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Comment by jakobnissen | Hacker News Reader

A brief search suggests this is around 1/4000th of the total US treasury market, so if this has any significance at all, it's symbolic.

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1/4000th in this context seems huge to be honest.

If the US paid $8B towards it debt every _day_ it would take over thirteen _years_ (completely ignoring interest accumulation, which isn't realistic) to pay off $38T in debt.

I don't see how this is huge in context, it is indeed symbolic.

Please don't get me wrong here, I am neither advocating the selling or not selling of US bonds. This specific sale just isn't statically significant in a vacuum. If this precipitates a snowball effect of bond-selling, completely different story.

Regarding your last sentence, this isn't happening in a vacuum, and rejecting the risk-free assumption behind US debt seems like a symbol with a lot of information content.

Same point. It would need to increase by: an order of magnitude AND happen every day before it becomes a problem. $8B (actually $260m) isn’t moving markets. $80B/day for a month, that would move the needle.

I understand why people want this to be a bigger deal. It just isn’t. Not yet.

> If the US paid $8B towards it debt every _day_

The US currently borrows an additional $9.5B every _day_ to fund itself.

I think we agree with each other. They borrow more than this paltry amount every single day and nothing changes. Selling less than the daily borrow amount, exactly one time, is a rounding error at best.

> If the US paid $8B towards it debt every _day_ it would take over thirteen _years_ (completely ignoring interest accumulation, which isn't realistic) to pay off $38T in debt.

> I don't see how this is huge in context, it is indeed symbolic.

I think if you approach the average new home buyer and said "We've reduced your bond repayment term to 13 years. Your monthly repayment will not increase" they will certainly consider it more than symbolic.

IOW, 13 years to payback is nothing compared to what we usually see for PE ratios of a bubbling stock, or repayment terms on a large loan, etc - it is definitely much much more impactful than you think.

> This specific sale just isn't statically significant in a vacuum. If this precipitates a snowball effect of bond-selling, completely different story.

I think that's the problem here - we're (all the commenters) trying to determine if this is the first pebble that starts the avalanche. All bank runs (in this case, a run on the debt in US dollars) starts with small but significant withdrawals (i.e. selling your dollars for some other money) that indicate to other holders to get their money out while it is still there to be gotten.

>> A brief search suggests this is around 1/4000th of the total US treasury market, so if this has any significance at all, it's symbolic.

If someone thinks the value of those bonds is going to drop, then selling would have great significance for the seller.

But it might also signify (as in: be a symbol) that European funds are less willing to buy future US bonds, which has a more dramatic impact.

No one wants to be left holding the bag

Every waterfall begins with a drop.

But 99.99% of drops do not cause a waterfall

Drops don't cause waterfalls. Gravity does.

"There have been spontaneous demonstrations amongst the workers voicing their joy and gratitude at our happy new way of life." - Orwell, more or less.

Faith Collapsing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68DJCaqEpDc

Flawless response elevated to performance art by the username.

It seems like if they are trying to put pressure on the US government it might be easier to dump Tesla stock. Maybe the billionaires and MAGA would buy to keep it propped up but if it turned into a selling frenzy musk could be in trouble.

Symbolism has importance

Exactly but it has to be recognized as such. It’s easy to fall into self delusion and make it into some “oh yeah this will be collapse of the US empire, finally” story.

Not, that it also fun to go with that story, but as long as everyone in the room understands it’s sort of a wishful fantasy.

We might, in hindsight, see this as the first signs of the fall but anyone expecting a global empire to just collapse like a building, even in the accelerated pace of the modern world, is going to be disappointed.

This will take years, possibly a decade or more...if the US is, in fact, collapsing.

Not really - it is going to show the world what alternatives people are pursuing as a strategy. Where they put their money will cause others to do the same. And the more people do it, the safer those new assets become. That will cause even more people to make the move.

Note that China has been selling US treasuries for months now (https://www.barrons.com/articles/china-sells-treasuries-9-st...) and there are signs that India has been quietly selling large amounts too. So it feels like the start of something much bigger, a total decoupling from the US due to its unstable politics, foreign policy, and quickly accumulating debt (Trump has added $5 trillion already and may add much more).

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