Political instability and potential election disputes in the U.S. might lead to a credit rating downgrade, increasing debt (Economy) interest rates. The speaker notes the U.S. could drop from double-A to triple-B, just above junk status, but is temporarily protected by the lack of alternatives. They criticize current spending plans and predict a financial reckoning in Washington, as debt service now exceeds the military budget, a previously unimaginable situation. Consequently, they prefer investing in UK bonds over U.S. bonds.
Transcript:
There’s also a concern that because of the political turmoil in the United States and the fact that this could be a contested election, that the yield on our paper may have to go up because, and this is astonishing to me, our government might be considered unstable. Well, I think it’s entirely possible. I mean, we’re what, double A now? We lost our triple A sometime. It could go to single A. Or maybe even triple B, which is still investment grade. But what if, you know, the fiat currency of the United States of America, which is the leading currency in the world, becomes triple B rated, which is just, you know, above junk. We might have to pay more interest. The only thing in our favor is that there’s nothing, no other country is large enough so that they’ve got… there’s not they don’t have enough paper out there. So I’m gonna, I’m not going to buy any of that US paper, I’m going to go buy some UK paper. That’s the only thing right now that works to our advantage. Otherwise, I think the problem would be much worse. Yeah, and you just can’t constantly try to… These spending plans are ridiculous because all it does is continue to hurt. And anything that’s like bailing Samsung out and giving Micron billions of dollars to build plants, those are jobs that won’t be seen for years and long after this administration and maybe in the next one are gone. So at some point there’s going to be a reckoning in Washington, because like you said, the debt service now exceeds our military budget. Nobody would have, if you would have told that to either your eye 10 or 15 years ago, we would have laughed at that and said, that’s impossible.
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