NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Whalen Wong.

And I'm Patty Hirsch. The long bond dodged the bullet last week after investors stepped up in larger than expected numbers to...

Well, okay. I'm going to stop you right there, Patty. You go away on vacation and you come back stuffed with jargon.

Maybe you should start by just telling our listeners what the long bond is.

Sorry, yes. The long bond is the 30-year treasury bond. It's the longest maturity bond issued by the U.S.

government. And when you see it dodged a bullet, you're talking about that sale of 30-year

bonds that the Treasury held last week. I am indeed. Yeah, people were worried that because of the

way things have been a bit rocky in the economy recently, no one would actually show up to buy

the bond, which could trigger a rise in interest rates. That didn't happen, though.

It did not, I'm happy to say.

But it doesn't mean we're out of the woods.

There's still a lot of uncertainty out there.

And the way that the 30-year bond performs is a great indicator of how investors feel about the economy long-term.

It's actually a really interesting instrument with this fascinating history, and it's

kind of overlooked a lot of the

time, frankly.

But something tells me you're going to remedy that today.

I am indeed, and today on the show, the Genesis of the 30 Year, including the fact that

Charlie Chaplin made a movie about it. We'll learn why we have such a long maturity bond,

and why we should probably pay a lot more attention to it going forward.

That's coming up after the break.

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