US Treasury: Winning The Future, One Math Failure At A Time

[Ares]

We just ran across a newswire headline that said what we have been warning about for about a month: "US Treasury auction to take US over debt ceiling on Monday." As a result, we took a look at today's DTS update, and indeed, come Monday's full settlement of this week's auctions, the jig is up. Prior to this week's $72 billion in auctions, total debt subject to the $14.294 Tr ceiling has risen to $14.280 trillion. There is no way the Treasury can cut $42 billion in debt next Monday (pro forma for the $16 billion Bill paydown settlement). Next up: panic.

<img src="http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/images/DTS%205.11.jpg"/>

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-treasury-winning-future-one-math-failure-time

[ximmy]

No problem...

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has signaled he wants Congress to raise the ceiling by $2 trillion, which will extend the limit through the 2012 presidential elections.

OK. What the heck does the 2012 presidential election have to do with anything? Oh, that’s right, we certainly would not want to “bump up” against the arbitrary limit again during the campaign season. That might raise some flags with TEA Party people and kick them into action again … wouldn’t want that would we?

[W]hen lawmakers asked how much of an increase would be needed to meet the government’s obligations into early 2013 [just after the election], Treasury officials floated the $2 trillion working figure, Senate and administration sources told Reuters.

Why even have a limit if Congress – who has significant control of the nation’s purse strings – can increase it at will after advice from Treasury? Why not just make the debt limit $100 trillion … that should at cover us for maybe two or three more election cycles.

http://radioviceonline.com/obama-administration-will-ask-to-raise-debt-ceiling-2-trillion-china/