What this is: a simple check-in on whether the US dollar is
slowly losing its buying power. Tracks a handful of signals that, taken
together, tell you the direction things are moving.
What it isn't: a crystal ball. No dashboard can predict
crashes or exact turning points — these regimes play out over years,
not days. This is here to keep you informed, not to time investments.
Elevated
At least one or two indicators are meaningfully stretched. Nothing to panic about, but worth reviewing your personal fixed vs. variable costs and making sure you're not overexposed to any single macro outcome.
What's driving this score
· points contributed out of 100, and share of current total
Interest / Revenue
30.0 pts
65%
Debt Maturing ≤12mo
8.7 pts
19%
S&P 500 / Gold
3.8 pts
8%
10Y Bid-to-Cover
2.0 pts
4%
10Y Real Yield
1.5 pts
3%
Since your last check · yesterday, 2026-06-05
🔻Gold YoY:33.69% → 29.44%(-4.25%)
🔻Gold:$4,479 → $4,337(-142)
🔻S&P 500 / Gold:1.69 → 1.75(+0.06)
How the Score Has Moved
Core Fiscal Signals · the five metrics behind the composite score
Interest / Revenue
z = +4.97
25.04%
near extreme
· 100% concern
⤢
What this means
What it is. How much of the government's income goes to paying interest on its debt. Rising = more tax dollars eaten by interest, less available for everything else.
Interpretation. Rising means the government's debt service is crowding out other spending. Commentators often flag >20% as the zone where pressure for monetization (Fed buying debt) builds, though there's no hard threshold.
Context. Trend matters more than level. A stable 18% is different from one that jumped from 10% in two years.
Historical context. US post-WWII baseline: 6-14%, most of the time. Briefly hit ~17-18% in the early 1980s during Volcker's rate hikes, then fell back as rates normalized. Japan has sustained 20-30%+ for decades without collapse (the BoJ owns ~half of JGBs). Italy in the 1990s: around 25% before joining the euro. Emerging markets like Argentina and Greece collapsed at lower ratios because they didn't control their own currency. The US has reserve-currency status as a real structural buffer — not a guarantee, but a meaningful one. 24%+ in the US is unprecedented in the post-gold-standard era at this scale.
10Y Bid-to-Cover
z = +0.84
2.40
calm
· 10% concern
⤢
What this means
What it is. Dollars bid per dollar of debt offered at the most recent 10-year Treasury auction. Higher = stronger demand for US debt.
Interpretation. Above ~2.5 is strong demand. Below ~2.0 is noticeably weaker, though outright failed auctions for US debt are historically rare.
Context. One auction is noisy. Watch the trend across several auctions and the 'tail' (gap between highest accepted yield and the pre-auction market yield).
Historical context. Post-2000 10Y auctions have averaged around 2.4-2.7. Dips below 2.0 happened a handful of times (2008 pre-crisis, 2009 supply shock, 2023 during rate-hike stress) without outright failure. The closest the US came to a 'failed' Treasury auction was 2009's 7Y auction with bid-to-cover of 2.07 — the world still bought. Compare to the UK's September 2022 'gilt crisis' where demand cratered and the Bank of England had to step in within 48 hours. That's the kind of event low bid-to-cover foreshadows.
S&P 500 / Gold
z = +2.62
1.75
nudging up
· 25% concern
⤢
What this means
What it is. How many ounces of gold the S&P 500 is worth. Falling = stocks are gaining less than gold, often interpreted as investors shifting to hard assets.
Interpretation. Rising = stocks outperforming gold (risk-on, confidence in financial assets). Falling = gold outperforming stocks, sometimes read as currency-debasement hedging.
Context. Over ~55 years this ratio has ranged from ~0.2 to ~5.8. Compare to its own history, not an absolute threshold.
Historical context. Major lows: 1980 around 0.2 (gold peak after 1970s inflation), 2011 around 0.6 (post-2008 QE era). Major highs: 2000 around 5.8 (dot-com peak), 2018 around 3.0. Ratio spent the 1990s above 2.0 during the 'Great Moderation' of stable low inflation. Historically, persistent moves below ~1.5 have coincided with periods of loose monetary policy, concerns about fiat currency, or commodity supercycles — not necessarily crisis, but a distinctive regime.
10Y Real Yield
z = -1.07
0.69%
calm
· 10% concern
⤢
What this means
What it is. 10-year Treasury yield minus inflation. Positive = bond buyers earn above inflation. Negative = they lose purchasing power (financial repression).
Interpretation. Rising real yields are good for savers but tighten financial conditions (variable-rate debt gets more expensive). Persistently negative real yields erode cash and bond value.
Context. Check alongside inflation trend. A +1% real yield with falling inflation is very different from a +1% real yield with rising inflation.
Historical context. The 1940s-1950s US ran deeply negative real yields (sometimes -5% to -10%) to inflate away WWII debt. Real yields returned to +2-4% in the 1980s-90s. 2009-2021 saw negative real yields again during QE. When the tool shows persistently negative real yields alongside rising debt, that's the textbook 'financial repression' signature — interest rates held artificially below inflation to let the debt erode in real terms. That's historically how heavily-indebted countries get out from under. Not painful abruptly, but it makes cash and long bonds slow-bleed asset classes.
Debt Maturing ≤12mo
z = +0.00
33.0%
nudging up
· 43% concern
No historical series available for this metric — it changes slowly and is tracked via the Treasury MSPD manual update.
What this means
What it is. Share of outstanding federal debt that must be refinanced within a year. Higher = more exposure to rollover at whatever rate the market demands.
Interpretation. Rising means more of the debt stock has to be sold again soon. If rates are high when that happens, interest expense jumps fast. This is why maturity 'tilting' toward short-term matters.
Context. Changes slowly. Check the Monthly Statement of the Public Debt (MSPD) or Treasury quarterly refunding statements a few times a year. Update the config value by hand.
Historical context. Historical US norm: ~25-30%. The Treasury actively tilted toward short-term bills in 2023-2024 (reaching ~33%+ of outstanding), partly because the long end was expensive, partly because demand for bills was deep. This is a double-edged sword: cheaper now, but any sustained rate rise quickly flows into the interest expense line. Argentina and Turkey have run with very short average maturities and paid for it during rate shocks. UK typically runs long (~14 year average maturity); Japan similar. US used to run ~6 year average; has drifted shorter.
Debasement Watch · is the dollar being inflated away?
Real Yield (10Y TIPS)
+0.69%· current reading
⤢
Positive → savers at least tread water. Neutral to tightening signal.
What this means
What it is. Same as the 10Y real yield above — repeated here because it's the single most important signal for whether the 'inflate-away' playbook is running. Negative = bond buyers are losing purchasing power, which is the textbook signature of financial repression.
Historical context. US long-term average since 1962: about +2.5%. Peak: ~+9% in 1984 under Volcker. Trough: deeply negative (~-5% to -10%) through the late 1940s and 1970s. The 2010-2021 decade ran persistently negative. In debasement regimes, real yields sit below zero for years while nominal debt gets steadily inflated away — the mechanics take a decade to play out.
Dollar Index (DTWEXBGS)
118.88↓ -2.2% YoY
⤢
Dollar weakening vs. trading-partner currencies.
What this means
What it is. The Trade-Weighted Dollar Index (DTWEXBGS) measures the dollar against a basket of major trading-partner currencies. Indexed to January 2006 = 100. Falling means the dollar is losing ground relative to other currencies; rising means the opposite.
Historical context. Historical range since 2006: roughly 85-130. Notable lows: ~95 in 2008 (GFC) and 2011 (post-QE). Notable highs: ~128 in late 2022 (aggressive Fed hikes). A 5-10% annual decline is substantial — for comparison, the British pound's 'moment' in September 2022 was about a 9% drop against the dollar in weeks. Sustained dollar weakness over multiple years has historically aligned with commodity supercycles (2003-2011) or Fed accommodation (post-2020).
Gold (futures)
$4,337↑ +29.4% YoY
⤢
Gold running well above inflation — classic debasement hedge.
What this means
What it is. Gold futures price in USD. Gold is the oldest 'hard asset' and tends to rise when investors lose faith in fiat currencies or fear monetary debasement. It has no cash flow, no yield, no counterparty — just physical scarcity.
Historical context. Major nominal peaks: $850 in 1980 (end of 1970s inflation), $1,900 in 2011 (post-QE), $2,700+ through 2024, now above $4,800. The 1970s saw gold rise from $35 (1971 Bretton Woods end) to $850 — a 24x move in under a decade, during the last major US monetary regime reset. YoY moves above +30% are historically rare (roughly top 5% of years since 1971) and almost always coincide with either monetary crises, geopolitical shocks, or both. Gold is noisy short-term but tells a coherent story across decades.
Fed Balance Sheet
$6.71T↗ +0.6% YoY
⤢
Fed roughly steady — neither QE nor aggressive QT.
What this means
What it is. Fed balance sheet = total assets held by the Federal Reserve (mostly Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities). Expanding = QE / monetary accommodation. Shrinking = QT / tightening. A powerful signal because the Fed is the biggest single actor in the Treasury market.
Historical context. Pre-2008 steady state: ~$900B for decades. QE1-QE3 (2008-2014) pushed it to $4.5T. Modest QT 2017-2019 dropped it to $3.8T. COVID-era QE exploded it to $9T by 2022. QT 2022-2025 brought it down to ~$6.7T, where it's roughly held. The Fed has never meaningfully returned to its pre-2008 size. Historically, once balance sheets expand, they tend to stay large — which itself is a quiet form of monetary accommodation.
What it is. CPI inflation = year-over-year change in the Consumer Price Index. The most widely-watched inflation measure: how much more expensive the same basket of goods has gotten vs. a year ago. The Fed targets about 2% annually as 'price stability.'
Historical context. Post-WWII US long-run average: ~3.3%. The 1970s peaked above 14% (stagflation). The 1980s-1990s disinflated to 3-4%. The 2010s mostly ran below 2% target. The 2021-2022 surge peaked at 9.1% (highest since 1981). Central banks get nervous above 3% sustained. In debasement regimes, CPI often sits 2-4% above nominal rates for years — the mechanism by which debt erodes in real terms.
M2 Money Supply
$22.8T↑ +4.7% YoY
⤢
Moderate money growth — in line with long-run average.
What this means
What it is. M2 = broad money supply (cash, checking, savings, money market funds, small CDs). Represents money available for spending in the economy. Growing M2 = monetary expansion; shrinking M2 = monetary contraction. Complementary to the Fed balance sheet — it captures bank-created money in addition to Fed-created money.
Historical context. Long-run US average M2 growth: ~6-7% annually. The COVID era pushed M2 growth to over 25% YoY in 2021 — the fastest peacetime expansion on record. M2 then actually SHRANK in 2022-2023 (first decline since the 1930s) as the Fed tightened. M2 growth above GDP growth is roughly the rate at which monetary inflation is being created. If M2 grows 8% and real GDP grows 2%, that's ~6% theoretical monetary inflation — often lagged into actual prices.
Mixed with a debasement tilt — watch the next few readings.
Heavily-indebted democracies historically manage the load through a mix of
growth, austerity, inflation, or (for non-reserve countries) default. The
first two are hard; default is essentially off the table for reserve
currencies; so "inflate it away" — keep nominal rates below inflation while
debt slowly erodes in real terms — tends to be the path of least political
resistance. These four signals together tell you whether that playbook is
visibly in motion.
Structural Context · slow-moving forces behind the fiscal pressure
The signals above move week-to-week; these move over decades. Demographics
and energy economics set the direction of fiscal pressure regardless of
monetary policy. They don't predict events — they shape the environment
in which events happen. Arguably more important than the monthly data for
understanding the long arc.
Working-age pop (15-64)
212.0M+0.06% YoY
⤢
Shrinking working-age population = fewer workers per retiree over time. Social Security & Medicare pressure baked in decades ago.
What this means
What it is. US residents aged 15-64 — the population that's expected to be working (not retired, not children). This determines the economy's productive capacity and the tax base that supports retirees.
Historical context. Grew roughly 1% per year through the postwar boom (1950s-1990s). Growth slowed sharply after 2000. Now growing at ~0.3-0.5% annually. Projected to plateau or decline over the next 20-30 years without significant immigration. Japan's working-age population has been shrinking since 1995, and Italy's since the early 2000s — both now face the fiscal strain of funding growing retiree populations with shrinking workforces. The US is better-positioned than most developed economies but the direction is unmistakable.
Labor force participation
61.8%
⤢
Percent of working-age Americans in or seeking work. Falling participation compounds demographic pressure.
What this means
What it is. Percentage of the working-age population that is either employed or actively looking for work. Measures engagement with the economy, not unemployment. A 62% participation rate means 38% of working-age adults aren't in the labor force at all.
Historical context. US peaked at ~67.3% in early 2000, driven by women entering the workforce. Declined steadily to ~63% through the 2010s. COVID-era dip to ~60% then partial recovery; currently ~62%. Japan is notably higher (~64-65%) due to keeping older workers engaged longer. European rates vary widely. Declining participation compounds demographic pressure — fewer workers per retiree, even before counting the raw demographic shift.
Real GDP per capita
$70,502+1.37% YoY
⤢
Inflation-adjusted output per person. Real productivity growth is what actually makes debts shrinkable; nominal growth doesn't.
What this means
What it is. Inflation-adjusted economic output divided by total population. The closest single number to 'average real standard of living.' Nominal GDP growth can be inflated away; real per-capita growth is what actually makes a country wealthier.
Historical context. US real GDP per capita has grown roughly 1.5-2% annually for most of the postwar era. Growth has slowed noticeably since 2000 and again since 2008. Japan has been stagnant for 30+ years (real per-capita GDP barely above 1995 levels). Europe has grown more slowly than the US. China grew ~8% annually for decades but is decelerating. Real growth is what lets countries 'grow out of' debt — without it, options narrow to austerity or inflation.
WTI crude oil ($/bbl)
$95.96+51.67% YoY
⤢
Energy cost proxy. Persistently rising real energy costs = lower economy-wide energy return on investment, more capital locked up just producing energy rather than building things.
What this means
What it is. West Texas Intermediate crude oil spot price — the main North American oil benchmark. Energy cost proxy. Rising energy costs drag on the broader economy because every other industry uses energy as an input.
Historical context. 1986-2003 range: mostly $15-30/barrel. Modern era peaks: $147 (July 2008), $110+ (2011-2014), $120 (2022). Troughs: ~$10 (1998), briefly negative (April 2020). The broader concept behind this signal is EROI — Energy Return on Investment. Conventional oil was ~100:1 early in the 20th century, now ~20-30:1 for new conventional reserves, ~5-15:1 for shale. Lower EROI means more capital and labor tied up just producing energy rather than producing other things — a structural drag on productivity that compounds the fiscal picture.
About Fiscal Canary
Fiscal Canary is a free, daily-updated dashboard that tracks the
state of US fiscal health and the dollar's purchasing power using a
small set of carefully-chosen indicators. It's designed for people who
want to understand what's happening with the US economy without
becoming macro specialists — and without the doom-mongering that dominates
most "the dollar is collapsing" content.
The dashboard pulls live data from the Federal Reserve Economic Data
(FRED) service, the US Treasury Fiscal Data API, and public market
sources. It combines five core fiscal-stress metrics into a composite
score, then layers on a separate "debasement watch" that tracks whether
the classic "inflate it away" playbook appears to be active: negative
real yields, a weakening dollar, rising gold, and an expanding Fed
balance sheet.
What this dashboard tells you
Interest-to-revenue ratio — how much of federal income is consumed by debt service. The US post-WWII baseline was 6-14%; readings above 20% are historically unusual for developed economies.
Treasury auction demand — the bid-to-cover ratio on recent 10-year Treasury auctions, a measure of investor appetite for US government debt.
S&P 500 vs. gold — whether investors are favoring financial assets or hard assets, often read as a confidence-in-fiat signal.
10-year real yield — the inflation-adjusted return on long-term Treasury bonds. Persistently negative real yields indicate financial repression.
Debt maturity structure — what share of outstanding federal debt has to be refinanced within 12 months, which determines how quickly interest costs respond to rate changes.
What this dashboard isn't
It's not a market-timing tool, a crisis predictor, or a substitute for a
fiduciary financial advisor. Currency regimes shift over years, not days,
and no dashboard can forecast when an inflection will happen. The goal
here is awareness: knowing whether you're in a stable monetary
environment, a mild debasement regime, or something more stressed — and
having historical context for what each of those has meant in the past.
Historical context matters
The dashboard deliberately includes international comparisons and
historical episodes: Japan's decades with interest-to-revenue above 20%,
Italy's early-1990s fiscal stress, the 1940s-50s US financial repression
era, and the UK's 2022 gilt market episode. These put any current reading
in perspective. A US interest-to-revenue ratio of 24% is historically
elevated — but Japan has sustained higher ratios for a long time without
crisis. Context is everything.
Data sources
All data is public and sourced from authoritative institutions:
FRED (St. Louis Fed),
US Treasury Fiscal Data,
and public market data providers. The code is a static
Python project that fetches, scores, and renders this page on a daily
schedule. There are no third-party trackers, no advertising, and no
personal data collected.
Not investment advice. Single readings aren't reasons to make big portfolio
changes. Watch trends over months.