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Worried about my US treasury bills
With the way a certain billionaire has taken control of the US Treasury and begun to halt payments, I'm concerned that my T bills will not get paid out when they mature in April.
I'm not really sure there's anything to be done about it, but it's stressing me out. See if I ever invest in them again.
If US t-bill interest isn’t being paid, your personal investments in them are going to be the least of your worries.
I believe this is exactly the point of the post. You are minimizing OP's concern, which is very, very real at this point in time. Musk shouldn't be anywhere near such critical civil institutions.
What is your reasoning for waiting until it's too late to matter?
I think there’s a mismatch in expectation, one way the other. It’d be like saying, “I’m really worried a thermonuclear warhead is going to land in Manhattan. I have knicks game tickets and an expensive hotel booked. Should I try to get a refund? The hotel only allows refunds through Thursday”.
I wanna believe he’s not that crazy but he just did a seig heil on global TV and is proud of it, guy is unhinged.
He would totally start paying out tbills in dogecoin just for lols and then switch it back only months later when a judge finally makes him
In this scenario, the global economy has entered a recession. I don't think the US will default on its debts under Trump.
I'm concerned about the initial investment being returned than the interest, since it's my last bit of savings that hasn't been obliterated by post-pandemic "inflation". Either way, you're right it's not likely to matter, since the money would essentially become valueless.
I believe there's a genuine desire and motivation to destroy the dollar, destabilize the US economy, and loot the Treasury. Also a good chance that money will be funneled to Russia and the tech oligarchs.
That anyone, including my father who has two federal retirements, thinks this crypto paradise is an improvement for the average person is mind-boggling to me.
If you’re truly worried about this you can always just liquidate them now.
I'll have to investigate how; they were through TreasuryDirect so I think they have to be transferred to a broker first. I suppose I might lose some on the transaction.
If there's one thing the billionaires are interested in, it's not crashing global markets. I guarantee you that if Trump or anyone on his team threatens their ability to make money, he will feel their force. The one thing you should never worry about is the US's ability to make money on a global scale. Some uncertainty is fine, perhaps even good for investment. Uncertainty in a stable resource can crash markets however, and I doubt the elite are on board with that.
I don't know about you, or the general opinion of financial institutions, but the amount of uncertainty I have in the US's ability to continue paying bills, making reasonable decisions, and generally continuing to function is getting higher and higher.
Oh there's definitely uncertainty right now, a certain amount is good for those who are rich because they can sell and short and move stuff around... but in order to shuffle money like that they need stable long term investments to fall back into. If uncertainty gets too high, they will make moves. But of course, that is just my opinion of things, I may be too optimistic on how much turmoil will be tolerated.
It’s possible that the techbro elite are actually unhinged and believe that a full collapse of traditional financial structures is required to bring about a crypto-techtopian libertarian scene like the one in snowcrash. No doubt what you say is true of folks like the Kochs and the Cheneys and the Clintons. Maybe the bezos’ and hastings’ and gates. But musk, devos, thiel? Hard to say.
The broader point made elsewhere is right though. If the government is fixing to fail on t bills, there’s no safe haven for regular folks. Suddenly yiu cash is valueless too, maybe even real property rights would be tenable.
This is an addendum rather than an argument... It's easy to talk about Bezos, Thiel and others because everyone knows who they are and (non reclusive) billionaires have become the face of wealth inequality.
But the real power lies in industries and the corporations they're comprised of. Musk, Bezos and the Kochs could team up to dominate the world but if they stepped on the toes of, for example, the military industrial complex (and the energy industry that's tied to it) they would get swatted like flies.
Which doesn't alleviate the concerns in this thread, because Trump is all about being good to the energy industry. They don't want financial volatility but it's not hard to imagine them waiting too long to do something about it when they're posting record profits and buying up more of the market.
At the moment I'm leaning towards believing there will ultimately be more smoke than fire, but it really is uncertain.
I think a larger sum belongs to old money than new. On the global scale, surely more is old and most countries are already fighting US tariffs and other issues. But ultimately we're just hypothesizing here... who knows, we'll have to see how this all plays out.
You don’t think they’ll switch the us currency to dogecoin for the lulz, ride that wave, and then soon as their shorts come through on real usd say “oh sorry we’ll switch it back”
This is conspiracy theory territory but Putin has had his eyes/heart on the collapse of the dollar since the 2000s:
I'm not sure anything that has to do with Russia infiltrating and destabilizing the US can truly be considered a deranged conspiracy. There's a very real possibility that this is part of the motivation for what is happening.
I hope that stays a theory lol
I believe they're conceited enough to believe they can control the crash in a way that benefits them. They're so insanely wealthy that they can insulate themselves.
I would get used to regular pump and dumps for the next four years.
I want to thank everyone for the discussion; there are certainly some interesting perspectives here. Trying to take life day by day and remain adaptable.
Noise, but I was just reading something tangentially related to this creation of an atmosphere of economic uncertainty that has to do with Musk’s possible motivation being control of the US’s Automated Clearinghouse (ACH).
This and the FDIC are what I have been fretting about. I'm scared I'll wake up one morning and I'll suddenly be unable to withdraw money from my US bank account. I'm just grateful I have an Australian account, too.
PayPal's original purpose was to create an internet currency that would replace the US dollar. He wanted to add a payment platform to Twitter/X as well. So that tracks.