While technically all municipal bonds are government bonds, municipal bonds represent a subset of government bonds. Unlike the behemoth debt associated with almost all countries on the planet, including ours, municipal bonds are, well, usually smaller and sometimes just small.
Size matters, except when it comes to debt, bigger usually is not better. This is a qualitative difference where municipal bonds have the ability to shine. Unlike the debt upon debt upon debt of most government debt today, municipalities have the ability to truly be unique in their amount of leverage.
All five year bonds are five year bonds. And almost every five year government bond will be repaid because the government has promised to repay it. These government bonds carry the “full faith and credit” of their issuer to be repaid and are known as general obligation bonds.
When it comes to general obligations, bigger can indeed be better. Larger governments usually have more resources and usually are viewed as being less risky, or even safe or without (credit) risk as United States treasury bonds were viewed. (more…)
