http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110228/pl_afp/useconomyfinancebondschina
"China's holdings of US bonds reached $1.16 trillion at the end of December, almost $270 billion more than previously estimated, new data showed Monday.
Beijing, which has converted much of a huge trade surplus with the United States over the past two decades into buying up US treasuries and other securities, held 26.1 percent of the total of $4.44 trillion held by foreigners, the Treasury said.
The figures came as the US government recalculated its data on foreign holdings of US securities from June 2010.
Chinese-held Treasuries have fallen since hitting a high of $1.18 trillion in October, under the revised figures. Japan remained by far the second largest holder of US government debt, with $882 billion in December, around $1.3 billion less than original estimates.
Britain was third at $272.1 billion."
Who cares, nobody understands such huge numbers anyways.
And most of our debt is not held by foreign countries but to bankers at home.
most of our debt is not held by foreign countries but to bankers at home.
Speaking of bankers, recently I was really surprised that the Fed holds just over one trillion dollar of USG debt: http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/01/30/federal-reserve-us-treasury-holdings-pass-the-1-trillion-mark/. Judging by a lot of fuss I expected it to hold at least half of the public debt.