Traditionally, US treasuries — bills: short-term; notes: medium-term (2-10 years); bonds: long-term (20-30 years) — have been considered one of the safest investments around. In 2021, an investment website wrote about The Safety of U.S. Treasuries and Government Bonds:
U.S. Treasuries are generally considered one of the safest—if not the safest—investments in the global financial markets.
Lots of countries agree. The chart above is from 2018, and as of mid-2024, foreign countries overall were holding around 8 trillion dollars of US treasuries. (While the chart is a little out of date, it is useful for a reason I’ll explain below.)
Musk and his teenage henchmen are putting the Treasury computer systems at risk, to the point where the chairman of the Federal Reserve had to issue this sort-of reassurance this morning: Fed’s Powell says ‘I believe’ Treasury payments system is safe. But in an offhand comment…
