Tag Archives: treasuries

What If China Dumps US Treasury Bonds? Paul Krugman inches toward MMT

By L. Randall Wray

Our deficit hysterians love to raise the specter of China. Supposedly Uncle Sam is at the mercy of the Chinese, who have a stranglehold on the supply of dollars necessary to keep the US government above water. If the Chinese suddenly decided to stop lending those scare dollars, Uncle Sam would be forced to default.

Can anyone, please, explain to me how the sovereign issuer of the US dollar—Uncle Sam—could ever run out of his supply of dollars? Please, give me one coherent explanation of how that could happen.

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Life After Debt

By Doug Bowles (UMKC)

The CBO’s post-election report released a couple of days ago (apparently in support of advancing the prospects for a Grand Bargain, aka the Great Betrayal) is grounded in relatively pessimistic projections with regard to federal deficit and debt growth.  (See this powerful critique of CBO’s methodology by Follette and Sheiner)  In assessing just how much credibility these projections deserve to be accorded in our policy debate, it might also instructive to remember how wildly optimistic the CBO projections were not so very long ago with regard to complete elimination of the federal debt. Continue reading