I wish the western allies would dump their US bonds to drive bond yields into the ground and threaten US budgets, like the military one, that relying on cheap debt.
But this is a difficult decision to make, do you sacrifice possible (less likely) future earnings to destabilize a super power to save it from fascism but in turn risking a power vacuum to your disadvantage?
Id take this gamble but im a mere democratic citizen, that doesnt care about global pro-fascism support, like other right leaning governments do.
>I wish the western allies would dump their US bonds to drive bond yields into the ground
Dumping bonds would increase supply and drive down prices, but that increases yields because yields is the difference between the price you paid vs the face value of the bond.
*Bond yields for the US.
When US bonds enter the secondary market at a discount, buyers are inclined to prefer them over the US-offerend ones who need to raise interest rates to stay competitve, so making them more expensive for the US.
Bond yield is the return an investor will realize on a bond, so driving down prices decreases yields. Sure, it can increase the absolute value of yield as it heads into the negative...
No, because "yield" almost always refers to yield to maturity.
Undermining the USD doesn't help. Vacuum politics are not better. Vacuum politics lead to where we are today. Too many years of choosing "the least bad option" doesn't lead to a good place.
Let's take all this negative energy and do something better than criticize. Let's harness the energy into good action. What's something we all can agree is good for everybody and start a discussion around that? I'm not saying all crticism is a bad thing. I'd just like to see us all work together to accomplish something good.
I'll try to get the ball rolling, but if somebody has a better ball, I'm happy to go there.
I prefer free trade. I think everybody benefits if we lower trade barriers. But it needs to be "fair". Allowing corporation A to dump hazardous refuse cheaply into the river, but denying the same to corporation B is not fair to B and not all around good. So are there any good ideas about how to allow goods from different jurisdictions to compete by the same rules without Nationalistic interference?
They hardly need to dump them. Merely not buy as much as they're expected to.
It may have happened during the week of "liberation day" when tariffs were announced, resulting in reduced bill buys.
https://fortune.com/2025/05/11/bond-vigilantes-most-powerful...
Unfortunately there are all kinds of interdependencies that would make such a move quite risky. But you're right in that that is one way in which the screws can be put on.
On the other hand, continuing to hold the bonds might also be risky...