How higher interest rates will squeeze government budgets

  • 📰 TheEconomist
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 72 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 32%
  • Publisher: 92%

Loans Loans Headlines News

Loans Loans Latest News,Loans Loans Headlines

Rising borrowing costs will hit taxpayers sooner than you think

government debt seemed to matter less and less even as countries borrowed more and more. Falling interest rates made debts cheap to service even as they grew to levels that would have seemed dangerous a generation before. The pandemic put both trends into overdrive: the rich world borrowed 10.5% of itsin 2020 and another 7.3% in 2021, even as long-term bond yields plunged. Now central banks are raising interest rates to fight inflation and debt is becoming more burdensome.

The third factor is more complex: the maturity of the debt. When governments issue long-dated bonds, they lock in the prevailing interest rate. In 2020 America’s Treasury issued about $200bn-worth of 30-year debt at yields of less than 1.5%, for example. The more long-dated debt, the longer it takes for budgets to take a hit when rates rise. The most common measure of this protection, the weighted average maturity of debt, can be a source of comfort.

A full accounting of interest-rate sensitivity must thus adjust for the holdings of central banks, treating the associated debt as carrying a floating rate of interest. Refreshing thereduces Britain’s interest-rate half-life to just two years, meaning 50% of Britain’s government liabilities will roll on to new interest rates by late-2024. We have also replicated the exercise for bonds and bills issued by governments in America, France, Italy and Japan .

Using tiering to avoid paying banks interest while their funding costs went up would be a tax in disguise. Banks, considered together, have no choice but to hold the reserveshas force-fed into the system. Compelling them to do it for free would simply “transfer the costs [of] to the banking sector,” Sir Paul Tucker, a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, told a parliamentary inquiry in 2021. It would be a form of financial repression which may impair banks’ ability to lend.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

Poor people, they already have problems with money

How much of the borrowing cost can be offset by increasing the yield from public assets? via imfcapdev

Well 😅

Why does the Fed keep raising interest rates and lead us into a recession- consumers have to pay more interest on their credit card, auto loans - hence they have less money for other consumer spending like dining out and spending at small businesses

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 6. in LOANS

Loans Loans Latest News, Loans Loans Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Emerging markets: inflation, shortages and interest rates cripple economies\n\t\t\tExpert insights, analysis and smart data help you cut through the noise to spot trends,\n\t\t\trisks and opportunities.\n\t\t\n\t\tJoin over 300,000 Finance professionals who already subscribe to the FT. Turkish Greek Turkey Greece Cyprus Cypriot Kurdish Kurdistan KurdishCulture GreekCulture TurkishCulture. The IronCurtain was too thin and at the wrong angle. SpeakersCorner HydePark WhiteHomeland EuropeanRacialPartition HardPower
Source: FT - 🏆 113. / 51 Read more »