In 2015, President Obama and Republican congressional leaders agreed to suspend the federal debt ceiling until March 15, 2017. After that date – less then two weeks from now – the Treasury will surpass its cumulative $20 trillion borrowing authority.

And while the stock market (and VIX) signal utter calm, signs of stress are very clear in America’s money markets. Swap spreads are suggesting traders are getting nervous that any hiccup in efforts to remove the burden could trigger a shortage on short-term government securities.

And even more notably, investors are willing to pay more for bills maturing in four weeks instead of five.

That’s because they don’t want to be caught empty handed while the Treasury slows debt sales to push its cash balance lower as part of the 2015 pact to suspend the debt ceiling. The spread between the March 9 and March 16 bills may get a “a little more noticeable” as Treasury cuts issuance and provides a “clearer sense of how long bill supply is going to be lower than normal” going into the March 15 deadline, Jefferies economist Thomas Simons said in a phone interview.

So, with two weeks left until the debt ceiling suspension expires, Treasury’s cash balance plummeted to $109 billion this week as of Thursday… making this the most important chart in the world right now…

Once it hits zero, as FiscalTimes notes, newly ensconced Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is expected to order “emergency measures” to effectively buy more time for the government to pay its creditors and cover revenue shortfalls to keep the government operating. The stakes couldn’t be higher: Failure to raise the debt ceiling would do irreversible damage to the U.S. credit rating, trigger an uproar in U.S. and global markets, drive up the future cost of borrowing, postpone Social Security payments and tax returns, and force layoffs of non-essential government workers.

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