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Comment by motters | Hacker News Reader

I also found this article to be pretty much incomprehensible. It lacks conciseness and clarity. What are they suggesting will happen to the US economy in 2010?

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They are suggesting that the US Government needs to borrow a very large amount of money in 2010. To do this, one of three things needs to occur.

1) Another round of quantitative easing (Fed increases the money supply) This will lead to a dollar collapse, or at the very least, a severe dollar devaluation, which is generally not good for the economy.

2) Fed raises interest rates. With higher interest rates, more people are willing to buy treasuries, and so, there's more money coming in to pay the bills coming due in 2010. Higher interest rates are generally not good for the economy, particularly if it's already sick.

3) US Government engineers a stock market collapse, to send people scurrying to the safety of treasuries (and thereby allowing government to borrow what they need to). Of course, stock market collapses are generally bad for the economy.

So, in summary, I'd say they are predicting that the U.S. economy will have a rough 2010.

They also mentioned how corporations sold very few bonds in the first two quarters of 2009, so I am imagining that the US Gov is not the only player that needs to sell a lot of bonds next year.

Thanks for this... Interesting article but not the easiest read.

Also that because this is a global recession, every country is focused on revitalizing their own economy, especially developing countries (i.e. emerging markets). Thus the global demand for US Treasuries in 2010, especially among EMs, who have historically been larger purchasers of US Treasuries, will also fall, placing more pressure on the US government to raise cash domestically.

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