Tuesday, October 06, 2009

WE NEED BETTER ECONOMICS REPORTERS

Maybe I'm missing something here but Andrew Ross Sorkin doesn't seem to grasp the relation between risk and reward when it comes to U.S. Treasury bonds: the less risk, the lower the interest rate. There's also the demand/supply curve, so when the demand for treasuries increases, the interest rate declines.
Sorkin got these relationships backwards:
...Treasury bills were trading for less than 1 percent interest, as if they were no better than cash, as if the full faith of the government had suddenly become meaningless.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No, you're not missing anything. I started reading Sorkin's article -- excerpted from his upcoming book -- and tossed it as soon as I saw that howler. Christ, the Times sure can hire 'em.