Bush Sells off USA/ "Foreign Central Banks" Ownership of our US Bonds"

[KoKo]

Holdings of Treasury Securities (Foreign Officials AND Private foreigners)






CURVEBALL: Investment outlook from PIMCO's Bill Gross:

If the Fed were expected to lower rates, a flatter, even inverted curve might result. It’s not that this academic theory has been dislodged in recent years but it may have been asked to take a seat next to the increasingly important variable of global financial flows. These flows, no doubt, rely critically on the willingness of foreign investors to hold U.S. assets in the face of potential currency and asset price depreciation. Still, as El-Erian has pointed out, many of these flows coming back into U.S. financial markets come from non-economic agents, his hush-hush euphemism for central banks. What he means is that these “agents” are less performance driven and more economically driven, less concerned with the price changes of bonds and more concerned with generating stable (and hopefully high) levels of income on their burgeoning domestic reserve balances, as well as high levels of employment in their domestic economies. Now that economic growth, inflation, and interest rate movements have seemingly come under control because of what has been described as the “great moderation,” it’s only natural that central banks would be willing to extend their bond investments further out on the curve in an effort to capture higher yields. That they have done so is graphically demonstrated in the following two charts/tables that point to an increasing presence, nay domination, of foreign buying - especially central bank buying - on the intermediate and long ends of the U.S. yield curve. Both charts point out that “Foreigners” and indeed “Official Foreign” central banks own greater percentages of notes and bonds up to 10-years in maturity, than they do bills.

more at..........
http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Late+Breaking+Commentary/IO/2006/IO+02.2006.htm

[stillcool]

1. Country Ownership of U.S. Government Debt

Total foreign ownership of US Federal deficit currently stands at 45% as of end of first half of 2005

COUNTRY OWNERSHIP OF U.S. GOVERNMENT DEBT

Japan $687.3 Billion
China $252.2 Billion
United Kingdom $182.4 Billion
Caribbean Banking Centers $102.9 Billion
Taiwan $71.8 Billion
Germany $63.5 Billion
Korea $61.7 Billion
OPEC $54.6 Billion
Hong Kong $48.1 Billion
Canada $47.8 Billion

Conclusions:

Foreign sources financed 54% of US Federal deficit in 2002, 73% in 2003, and 99% in 2004

Total foreign ownership of US Federal deficit currently stands at 45% as of end of 1st half of 2005

The US Government currently owes Japan $687 Billion, China $252 Billion, and Korea $62 Billion - together $1.0 Trillion

The US Government currently owes $2.0 Trillion to foreign lenders
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http://www.economyincrisis.org/congress/foreignfinanceddebt.asp

[KoKo]

2. Bush uses up Clinton surplus/gives Top 1% tax cut/borrows the rest for War

Is there any other way to look at this? He's sold the US off to give the 1% a break and then when 9/11 struck he started borrowing all he could for his war.

Thanks for the extra charts and ownership of our debt...it's good to see it broken down. :-)'s