For more than a year, analysts have been warning that record sized debt sales by the US Treasury were at odds with a 10-year yield sitting comfortably below 4 per cent. This week, the yield on 10-year notes jumped from 3.65 per cent to a peak of 3.92 per cent on Thursday. On Friday it was 3.87 per cent.

Chart: TreasuriesFalling inflation, rising unemployment, the housing market slump, the Federal Reserve’s policies of a near zero overnight borrowing rate and its purchase of up to $1,700bn in bonds have all helped keep Treasury yields near historic lows.

But this week the mood shifted as yields for $118bn of new US debt were much higher than forecast, sparking overall selling of Treasuries.

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Worries about the debt loads of developed economies have come into focus this year amid the crisis threatening Greece and other members of the eurozone periphery.

The fact that German Bunds have outperformed both Treasuries and gilts in recent months highlights this increasing worry over public debt. Germany’s budget deficit is much lower than the US and UK and inflation there is also expected to remain low.

“The spotlight on Greece only helped to reveal that the US’s kitchen – with Federal and state budget balances – was itself full of cockroaches,” says William O’Donnell, strategist at RBS Securities.

It hasn’t helped that the US announced a big overhaul of its healthcare system this month, adding to worries about the scale of US spending.

Ben Bernanke, of course, isn’t so fond of the idea.

So I thought I’d present the opposing viewpoints, one after the other. If this were American Idol, who would you vote for?

The “forgotten depression” of 1920–21 was caused by a huge increase in the money supply for President Wilson’s war. When the Fed started to tighten at war’s end, production fell 20 percent from mid-1920 to mid-1921, far more than today.

Why did we not read about that depression?

Because the much-maligned Warren Harding refused to intervene. He let businesses and banks fail and prices fall. Hence, the fever quickly broke, and we were off into “the Roaring Twenties.”

But, the Fed reverted, expanding the money supply by 55 percent, an average of 7.3 percent a year, not through an expansion of the currency, but through loans to businesses.

Thus, when the Fed tightened in the overheated economy, the Crash came, as the stock market bubble the Fed had created burst.

Herbert Hoover, contrary to the myth that he was a small-government conservative, renounced laissez-faire, raised taxes, launched public works projects, extended emergency loans to failing businesses and lent money to the states for relief programs.

Hoover did what Obama is doing.

• CBS news poll: 53% disapprove of the government giving money to banks and financial institutions
• Gallup poll: 60% oppose the federal government taking steps to help prevent major Wall Street investment companies from failing
• Rasmussen poll: 54% say no to all, given the choice between federal bailouts for the auto companies, the finance industry and financially trouble homeowners or no bailouts

Given that the Washington crowd continues to pour money out by the trillion, ignoring the clear will of the people they are supposed to represent, I think this constitutes a clear case of taxation without representation.

According to the First Amendment, we have the right peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. And some people have already done it:

Is it time? Have you finally had enough of Washington power games? Are you ready to do something about it besides talk? Then join a Tea Party near you.

There are grass-roots movements all over the country at various times and places. Here in New York, Fresh Tea Daily is keeping track of events scheduled for April 15th – you know, tax day! As of this moment, there are events listed for Albany, Fishkill, Gardiner, New York City, Rochester, and Staten Island, each with their own facebook page where you can get details and sign up.

If you absolutely can’t do the 15th, then do a google search and find one in your area on a different day.

If you just can’t attend an actual protest, you can still get the T-shirt – or the bumper sticker.

And if you don’t have enough money to buy a T-shirt or a bumper sticker, you can still participate. Another group is mailing tea bags to Washington, DC, but they want them all mailed on April 1st, to make sure they get there by – you guessed it – the 15th.

So you are out of excuses. If you want the government to stop giving money away, pick one of the above and just do it.

CBSNEWS The Federal Government’s flood of red ink hit another high-water mark as the Treasury Department quietly reported today that the National Debt hit $11-trillion for the first time ever.

To be exact, the Debt now stands at $11,033,157,578,669.78. Divide it by the U.S. population and it comes up to over $36,000 in debt for every man, woman and child among us.

My brain just freezes when I see numbers like this. The debt jumped a full $1 trillion since September 30, and based on the budget, by next September 30, it’ll be up to $12.7 trillion. Then throw in this kicker:

The Administration’s four year estimate shows that by the end of September 2012, the Debt will have soared to $16.2-trillion – which amounts to nearly 100% of the projected Gross Domestic Product that year.

There’s only one thing that I see to do about this: sing.

print billions of dollars worth of a global “super-currency”

which a former IMF head acknowledges will create world-wide inflation.

The Primate Party, of which I am a founding member, has determined that not only are party members forbidden from discussing Washington, they may no longer read any financial news.

In addition, we don’t want to hear any conspiracy-nut theories about a One-World Currency.

I think, instead, that I’m going to adopt a new political policy that seems to work well for many Americans. I call it the Primate Party, because it looks like this:

hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil

The first obvious requirement of membership in this party is that we’re not allowed to talk about anything done in Washington. I believe this must include the Fed, so I won’t tell you that for more than a year, the U.S. Federal Reserve System has been increasingly acting as the world’s central bank, injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign government treasuries in an effort to increase liquidity in those countries. I won’t mention that we, the taxpayers, have also bailed out foreign banks indirectly by pumping billions into American Insurance Group, which announced Sunday that it had forwarded that cash to counterparties that include foreign banks such as Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, Calyon, Credit Suisse, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays.

Nope. I won’t speak of this, and I think HR 1207 should not be supported by the Primate Party.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett [R-MD]