We’re at one of those historic moments in the credit market, when US government bond yields are clearly no longer considered one of the safest investments in town. Key corporate debt now trades for lower yields than US bonds of similar maturity. Note these are both dollar-based types of obligations, thus the difference in yield isn’t simply due to dollar-weakness fears. It’s due to default concerns. Berkshire Hathaway recently sold debt at 3.5 basis points less than Treasuries of similar maturity, and that Procter & Gamble and Lowe’s have seen their debt trade at lower yields than Treasuries as well. For a country with a rock-solid credit rating, this is pretty staggering (even if we are looking at temporary anomalies).