Posted on 07/30/2004 9:53:28 AM PDT by COBOL2Java
MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES (in billions of dollars) 2004 2004 2004 2004 COUNTRY May April Mar Feb Japan 668.1 652.5 646.4 614.6 Mainland China 164.1 161.0 157.3 153.8 United Kingdom 113.2 127.3 118.0 101.5 Caribbean Banking Center 3/ 72.2 56.6 66.3 59.8 Korea 58.7 59.2 60.4 57.0 Taiwan 57.3 56.8 54.8 55.7 Hong Kong 52.7 52.1 50.7 53.1 Germany 49.7 50.0 45.7 45.9 Switzerland 49.3 51.1 48.6 48.2 OPEC 48.4 47.5 45.7 43.7 Mexico 41.7 35.8 34.0 33.6 Canada 33.0 33.3 30.7 28.3 Singapore 26.4 27.2 26.7 25.7 Luxembourg 25.6 26.2 27.8 27.7 Ireland 19.2 14.9 14.8 15.8 Israel 18.0 15.5 16.4 14.1 Italy 16.1 15.7 15.0 14.9 India 15.9 15.9 13.6 13.3 Turkey 15.7 16.3 14.9 14.2 Belgium 13.7 13.3 12.8 12.9 Netherlands 13.6 15.5 12.5 12.6 Brazil 12.9 12.4 13.1 11.3 Sweden 11.5 9.9 10.5 10.6 France 11.0 12.3 16.5 12.3 Thailand 10.9 10.8 11.9 15.3 Spain 10.4 11.5 9.3 9.6 Australia 7.3 7.5 10.0 12.6 All Other 118.1 120.7 118.3 114.2 Grand Totals 1754.7 1728.8 1702.7 1632.3It's not perfect, since countries like Japan also will accumulate dollars and the Treasury doesn't necessarily know where these are; it's also not perfect since the "Caribbean money center" line is also an euphemism for "we don't know". For instance, Japan is actually carrying over $800 billion in foreign exchange assets. (For Japanese information, you want to go to the Ministry of Finance (the MOF, rhymes with doff) at and look for the Monthly Finance Review. It gives the actual foreign exchange holdings for Japan, along with lots of useful numbers all in one package.)
But the Treasury page is good enough for government work, since it does tell us (1) who we are paying interest to (2) how much growth in that debt broken by country by month, and it gives a quick grand total. (Countries are not as likely to hold bonds if they are just in for the short term, particularly long bonds, because of nasty combinations of principal risk and exchange rate risk can quickly erode values. You can hedge against this, but that isn't free. Holding to maturity of course eliminates risks to principal due to interest rate rises. Japan manipulates the yen/dollar rate and that eliminates a certain amount of exchange rate risk for themselves. You can find on the MOF web page a summary of their recent currency interventions; the most current one is here. It was 0 yen, not a number that we particularly want to see since we need someone to buy our debt, and if it isn't Japan or China, who need to keep their currencies weak, then it could push interest rates since the auction might be bought by someone who demands higher rates.)
As to the point about the national debt still is more than 50% domestically held, that is correct (it is 70% domestically held currently, and 30% foreign; that is, the above 1.754 trillion dollars divided into the $6 trillion debt ), but the domestic percentage is dropping, and it won't be over 50% soon. The important curve is external debt-to-GDP:
Hope this is of some use.
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm
If Bush loses, THIS is why...not a single veto in 4 years.
Debt to the penny:
Current Amount
07/29/2004 $7,308,426,855,798.06
But Bush is OUR president. We shouldn't have to modify his proposals.
Besides, if you think he introduced it only to get votes, you have a lower opinion of him than I. I am certain that he believes in this Socialist nonsense.
I live in a rural area and I see thousands of old geezers running around in giant motor homes. Most of them don't look too great so I'd guess they spend a fair amount of time in Doctors' offices.
Isn't partisan thinking wonderful?
Exactly. Bush needs his feet held to the fire, lest "compassionate conservatism" actually rule the day.
Here in the hill country, it is a snowbird invasion every winter-the RV parks are full of gas guzzling motor homes dragging Jeep Cherokees and small import SUV's with out of state plates. But these are not people who live here, and the majority of them are obviously wealthy enough to be able to run around like that with no visible means of support, and I'm sure most have private insurance. The majority of them are rude and condescending to local business owners like myself, inconsiderate about where (and how) they park and drive so badly that they literally mow down whole stands of mailboxes at nearly every turn and back into other vehicles with impunity-most of us are quite happy to see them depart for points north in spring, no matter how much money they spend.
It's the same over here. They're tourists, they don't live in the area. But they live somewhere...and collect medicare and social security.
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