European and Asian investors have been rushing into the United States bond market, spurred by a global glut of savings that has reached record levels.
Running from near-zero interest rates at home, foreign buyers are piling into the booming market for corporate bonds, including high-grade debt securities issued by the likes of IBM and General Electric and riskier fare churned out by energy and telecommunications companies.
A growing number of economists are concerned this flood of money may inflate the value of these securities well beyond what they are worth, potentially leading to a market bubble that eventually bursts.
More broadly, however, these economists fear that an excess of ready cash in Europe and Asia is on the rise, which could keep a damper on global growth prospects.
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That is because the cash, instead of being spent on building bridges in, say, Germany, or individual shopping sprees in China and Japan, is accumulating and being recycled into global capital markets, keeping interest rates artificially low as investors chase after returns.
And again, economists say, the burden is placed on the United States, with its still fragile economy, to be the growth engine for the world.
