Is there a website that actually shows how much of our national

[a kennedy]

debt that China owns??? Was talking to a guy last night and I said that China owns a ton of our debt and he didn't believe me......so I want to at least show him some kinda of proof.....is there any place on the web that would show that?? Thanks.

[bitchkitty]

1. Google search for

How much of our national debt does China own?

[a kennedy]

3. thanks,

:pals:

[a kennedy]

2. google is my friend......

http://www.askquestions.org/details.php?id=75&gclid=CPOUwte9mpcCFQoHswodq22k_Q :cry:

[Bucky]

4. I think they own about 10% of our treasury's outstanding loans. But... they don't worry me too much

It's how much we're into Saudi Arabia that keeps me up nights.

By I gotta tell ya how much I love that Republican post on that "Yahoo Answers site from last year assuring us that we shouldn't worry about the debt because the natural increase in tax revenues will wipe out the annual deficit by 2009.

:rofl: The ol' Republican promise 'n' dodge! Lordy, they never change.

[Greyhound]

5. Also the back page of "The Economist" n/t

[Bucky]

6. Let me hijack the thread for folks too lazy to do the math (China is now #1 debt holder)

I'm bored, so I'm gonna noodle out these figures. China just passed up Japan as the top foriegn debt creditor of the US national debt. Of course our number one debtholder is the US government itself, since a slight majority of each year's budget deficit is covered by low interest loans from sundry US government agencies that collect funds for other accounts (think social security)

MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES
(in billions of dollars)

Country     Sep 2008   (average for previous 12 months) (if the number in parenthesis is higher than the previous number, that government is divesting its holdings in the US debt, if the number of average debt holdings is less than the current share of debt, then they're buying up our debt)

China                     585.0   (492.2)
Japan                     573.2  (589.5)
UK                         338.4  (212.7)
Carib Bnkng Ctrs¹   185.3   (114.3)
Oil Exporters²         182.2   (153.0)
Brazil                     141.9   (138.4)
Luxembourg             91.8   (75.9)
Russia                     69.7   (48.8)
Hong Kong               60.9   (57.3)
Norway                   52.2   (36.1)
Switzerland             49.0   (40.9)
Germany                 41.4   (42.0)
Taiwan                   37.4   (40.1)
Korea                     36.1   (38.9)
Mexico                   34.2   (35.8)


Now which scares you more, (1) the Caribbean Banking Centers or (2) the Oil Exporters?

The Dept o' Tres website gives us this incomplete profile:

1/     Oil exporters include Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria.
2/     Caribbean Banking Centers include Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles and Panama. Beginning with new series for June 2006, also includes British Virgin Islands.

I can feel my skin crawling, can you feel your skin crawling? Basically we're talking about (1) OPEC and (2) American & Trilateral jillionaires with their offshore fortunes nested in IRS-insulated banks. Both cozy groups are buying up our endebtedness bonds like they're hotcakes.

NOW does the Gates re-appointment make sense to you?

But wait, there's more. In the last year alone, our government's foreign endebtedness has gone up from $1.608 trillion to $1.822 tril. That's a 13.3% increase in just one year. Please feel free to gulp. Our total endebtedness went from $2.299 trillion in Sept '07 to $2.860 trillion in Sept '08. That's a head popping 24.4% increase in the debt in one year. The upside being that foreigners own a smaller slice of a vastly exploding debt problem. The downside is that if the debt has to be suddenly cashed in, there's no one to actually cover the liquidity because the government is in debt to itself.

(Of course the reality is that no one wants the US government to actually pay off its debts all of a sudden. There's too many wealthy people around the world deeply invested in our staying propped up who'd be whammied by a massive default. Of course when numbers are this out of proportion, you don't always control what happens.) Still, I hope I've given you some context for understanding why Republicans always want to cut taxes and increase spending--they get more interest money that way as long as the Caribbean governments use their banks for loaning us the money.

The formal answer to your question How much of our debt does China own? is this: they own 32% of the current foreign debt and 20% of the current total debt. Here's the numbers for the top 15 countries in a shocking courier font:

Share of...
  For. debt   Σ debt
China  32.1%  20.5%
Japan  31.5%  20.0%
U. K.  18.6%  11.8%
Carib  10.2%   6.5%
OPEC.  10.0%   6.4%
Brazl   7.8%   5.0%
Luxem   5.0%   3.2%
Rusia   3.8%   2.4%
HongK   3.3%   2.1%
Norwy   2.9%   1.8%
Switz   2.7%   1.7%
Germ.   2.3%   1.4%
Taiwn   2.1%   1.3%
Korea   2.0%   1.3%
Mexco   1.9%   1.2%