Apparently it has, according to unidentified “traders and news reports”.
But don’t worry, Alan Greenspan says everthing will be A-OK, says the article.
Also reassuring are the words of Lara Rhame, a “senior economist and foreign exchange analyst with Brown Brothers Harriman who is a former Fed economist.”:
“This whole question of the impact on interest rates is really complicated, but a lot of smart people at the Fed and elsewhere have said it’s not really a big issue -- it’s only suppressing long-term interest rates at the margin,“
Don’t you worry your pretty little head, the “smart people” care about you! They won’t let anything bad happen!
Lehman Brothers senior economist Drew Matus, noted that “most Japanese buying has been in short-term Treasury bonds, which may have crowded other investors out, pushing them into longer-term notes. A slowdown in Japanese buying might only make room for other investors to quickly step in and take up the slack.” Hear that? There are plenty of investors just waiting to buy when BoJ decides to dump Treasuries. Of course, if he’s right, what will happen when those investors who were “pushed into longer-term notes”, decide to get out? Long-term interest rates will head north, is what. You fill in the blanks from there.
I don’t know about you, but the more I hear people reassure themselves that there is no problem, the more I begin to believe there just may be a problem.
