What do U.S. Treasury auctions have to do with me?

Marketplace

American Public Media

Business, News

4.6 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Later this week, the U.S. Treasury will auction off billions of dollars worth of 30-year bonds. While that may seem yawn-worthy to most of us, the outcome of that sale has big ramifications for consumer borrowing costs down the road. We’ll explain. Also in this episode: Targeting of international students hurts public and private universities, “core goods” is where tariff-driven inflation might show up first, and students at a fast-growing high school in Utah run their own soda shop.

Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.

Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there, and thanks for listening.
0:01.9	We want to know more about our audience.
0:04.0	So stick around at the end of the episode to hear about how you can provide feedback
0:08.1	and potentially walk away with a $75 gift card.
0:14.2	Bonds, inflation, and video games.
0:17.4	What more could you possibly want?
0:20.4	From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.
0:29.4	In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle.
0:35.6	It is Tuesday, today the 10th of June.
0:37.8	Good as always to have you along, everybody.
0:40.3	We are going to have to borrow, we, the United States of America, is going to have to borrow another $2.4 trillion on top of the 36 or so trillion dollars we already owe if the GOP's big tax cut bill that Congress is debating gets passed
0:56.2	as is. That in the vernacular is a boatload of borrowing. The way the government does that, of course,
1:04.0	is by selling bonds. And on Thursday, the Treasury Department is going to hold a regular bond
1:09.2	auction looking to sell about $22 billion worth.
1:12.6	Notably, though, looking to sell long bonds, 30-year bonds. Of particular interest, no pun intended,
1:20.0	is what yield, what interest rate buyers of those longest maturity of all U.S. bonds are going to demand.
1:29.3	Because as Marketplace's Sabri Benishore reports to get us going, how that auction goes is going to tell us something about
1:33.9	how expensive borrowing is going to be for the government, but also for us. So come Thursday,
1:39.9	the U.S. government is going to sell some bonds that last 30 years. And this is a test.
1:46.6	Mark Cabana is head of U.S. rate strategy at Bank of America Global Research.
1:50.7	The auction is a test of investor interest.
1:54.1	To see how well that ultimate demand is looking.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.