Posted on 07/25/2011 5:58:35 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
See [also] the history of the debt limit since 1980.
As of the end of March, the federal government owed $14.27 trillion to a wide variety of holders of U.S. Treasury securities. This graphic depicts who those creditors are and the amount they have bought in treasuries. Click on the arrows next to a category to expand its subcategories.
All amounts are in billions of dollars.
[Click on link above to view]
$4,613.5B in government accounts that can’t be bought or sold. Cute.
Quick question: How much is something worth that can’t be bought or sold?
Quick answer: $0.
I could not see any “foreign investor category”.
Velly interesting, thanks.
I had the same initial reaction. You have to read the paragraphs under the graph. It’s apparently included in “privately held”, which doesn’t distinguish between foreign and domestic.
$4.6T is held by the Fed because they couldn’t get any suckers to swallow it, I suspect. This is absolutely criminal. “The Fed” doesn’t have any real assets to lend the gov. So what happens? They “print” money. I.e., they make it up out of thin air!! Because value must come from somewhere, it comes from diluting the value of our money, i.e., it causes inflation. This is absolutely criminal. I can’t say that enough.
This is BS in the worst case, or shows that the dems cannot stop spending in the best case. If there is no deal and the gov't cannot borrow, there is plenty of money to service the debt and pay entitlements. It does not logically follow that there will be a default if there is no deal -- unless Obama/Geithner choose to not service the debt.
No, they refer to things like the IOUs traded to the Treasury by SSA for excess FICA taxes that were spent by Congress in the year collected. They're counted against the debt ceiling and serve as the 'trust fund'. They're what people are referencing when saying that SS is solvent for decades to come. It's also why Obama was lying when saying SS checks wouldn't go out. SSA could return the IOUs to Treasury, who could then issue debt to the public, without increasing the overall 'debt' figure.
I can see it coming - The “Ruling Elite” will want to make it mandatory that ever citizen buy US Bonds. It will be deducted right out of your pay check.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.