Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

External Debt: What is the composition of America’s external debt and to whom is it owed?

debt
greatelderone asked:


I know the US external debt is around 12 trillion, but what is the composition of the said debt? Treasury securities? What?

And second, does anyone have figures for who owns this outstanding debt? I have heard for example that China owns anything from 400 Billion to over 1 trillion. Does anyone have definite figures of these?

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2 Responses to “External Debt: What is the composition of America’s external debt and to whom is it owed?”

Homer J. Simpson Says:
July 16th, 2010 at 8:51 am

The public debt (just treasury securities) is about $9 trillion. of this, only $4 trillion is held by non-US governmental entities. of the $4 trillion, about $2 trillion is held by foreign governments and foreign individuals.

This figure does not include a number of unfunded commitments such as social security.

KevinStud99 Says:
July 18th, 2010 at 8:47 am

Good answer from Homer.

Will just add that the federal debt should not include unfunded commitments, since mere commitments are not debt. And to further confuse things I’ll point out that the 4.0 trillion of “debt” that the federal government itself owns is actually not debt at all, but in fact IS unfunded commitments. But that’s for the advanced class.

P.S. China owns 400 billion, that is correct. See link below for the full list.

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