The U.S. Treasury said on Wednesday it will resume issuing 52-week bills after a seven-year break, as budget deficits swell due to slowing revenues and higher spending in a sluggish economy.
The Treasury, announcing its quarterly refunding plans, said it would sell $21 billion of 10-year notes and 30-year bonds. It also said it would pay down about $53 billion of maturing debt in the auctions next week.
The Treasury retired the 52-week bills in February 2001, when the United States was running budget surpluses after a decade-long economic expansion.

It is now adding the bill to its debt offering lineup just one year after it retired the 3-year note amid better-than-expected tax revenues produced by booming corporate profits and capital gains.


The Japanese and Chinese just can't wait to buy these. Eh? They will buy ONLY if the US lets them flood us with exports and they gain a good profit return. How will we do this if our own consumers are being consumed by inflation? Warning: here comes the Horns of Dilemma. We are trapped. We can't just inflate our way to happiness and wealth. We can't lure the nations destroying our industrial base into buying our bonds if we have rates that are 500 points below the real rate of inflation! As well as weakening the dollar tremendously. Japan has kept their own rates 700 points below the real rate of inflation. I read about various things like noodles or gasoline shooting up 40% in price this last six months over there! Noodles that went for 100 yen are now suddenly selling for 140 yen, just for example. Wages are falling and this is a terrible mess for the people there.


The Treasury cited spending on tax rebates associated with the government's $152 billion fiscal stimulus plan as a key reason for raising borrowing expectations over the next year.
The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee -- made up of 22 primary government bond dealers -- said in a report to the Treasury that a recent survey showed the deficit for fiscal 2008 will average a record $414 billion, with some economists forecasting the gap would exceed $500 billion -- more than tripling last year's $163 billion deficit.

In addition to lower revenues from a slowing economy and increased spending, the Federal Reserve has redeemed Treasury holdings and made some outright sales in recent months to support its efforts to boost financial market liquidity and ease the worst credit crisis in decades.

This has resulted in an additional $200 billion in bills and coupon issuances so far this fiscal year, the Treasury said. Municipal bond issuers are also buying fewer State and Local Government Series securities, or SLGS, forcing the Treasury to increase issuance of higher-yielding bills, notes and bonds.

The Treasury said it may also consider other moves such as increasing coupon issuance and reintroducing the 3-year note or other maturities, if borrowing needs continue to grow.


The banking collapse is now becoming the infinitely more dangerous government funding collapse. The Chinese are in a very foul mood right now and demanding they bankroll our $1600 hand out to all Americans while screaming about how terrible Chinese goods are means China won't buy our debts! Japan is selling, China won't buy. So who will? Argentina?


US Fed Selling Treasuries as Federal Budget Deficit Doubles

By Paul L. Kasriel

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the fiscal year 2008 federal budget deficit will increase to $396 billion from $162 billion in fiscal year 2007. So, federal borrowing in this fiscal year is projected to be 2.4 times as much as last year. And on top of this increased federal borrowing, we now have the Federal Reserve providing $601 billion less support to the Treasury securities market at an annual rate. Is it any wonder why the yields on Treasury securities are rising now? You might want to put your IRS tax-rebate manna into some sort of saving account for your children so that they can pay the higher taxes needed to service the public debt that is being incurred to bailout imprudent borrowers and lenders in the recent housing bubble.

How can our official interest rate be 2% under these circumstances? Isn't it painfully obvious? I saw a TV commercial today. It was all about how people could get unsecured loans. Because I am a speed reader as well as typist, I was able to read the fine print at the bottom of the commercial that flashed on screen literally for less than a second. The rate was 99.25%. WOW. And we have no inflation? I guessed it would be 33% and that rate had me totally astonished! Talk about blatant usury. But then, the real cheats here are the Federal Reserve officers who think interest rates are all about goosing the economy, not tracking inflation. They can't say, 'We will notice inflation next year or maybe ten years from now.' It is very much 'now' now!