Until recently the Federal Reserve owned rather safe assets like gold, short-term Treasury bills and the short-term IOUs of commercial banks.
The ministry's outstanding corporate debt, ranging from long bonds to short-dated bills, stands at 711.5 billion yuan.
Sceptics note that a large chunk of the increase is accounted for by short-term bills rather than new lending to finance spending.
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Until the Great Recession, the Fed limited its purchases of Treasury paper to short-term bills that carry no interest rate risk.
Often, the distinction is made that quantitative easing implies the purchase of longer-term Treasury bonds rather than short term Treasury bills.
Short-term bills are snaffled up by the banks and rarely seen again.
Short-dated bills of acceptance rose by six basis points as investors reduced expectations for a rate increase in coming months and lowering implied yields.
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Italian bond yields climbed following a weak auction of short-term bills.
In contrast to the Chilean and Lula models is the Venezuelan one, which is really the Cuban model blessed with a legacy oil industry to pay the short-term bills.
The railway ministry, which is China's largest corporate-bond issuer, used all of last year's quota for long-dated bonds and also raised an additional 50 billion yuan via short-term bills and medium-term notes.
Returns depend on how junky the bonds and how long until they mature, but yields are generally running well into the double-digits, while 10-year Treasuries offer a paltry return of 3.77% and safer short-term bills are running well below 1.0%.
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard thinks Republicans should continue with short-term spending bills.
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That policy idea would reduce the use of short-term Treasury bills (LFTs in Brazil) debt.
Spain's government sold a batch of short-term Treasury bills at significantly lower yields than in June's auction.
Certificates of deposit and short-term Treasury bills are plenty safe but do little more than keep up with inflation long term.
In other words, Republicans should be very careful about having their energy dissipated by a series of diversionary battles over short-run spending bills.
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Although China has been accumulating reserves at a rapid rate, few of these appear to have been American bonds and short-term Treasury bills.
So while it might be possible to push through a couple of additional short-term spending bills, there will come a point when Democrats refuse to play ball.
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Since November it has resorted to issuing short-term treasury bills with maturities of up to one year, which are seen as less risky than five- or ten-year bonds.
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Moreover, it is quite likely that a strategy of short-term spending bills will complicate GOP efforts to get budget process reform in a couple of months in exchange for an increase in the debt limit.
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But since they are presumably paying two sets of bills, most respondents stopped short of asking them to chip in for rent on top of utility bills.
Companies put money in short term Treasury notes and bills to settle trade payments.
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"I told my wife, 'Baby, we're going to be able to pay a couple of bills off this short story, ' " he said.
Italy saw a sign of relief for its economy that has been flashing red on Wednesday, when an auction of its short-term Treasury-bills sold at lower borrowing costs and higher demand.
Treasury did pay these T-bills after a short delay.
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Those older folk on expensive legacy tariffs may get a cheaper deal in the short term but ultimately see their bills rise as global energy prices rise.
Instead it will probably provide Treasury bills, or very short term loans, which are a proxy for cash, because otherwise it thinks that the scheme could complicate the way it controls the amount of money in the economy (monetary policy) in some unspecified way.
With barely enough cash in its coffers to pay pensions and public-sector salaries at the end of August, the finance ministry may raise short-term funds by selling extra treasury bills to the banks, squeezing cash-strapped local companies even harder.
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