US Treasury Secretary Bessent calls himself the nation's top bond salesman, but recent auction yields have surged to multi-year highs, suggesting his sales performance is slipping.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent turned 64 today, but instead of gardening, he has been busy intervening in bond markets. To stem rising yields, he announced the department would ramp up purchases of longer-dated government securities.

Bessent sees himself as 'the nation's top bond salesman', having issued $30.2 trillion in marketable securities in fiscal 2025. He touted in November that 'the Treasury market remains the deepest and most liquid market in the world', but by his own yardstick, his performance has been slipping.

1. Auction yields surge

On August 12, a $42 billion auction of 10-year notes saw yields hit 4.683%, the highest since 2007; the next day, a $25 billion sale of 30-year bonds yielded 5.216%, the highest since 2001. Investors showed up, bidding 2.5 times the debt on offer, but demanded higher returns.

2. Debt interest heaps up

With outstanding debt over $40 trillion, annualized interest costs exceed $1.2 trillion, surpassing defense spending for the first time since WWII. Combined with entitlements, net interest rose to 98.4% of government receipts, near the record set in 2020 during Covid monetization.

3. Heavyweights warn of reckoning

Stan Druckenmiller, Ray Dalio, Ken Griffin, Jamie Dimon and others warn: 'fiscal recklessness like a horror movie', 'debt service like plaque in arteries', 'bond vigilantes will extract their price'. Even ordinary investors put the odds of a crisis within ten years at close to 50%.

In one line: Bessent hopes to cap yields by splashing cash, but the market is telling him with higher rates: that won't work.