Comment by missedthecue
9 hours ago
They can't afford to. At 4.5% average rates, their interest payments will consume something on the order of 80% of their government budget and huge portions of GDP. Their 30 year paper was trading at 4.1% last week. If the short end of the yield curve pumps even higher, they are utterly screwed. Consequences of 250% debt to gdp.
Well, hopefully they’ve been smarter than the US about managing bond duration, but yeah. Doesn’t change reality in the currency markets, and sometimes you have to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea.
The US has the same problem. Maybe less extreme, but the balance sheet has tons of short-term debt, and rates aren’t cooperating.