Slip the surly bonds? Scott Bessent goes on a yield trip

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  The Economist.

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  Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist.

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  I'm Jason Palmer.

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  Today on the show, the grave hacking threat to America's water supplies

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  and the politics of accents in Britain.

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  But first,

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  Scott Bessent, America's Treasury secretary, has had a busy week.

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  What with all those Iran sanctions we talked about yesterday.

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  Before that, though, he did something that now has the bond market

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  collectively scratching its head.

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  See, yields, the interest on bonds, are way up.

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  Governments selling bonds is actually borrowing money from the buyer.

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  Higher and higher yields means paying buyers back more and more

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  when the bonds come due.

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  Last week, America's 10-year Treasury bonds hit their highest yield since January 2025.

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  Longer dated 30-year bonds, the highest since 2007.

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  Mr. Bessent doesn't seem to like the look of government borrowing being that costly.

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  So he said that the Treasury would buy up Treasury bonds.

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  Demand goes up, price goes up, yield goes down, problem solved, right?

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  Which is a little like a shop owner buying her own stock

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