BOB RUBIN'S BOND BIND

摘要

It's a Treasury Secretary's dream. The economy is unbelievably robust, with low inflation, surging productivity, and healthy surpluses. The federal government is flush with cash. Indeed, the current schedule of debt auctions will raise far more money than the federal government needs. You'd think, then, that Robert E. Rubin would be in heaven. But you'd be wrong. In fact, Rubin knows he has to stop the flood of cash. As cash has been piling up, the government has had to sharply cut back issuing bonds. That "makes for a less efficient capital market," says Kevin M. Flanagan, money-market economist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Fewer bonds sloshing around the marketplace, further, makes it more difficult for traders to determine a bond's true market value. In addition, bond prices are likely to be more volatile if they are harder to obtain, Flanagan says.