China is back on top after some revisions now showing on the treasury website.
United States Treasury Department. http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt
This is a good link to keep going back to as it is updated, so keep it in mind.
This chart was put together by ZeroHedge using BLS data. They have some interesting posts from to time but if you are not familiar with some of the more exotic investment and economic terms some of their writing might not make sense to you. This post however is right to the point. As you can see from the blue line, the trend looks like it will start to tick up again in the wrong direction.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/mass-layoffs-surge-january-highest-july-2009
| Foreign owners of US Treasury Securities (December 2009) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Nation | Billions of Dollars | Percentage |
| Japan | 768.8 | 21.27% |
| People’s Republic of China (Mainland) | 755.4 | 20.90% |
| United Kingdom | 302.5 | 8.37% |
| Oil exporters | 186.8 | 5.17% |
| Caribbean banking centers | 184.7 | 5.11% |
| Brazil | 160.6 | 4.44% |
| Hong Kong | 152.9 | 4.23% |
| Russia | 118.5 | 3.28% |
| Luxembourg | 99.9 | 2.76% |
| Taiwan R.O.C. | 79.6 | 2.20% |
| All other | 804.4 | 22.26% |
| Grand Total | 3614.0 | |
The above data is provided by the United States Treasury Department. http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt
(The data in this link will change due to revisions)
Recently, China has lightened up a little on it’s U.S. Debt holdings, and Japan has picked up the slack. We have to finance trillions more in the coming years thanks to the super geniuses who are running our country. So, we will have to wait and see if these foreigners get tired of bailing us out at 3% interest. The FED has been and will be stepping in. You can count on it.
Remember these numbers are just the foreign owners. The total debt is about $12.4 trillion. Our debt will hit 100% of GDP in the next few years or sooner.
Below is a condensed version of a longer interview with Thomas Sowell. He is my favorite economist/commentator and is also the author of several books. I have them all in my library.