On Sept. 18, 2024, the U.S. Federal Reserve reduced its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point to a range of 4.75% to 5%. This move is expected to decrease short-term borrowing costs, including those for U.S. government debt.
When the Fed lowers the federal funds rate, it generally leads to lower rates on Treasury bills and other short-term government securities, which in return reduces its borrowing costs on newly issued short-term debt. While this reduction in rates will help reduce debt-servicing costs, the U.S. is still projected to see the biggest increase in its gross debt of all G7 nations over the next five years.
This graphic uses data from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) April 2024 edition of the World Economic Outlook to show how the U.S. stacks up against its G7 counterparts in terms of projected gross debt as a percentage of GDP in 2024, and how debt is forecasted to change by 2029.
I predict that every one of those projections will be too low.
@remindme in 5 years
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I don't know if they're low. We mustn't forget that these projections are relative to GDP, so we may even have an increase in debt, but if GDP also increases, we may have a lower relative debt. That's what happened here in Portugal.
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At least in the US, deficits are consistently underestimated by large amounts. That's the trend I'm projecting forward.
Now, it's possible governments just can't keep up with the coming AI productivity boom, but I doubt that's a next-four-years story.
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