The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling • Hacker News Board

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#61

Post by ghtbircshotbe » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 11:34 AM UTC

orsenthil wrote: post #27

jmyeet wrote: post #2

As everyone should know by now, the US government runs a massive deficit, that is the difference between tax receipts (and other income) minus expenses. The current US public debt is hovering around $40T and the annual deficit is pushing toards $2T. A lot of that $40T was borrowed at lower interest rates but let's assume for argument's sake that it was borrowed at 5%. That's $2T in interest alone every year. There's…

The interesting thing is, US media, US social media driven by Big Tech algorithms, Google Search, nytimes, reddit, Social newsfeeds of students, teens, teachers is not exposing this at all. It feels like we are self-contained information exposure bubble too. Only a physical visit outside of US, and looking at the information from outside of US will give a picture of the mistakes being made here.

The national debt was in the news a lot in the 90s and 00s and the sky didn't fall. Now both parties have decided they don't care, and I'm sure they'll find other things to blame when growth shrivels etc.

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#62

Post by RickJWagner » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 12:12 PM UTC

ghtbircshotbe wrote: post #61

orsenthil wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing is, US media, US social media driven by Big Tech algorithms, Google Search, nytimes, reddit, Social newsfeeds of students, teens, teachers is not exposing this at all. It feels like we are self-contained information exposure bubble too. Only a physical visit outside of US, and looking at the information from outside of US will give a picture of the mistakes being made here.

The national debt was in the news a lot in the 90s and 00s and the sky didn't fall. Now both parties have decided they don't care, and I'm sure they'll find other things to blame when growth shrivels etc.

Even before then it was widely discussed. There was even a Schoolhouse Rock song, “Tyrannosaurus Debt”.

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#63

Post by UltraSane » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 12:18 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #57

UltraSane wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did he mean then? Israel exists as a Jewish state so I really don't know what people mean when they say it.

Zionism can be both the nationalist movement for making Israel a Jewish state as well as the interpretation that such a movement is inherently colonial and racist. So Zionism for Israelis might just mean "we support and advocate for a Jewish state in the land of Israel" which also includes two-state solutions but it can mean "we are a colonial and ethno-religious racist state" to the ones being displaced by the movem…

Using the same word for two completely different things is very confusing.

Also the Arabs took the land from the Byzantine empire in the 7th century AD.

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#64

Post by lowbloodsugar » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:59 PM UTC

itake wrote: post #41

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mugger stabs your friend and runs off. They are bleeding out. You do nothing. That’s what he’s saying. The fact is Biden did nothing to prevent this. Including not locking the fucker up. Not stacking the Supreme Court after the Ginsberg shitshow.

I hear you, but I really don't want the government flip flopping every 4-8 years on policy. "stuck in the past" vibes vs making progress

“I do not like flip flopping, so I’m gonna be a fascist too.”

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#65

Post by jmyeet » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

Panzer04 wrote: post #11

jmyeet wrote: post #2

As everyone should know by now, the US government runs a massive deficit, that is the difference between tax receipts (and other income) minus expenses. The current US public debt is hovering around $40T and the annual deficit is pushing toards $2T. A lot of that $40T was borrowed at lower interest rates but let's assume for argument's sake that it was borrowed at 5%. That's $2T in interest alone every year. There's…

American fixed 30y mortgages actually make interest rate policy much less effective, in theory. In most countries with normal mortgages, raising rates fairly immediately transmits through to the rest of the economy, because it affects the mortgage market. This isn't true in America, because everyone quite reasonably is able to get these insane mortgage products with literally no downside risk - if rates go up, you do…

I would say 30 year fixed mortgage is one of the few things the US does right. Housing shouldn't be an investment and you shouldn't be able to hoard land to raise prices. As Xi Jinping said, houses are for living, not for speculation [1].

We have an affordability crisis. What good would increasing mortgage payments do when housing is one of the biggest single expenses? The point of raising interest rates is to take the economy off the boil, essentially by cutting down on discretionary spending. Grocery prices are up 30%+ since the pandemic. Are people eating too much? Can you eat less? Consumer demand isn't doing that. Various forms of dynamic pricing (eg surveillance pricing) are doing that. The only reason for dynamic pricing to exist is to raise prices.

Beef prices in particular are through the roof and the only reason is price collusion. Meat packers have been sued by states about it. The root cause? AI. They're using the same AI system to set prices so the AI company has access to all the pricing information. That's the 2020s version of collusion. It's the same thing with RealPage and landlords. And something's gotta give. This system is unsustainable.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houses_are_for_living,_not_for...

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#66

Post by itake » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #64

itake wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you, but I really don't want the government flip flopping every 4-8 years on policy. "stuck in the past" vibes vs making progress

“I do not like flip flopping, so I’m gonna be a fascist too.”

Who are you quoting?

I've voted democrat in every election since I was 18.

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#67

Post by piva00 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

UltraSane wrote: post #63

piva00 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zionism can be both the nationalist movement for making Israel a Jewish state as well as the interpretation that such a movement is inherently colonial and racist. So Zionism for Israelis might just mean "we support and advocate for a Jewish state in the land of Israel" which also includes two-state solutions but it can mean "we are a colonial and ethno-religious racist state" to the ones being displaced by the movem…

Using the same word for two completely different things is very confusing. Also the Arabs took the land from the Byzantine empire in the 7th century AD.

> Also the Arabs took the land from the Byzantine empire in the 7th century AD.

A historical event from 1300 years ago is a bit irrelevant to contemporary issues.

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#68

Post by jmyeet » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

nikau wrote: post #12

jmyeet wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the point you're making about blind devotion to Trump but the reality is that Biden is not free from blame here, in four ways: 1. Trump in his first term created the Abraham Accords that directly contributed to the genocide that has since happened (by excluding Palestinians from the process). Biden did not reverse any of that because he is an avowed Zionist; 2. Trump blew up the JCPOA that sought to incl…

I can't understand the logic behind party A did something, and then blame party B for not undoing it. Not everything is a simple ctrl-z, and the blame lays squarely on who implemented it.

It's called the ratchet effect [1]. In our modern political paradigm, conservatives torch the economy, introduce heinous policies and give massive tax breaks to the wealthy until their popularity drops enough that Democrats get voted in and... do nothing. This has several names such as "controlled opposition" and the "mirage of dissent" [2].

As an example, take the current Iran war. There's very little opposition in establishment politics to the actual war. What you get instead are process objections, such as the president not consulting Congress. Objecting to the process is a way of appearing to be in opposition without being in opposition.

This was ultimately why Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election. "Trump bad" isn't a platform that people get excited for. People are asking "what are you going to do about it?" and her answer was... nothing. It was the culmination of years of what's been called "lesser evil voting" or "harm reduction voting". Democrats have adopted a platform of just not being quite as bad as the Republicans, probably because they have the exact same donors. And millions of voters stayed home in 2024 rather than vote for the status quo.

So back to the JCPOA, Biden should've done something but did nothing. Because he likes what Trump did. He agrees with it. And so do most Democrats. That's the point.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_effect

[2]: https://ia800503.us.archive.org/5/items/mirage-of-dissent-th...

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#69

Post by jmyeet » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 3:15 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #20

jmyeet wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the point you're making about blind devotion to Trump but the reality is that Biden is not free from blame here, in four ways: 1. Trump in his first term created the Abraham Accords that directly contributed to the genocide that has since happened (by excluding Palestinians from the process). Biden did not reverse any of that because he is an avowed Zionist; 2. Trump blew up the JCPOA that sought to incl…

> At any point in the last more than a year of his term, Biden could've ended that conflict with a phone call. He did not because, again, he is an avowed Zionist. No he could not have. Israel has been a contentious ally for the US, especially while a Democrat has been POTUS because they are actually independently capable of supporting themselves and have their own internal economy and military industrial complex. The…

Israel isn't independently capable of doing anything. When Israel was created it was a poor backwater. France and the USSR were early allies. I mean Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty and killed ~34 American servicemen in the 1960s. It's widely suspected that Israeli spies or sympathizers stole weapons grade uranium from the US (ie the NUMEC Affair). But this all changed after the Six Day War in 1967 and Israel became an American imperial project to destabilize an oil-rich region, to stop Pan-Arabn Nationalism.

But the history has always been that the US could order Israel to do whatever it wanted from Eistenhower telling Israel to get the hell out of Sinai to Biden telling Israel to knockj it off in Gaza in 2021 [1] and plenty in between (eg US involvement in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 led to Moshe Dayan telling Golda Meir they had to stop because the Americans said so, basically).

The parallel for this is apartheid South Africa. That regime collapsed when it became clear that domestic political pressure was forcing the US to withdraw support. The exact same thing would happen in Israel. Israel gets billions in direct aid and, more importantly, the military is completely dependent on US arms shipments and weapon systems.

If Biden had told Bibi "we're going to stop arms shipments if you don't stop this" it would've ended immediately.

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/19/biden-tells-israels-netanyah...

Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling

#70

Post by deepsun » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #37

deepsun wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is all being exacerbated by the disastrous war in Iran No, why? US is an exporter, not importer of oil, so any price increase of crude oil is good for US. Maybe not consumers, but government (Venezuela had literal amine while exporting a lot of oil and honoring all of the international debt payments). So US must have more money to service its international debt.

What happens to the local price of oil if you are able to export the oil at a much higher price?

It goes up. E.g. Washington state has a lot of cheap hydroelectricity, but once they started selling it to other states, it's local prices grew up a lot.

But I'm talking about budget deficit: more money in -- easier to service debt.