, Columnist
Can America Get Americans to Buy Its Bonds?
If the US needs to issue more debt over the coming decades — and it will — then it has to make bonds more appealing to individual investors.
Anyone remember those days?
Photographer: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP
President Donald Trump’s efforts to stack the Federal Reserve with economists willing to cut interest rates is providing all the drama this week. But the longer-term future for monetary policy, the bond market and the US economy is even more ominous.
That’s because the US has an aging population, like many countries in Europe and Asia, and faces both growing debt and lower growth. And the ways out of this predicament come at a price American investors and retirees may not be willing to pay.