"An Avalanche In Motion": Rate Hikes Will "Blow Up The Treasury"
"When your debt to GDP exceeds 100%, your ability to maneuver is restricted."
This is the latest from Harris Kupperman, founder of Praetorian Capital, a hedge fund focused on using macro trends to guide stock selection. Mr. Kupperman is also the chief adventurer at Adventures in Capitalism, a website that details his investments and travels.
Harris is one of my favorite Twitter follows and I find his opinions - especially on macro and commodities - to be extremely resourceful. I’m certain my readers will find the same. I was excited when he offered up his latest to Fringe Finance about, in his words, why “the Fed is fuct”.
Harris On Why The Fed Is Screwed
The Fed is trapped in a box of their own creation. As a result, they may want to talk tough, but their ability to maneuver is severely restricted. The Fed claims that they’re targeting a terminal rate of 4.6% for Fed Funds, but if they did that for any period of time, they’d only succeed in blowing up the Treasury.
Our government has run obscene deficits over the past two decades. This was only made possible by the Fed suppressing interest rates. Despite a succession of Treasury Secretaries, the US debt was never termed out. The majority of the debt is actually quite short term. During 2021, the Federal government paid $392 billion in interest on $21.7 trillion of average debt outstanding—or an average interest rate of 1.8%.