Be careful when analysing bond yields through UST and extrapolating outcomes too narrowly. The death of the republic is a seductive narrative, but it's simplistic. Itis far more profound than a US collapse. Robin Brooks is right that debt is the dividing line in this sell-off. But debt is the symptom. The real line runs between countries whose credit has funded productive capacity and countries whose credit has bid up assets that already exist. Every government with debt bigger than a year's output has the same three exits. It can run surpluses, grow faster than its interest bill, or pay lenders less than the market would. Surpluses are gone almost everywhere, and growth is cancelling out against rising coupons. That leaves the third, and the third is what rising yields are pricing in, in every bond market at once. When they are all doing it, it's a different symptom and disease, though the disease is no less virulent. Washington isn't defaulting. It's rewriting the conditions around the bond: buybacks, hints of fewer long bonds, the Fed buying bills, a bigger FIMA window so Japan can keep its Treasuries instead of selling them. It did the same in 1933, 1942, 1945, 1951 and 1971. Each time the coupon was paid in full, and a condition/s written around it moved. Australia shows the same disease without a reserve currency to hide behind. Our banks wrote $3.21 of credit for existing homes for every $1 for industry. When yields reprice, a country can only refinance against what it actually produces, and paper wealth sitting on land can't take that strain. So while you might think the USD-denominated bonds are in the most trouble, the AUD is "saying hold my beer" So this isn't America falling. The whole postwar settlement, where sovereign paper was the risk-free floor, is being repriced. Central banks have bought gold for nearly two years, China's for 22 months straight, and India has brought 104 tonnes home in six months. They aren't betting on one republic dying. They're insuring against every debtor paying less than it promised. It's less optimistic than that it's the whole world falling. Watch the conditions, not the coupon. The bond is the promise. The rights attached to it are the price.