Last week, 30-year Treasury yields hit their highest level since 2007. The Treasury Department tried bond buybacks to calm things down. It worked for about a day. Then yields climbed back up. This episode of Sidequests is the plain-language explainer: what bonds and yields actually are, why investors are getting nervous about lending to a government carrying $40 trillion in debt, why the Treasury's short-term fixes didn't hold, and why a problem in a financial market most people never think about eventually shows up in mortgage rates, car loans, and credit cards. The bond market isn't exciting — but it's where the price of money gets established, and right now the price of money is going up.
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