Who Owns Our Debt?

From Dailynews-record.com

A simple question, that headline. And, if you boast a passing acquaintance with the news of late, a simple answer. But not as simple as our natural assumptions of a generation ago. Back then, the rhetorical question and concomitant retort would have been: “Who owns our debt? Why, we (the American people) do, of course.”

Not so today. Estimates from a year ago (June 2008) indicated that nearly half of all U.S. Treasury securities (49.37 percent) were held either intergovernmentally, or by the Federal Reserve. Another 23-plus percent were owned by a melange of private individuals and entities (insurance firms, pensioners, holders of U.S. savings bonds) and public-sector bodies (principally, state and local governments).

The other nearly 28 percent? Foreign investors. Of that portion, the Chinese hold nearly a quarter (24.07 percent), with the Japanese (whom you don’t hear about quite as much) a relatively close second at 20.66 percent. From there, the percentages drop dramatically to the 6.06 percent owned by oil exporters and the 5.75 percent held by Caribbean banking centers.

The debt, now measuring $11.61 trillion as shown by the U.S. National Debt Clock, is hardly our own. Which, needless to say, renders our economic situation more precarious than it ever has been.