Debt Roundup

(1) Debt worries making a comeback. (2) Record debt levels may matter again if inflation rebounds, which we don’t expect. (3) Federal government interest payments soaring along with Treasury debt and rising interest rates. (4) Fed’s rate hiking could push government interest payments over $500 billion by 2020. (5) Record bank loans in China. (6) Chinese government wants more babies. (7) Trump’s trade war depressing Chinese stocks despite solid production growth. (8) China’s real retail sales growth is weakening as aging demography weighs on consumer spending. (9) Getting less output bang per yuan of bank debt. (10) Beige Book has lots of green signals about growth, yellow signals about tight labor market, and a few red signals about price inflation.