Apparently the $140M number was bonds. Edit: Or, theoretical bonds that match inflation and don't actually exist?
No one would ever give the government money expecting to lose money.
Only in a world where you can always count on the government to lower interest rates ad-infinitum to keep itself solvent which pushes up the value of your bonds to someone who's willing to pay more money to lose the same amount of money later (a greater fool - although, are you a fool if you've been able to count on this like clockwork for the last 30 years?).
What would they do? Is there a dominating (stochastically) alternative?
How about a hypothetical?
Let's say government bonds pay 3%, they have done so for decades, and we're confident they will keep doing so for decades.
So right off the bat, no lowering of interest rates ad-infinitum.
Let's also say inflation is 4%.
Everyone wants to beat inflation. But you need to find an investment opportunity for that. And the higher an investment yields, the riskier it is.
If you can't find a good investment, what's plan B? Surely it's not putting your money in a vault and losing 4% a year. Isn't plan B buying the government bonds and losing only 1% a year?
Almost nobody has bought government bonds for a long time besides pension funds (due to obligations), banks (due to regulations), foreign governments (due to ForEx necessity), the Fed, and a pretty small amount (~8%) held in 401ks (overwhelmingly by older folks) [2].
Rich people certainly aren't buying Treasuries to protect their wealth - unless it's someone like DoubleLine betting on interest rates only going down and the forced greater fool (pension funds).
401k people are only buying treasuries because of the "age old wisdom" - not because it makes sense unless you think like DoubleLine that treasury yields - long term - are only going down.
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AAA10Y
[2] https://www.thebalancemoney.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-de...
If you had a bunch of gold, for example, you'd have to pay for security to... secure it.
People are willing to "pay a premium" to store money somewhere risk-free.
