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Wait, you mean they could go deeper into debt to pay off their debt? I'm not sure that helps.


No, the US can simply create more USD and use it to pay off bond debt. Creation of USD doesn't incur more debt, but does expand the USD monetary base and inject more USD liquidity into global markets. The US doesn't actually need to borrow more to pay off old debt.

To restate: bonds and other loans are literally a policy tool to take in USD from or inject USD into circulation, in order to intentionally change the size of the money supply: "Open market operations (OMO) refers to a central bank buying or selling short-term Treasuries and other securities in the open market in order to influence the money supply." It's not like the central bank actually needs to borrow USD from the money supply; it's literally the issuer of USD and could create more at any time (or take it in and destroy it).

Why can the US do this? Because its bonds are denominated in its own currency, which world investors use. The demand for USD-denominated debt is a major benefit of the USD being the world's main reserve currency.


We'll see how that plays out after Ukraine.




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