The US Can Now Buy Canada: Treasury Cash Balance Hits A Record $1.812 Trillion

The Treasury cash balance has been surging ever since a flood of T-Bill issuance was unleashed at the start of Q2 to prefund the trillions in fiscal stimulus outlays that are needed to keep the US economy for collapsing, with the total amount of cash on (Steven Mnuchin’s) hand rising by a record $1.4 trillion, since April 1.

On July 17, shortly after the tax deadline date, the Treasury cash balance hit a new all time high as the Treasury pocketed tens of billions via taxes, and it is now a record high $1.812 trillion.

Putting this amount of cash in context it represents about $5,660 for every man, woman and child in the US (which many would say should be sent out directly to these people instead of provided to US corporations so they can repurchase stock), it is greater than the market cap of Apple even with the current insane meltup in the Nasdaq, and is greater than the GDP of the 10th largest nation in the world, Canada..

… which means that if Trump wanted to, he could buy all of Canada and not even have to LBO it, but instead pay cold, hard cash for it.

Joking aside, the massive cash build up is likely a preamble to forgiving the roughly $500 billion in PPP grants which will be “repaid” down using Treasury cash. Yet even so, it would mean that the Treasury would still have about $1.3 trillion left over, which is curious as the Treasury’s own most recent quarterly projections anticipated “only” $800 billion in Treasury cash at the end of Q2.

As such, the amount of excess cash means either that the US needs to issue far less debt in the current quarter than previously forecast (about $3 trillion), or the Treasury needs to find new and creative ways of delivering all this cash to Americans (ideally individuals rather than corporations this time).