3 ms·

When it says that 'countries own debts' do they mean that governments own other governments' bonds or that citizens own other countries' bonds?

• sonnyblarney 8y ago
  It's totally unclear and for some reason I seriously doubt governments are lending to other governments and borrowing at the same time. It would be easy to line the numbers up against reality to find out if this is private debt, public-to-private debt etc. (which I suspect it is), or some kind of public-to-public debt (which I doubt). Also, all debt is not equal, the loans are on different terms with different amount of risk, so it's the value of the current bonds and market prices that need to be compared, not their face value.
  • JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > I seriously doubt governments are lending to other governments and borrowing at the same time TARGET2 balances are bilateral and cumulative [1]. But they aren’t really debts intended to be paid back, and more an EU payments system accounting side effect. (When Greece threatened exiting the Euro, calling these balances did come into question [2].) [1] https://www.yardeni.com/pub/target2.pdf https://www.yardeni.com/pub/target2.pdf [2] https://www.euromoney.com/article/b12kjh8s0kpncx/target2-payment-system-gives-ecb-a-100-billion-reason-to-keep-greece-in-euro https://www.euromoney.com/article/b12kjh8s0kpncx/target2-pay...
    • ringbugger 8y ago
      > But they aren’t really debts intended to be paid back They are intended to be equalized at some point.
      • 21 8y ago
        That point always being 30 years away. To me, TARGET2 is a politically acceptable way for rich euro countries (Germany) to transfer money to the poor ones (Greece), in exchange for the poor ones accepting the fact that the rich countries deciding EU policies.
• jarfil 8y ago
  Unfortunately the file with data and sources is no longer available.