Downgrades

10-year Treasury yield Recently, interest rates for government debt have been rising worldwide. As I write the yield of the 10-year US treasury is over 5%. It had been below 4.5% for over a year when, in March, it started a steady rise. This is despite (and probably because of) Scott Bessent's efforts to force it lower, which JP Morgan compared to 'paying your mortgage with your credit card'. Source A big part of the reason is governments persistently borrowing to cover deficits, with no plan to reduce them. For example, the Trump administration has borrowed more than the growth in US GDP. Projections are that by the end of their term they will have borrowed $1.40 for every $1 growth in GDP. Half of that GDP growth is from the AI bubble. Remove it and the administration has already borrowed almost 2.5 times the GDP growth. But another part of the reason is that governments are facing competition for the available funds from other highly-rated borrowers. Hyperscalers such as Microsoft…