymore.

"This is the thing I think of when X"

"Oh, so what you're describing is Y, actually"

"HE NEVER SAID HE WANTED Y! STUPID PARTISANS!"

Okay buddy

Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#174

Post by haizhung »

rileymat2 wrote: post #166
haizhung wrote: post #162

IMHO this is an effect of the exponentially increasing wealth inequality. We are allowing a tiny elite to hold a larger and larger fraction of the overall wealth, while workers, middle class AND the government are losing more and more of the wealth. Governments, until now, are refusing to tax the uberrich, and continue to squeeze out workers and middle class in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Since this is bound to…

I don't understand how this is a wealth inequality issue, excess capital should cause bond prices to go down not up, as more wealthy are competing for more investments driving bond yields down.

Return of your capital is not important than return on your capital; and if you as a bond buyer are worried that the government can’t pay back your loan at all, you will increase the interest rate on it.

Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#175

Post by stymaar »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #141
stymaar wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don't expect any debate on economic policy in the next presidential campaign either… It's just going to be “should we tax the billionaires” vs “should we save a few basis points of GDP in pensions”, none of which is remotely close to the order of magnitude that's needed to put the country back on its feet.

I am not expecting anything. I left France a long while ago and I am not planning on coming back anytime soon except for holidays. > the order of magnitude that's needed to put the country back on its feet The amount of reforms needed in France could fit in an encyclopedia. LFI or the RN will not fix this mess and the center who has been in power for 10 years is all but useless. The old center-left and center-right p…

France doesn't need “reforms” though, quite the opposite.

France needs a project, and a project behind which the French population can rally. Because unpopular “reforms” carried on by centrists with a Thatcher envy is all we got over the past 25 years and that's what got us where we are now, with no growth and a decimated political landscape.

The said can be said about Germany and the UK as well, by the way.

Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#176

Post by brainwad »

rurp wrote: post #161
brainwad wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy recently issued USD-denominated bonds, which are directly comparable, and the yields are much higher. The 30y ones are at 6.21% YTM now, vs 5.37% for US 30y Ts. For comparison, Alphabet borrows cheaper than Italy: 6.02% on 2060 maturities.

It's wild to me that a private company in a volatile industry like Google can borrow so cheaply for such a long period. I get that they have been wildly profitable and powerful in recent years, but modern history is absolutely stuffed with companies that seemed invincible at one point but then were dead or dying a decade later. Tech in particular has an awful lot of churn. There's isn't a single tech company in the w…

Yeah, but on the other hand the borrowing is relatively small compared to the company, so even if the company shrinks by 90% it will still be serviceable. Many western governments including the US have ridiculous debt loads at multiples of their GDPs; such high debt loads push up their interest rates. If you look at a less indebted country, like say Switzerland (22% of GDP, vs 115% for the US), then the premium paid by Alphabet over government bonds is a bit higher: 2.04% on 25y Alphabet CHF bonds vs 0.71/0.62% on 20y/30y Swiss government bonds.

Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#177

Post by senordevnyc »

nostrademons wrote: post #172
senordevnyc wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in terms of real products that affect people's lives in positive ways, capitalism has a problem. There are going to be fewer real people in the future, which means a shrinking market for everything, which makes it harder to justify technological improvements and amortize their R&D costs over a large market. I thought the US population was predicted to peak in like 2080. Also, hasn’t per-capita consumption in real…

The peak has been moved up by decades in the last year. The 2080 figure is from Nov 2023 [1], before Trump administration cuts in immigration. The Jan 2026 CBO report predicted a peak of 2056 [2]; a similar Institute for Family Studies report from July 2026 [3] predicts a peak in 2054. The delta is entirely because of immigration. If you count only natural fertility (births - deaths), population growth nearly went ne…

Fair point, although I think it’s pretty hard to predict what immigration will look like over the next few decades. But yes, the peak could come in a couple decades, not a half century, so stipulated.

Does that meaningfully change whether capitalism today is facing a shrinking market?

Any thoughts on the second part of my comment?

Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#178

Post by stymaar »

dgellow wrote: post #116
stymaar wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don't expect any debate on economic policy in the next presidential campaign either… It's just going to be “should we tax the billionaires” vs “should we save a few basis points of GDP in pensions”, none of which is remotely close to the order of magnitude that's needed to put the country back on its feet.

It will be all about immigration and cost of life crisis. And of course the general finger pointing at the EU bogeyman

Indeed, and a bunch of culture war issues imported straight from the US by the people who pretends to care the most about French “identity”. But I was talking about the economy-related topics.

Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#179

Post by throw0101c »

kvuj wrote: post #163
throw0101c wrote: post #44

Italian and Greek bonds now have lower yields/rates (i.e., considered lower risk(?)) than US bonds: * https://www.investing.com/rates-bonds/

Couldn't be bothered to read the article before commenting? > James Bilson, global fixed income strategist at Schroders, said fiscal policy and debt sustainability are crucial for bond markets and the current rise in U.S. yields is not yet a sign of increasing sovereign credit risk. > The cost of insuring U.S. sovereign debt against the risk of default, as reflected by credit default swaps, has fallen to its lowest s…

> Couldn't be bothered to read the article before commenting?

I've been not-reading articles since the early days of Slashdot.

Re: Global bond yields hit 2008 highs, raising stakes for big borrowers

#180

Post by toomuchtodo »

echelon wrote: post #96
toomuchtodo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provide a date and resolution criteria, I'll bet you $10k to a charity of the winner's choice via longbets.org. This is cope imho. Words are cheap. We'll get this about the same time as Full Self Driving ("Supervised"). "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely." [1] Your comment is hopeful sci-fi aspirations, without any guarantees. [1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/823727035088416768 - January 23rd, 2017 https://en.wiki…

Make it $100k and pay it to me directly. I'm not a fan of Musk, but his driverless cars are already driving around in my city alongside Waymo. His rocketship thing will probably be delivering tanks to the other side of the world within hours if the DoD gets their way. I'm getting more work done every day than in entire months pre-2026, and I've done my share of hard engineering. I think you're the one coping. They ju…

> I'm not a fan of Musk, but his driverless cars are already driving around in my city alongside Waymo.

NHTSA orders Tesla to prove its Cybercab is legal to sell, under oath - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49728202 - September 2026

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