56 ms·

No, just stay indebted to China forever. Don't be competitve, God forbid. Just be nice to flowers and stuff. Sorry dude, that's not how the greatness of this n

No, just stay indebted to China forever. Don't be competitve, God forbid. Just be nice to flowers and stuff. Sorry dude, that's not how the greatness of this nation was build. We got lazy, demanding and needy. All financed by China. Which by now gets us by the balls. They own our debt, mind you.

guiomie 13y ago
Personally, I think the USA is on the better side of the equation. Id rather be the one defaulting, then the one not get his money back.
- cnautofan 13y ago
  So now, you are becoming not only lazy but also shameless, WTF, where's your bottom line?
namdnay 13y ago
> the greatness of this nation .. We got lazy, demanding and needy What are you talking about?
- illuminate 13y ago
  American exceptionalism, which amounts to calling America the best because "we're the best", not because of our product.
encoderer 13y ago
Groan. Do you have any notion of how small of percentage of our debt they actually own? We owe most of our debt to ourselves.
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  You are wrong. No, we don't. This used to be the case in the 1980s. Almost 50% of our debt is owned by foreigners: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#Foreign_holdings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_Sta... That's exactly why the current crisis is so dangerous. Because the FED won't be able to simply raise the interest rates. (that would squeeze the capital from the USA to the foreigners). They keep interest rates as low as they are currently - inflation will hit us sooner or later (already at 10% if you use US Government formula for calculating inflation from the Reagan years). The raise interest rates : well, that's akin to credit card holder raising interest they owe to the bank. Foreigners will earn even more from their debt holdings. So, from the two evils to choose from, the FED will choose to print into oblivion because that will be politically more acceptable than repaying obligations to foreigners. BTW, US Treasuries are currently at their all time (almost 300 years time) high. If that's not a bubble then I don't know what is.
  - encoderer 13y ago
    Striking to me that you posted a link that directly supported what I was explaining. --- As of January 2011, foreigners owned $4.45 trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 47% of the debt held by the public of $9.49 trillion and 32% of the total debt of $14.1 trillion.[71] The largest holders were the central banks of China, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Russia.[73] The share held by foreign governments has grown over time, rising from 13% of the public debt in 1988[74] to 25% in 2007.[75] As of May 2011 the largest single holder of U.S. government debt was China, with 26 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities (8% of total U.S. public debt).[76] China's holdings of government debt, as a percentage of all foreign-held government debt, have decreased a bit between 2010 and 2011, but are up significantly since 2000 (when China held just 6 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities).[77] --- The key fact here is: China holds 8% of US debt. Eight Percent. Also worth mentioning that according to those same numbers we hold a majority of our own debt. So please, tell me more about how "wrong" I am.
    - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
      The link explains that we hold only half of our debt. So while you were correct to point out that technically the US public owns most of it, still 47% held by foreigner is so high that everything what I said in my post is still valid. We can't raise interest rates because this will result in funds going from the US to foreigners. Economic suicide. And we won't be able to keep them at zero too. I specifically used word foreigners and not China too. Now, eight percent my seem not too much, but it is 16% of the foreign held debt. Let's say that China for purily political reasons decides to sell all the US debt they hold on a single day. When - as I said - the US Treasuries are valued at their 300 years high, so looks like a bubble, so temptation may be there anyway. I think all these central banks arounf the world sitting on the piles of the US Treasuries are just really, really worried at that point. It's like owning mortgages on plenty of houses back in 2007. If one of them can't take the pressure anymore and sells, everyone will, the bubble bursts. Plus China may have additional political agenda to do it (i.e. too may US bases around their country). This will crush prices, force rest of the foreigners to sell, making US Treasuries effectively worthless. Bam, the bubble bursted. Welcome to the world where the US dollar isn't the world reserve currency anymore. Now, nothing to worry about. The US will be just fine after the default. As many other countries were fine after defaulting. Look at the UK and why they quit Sues Canal in early 1950s. Because the US threatened them with open sale of all the UK bonds (guilds) we had. From this point on the UK empire is officially just en "empire". Because we got them by the balls. As China has us now.

guiomie 13y ago

Personally, I think the USA is on the better side of the equation. Id rather be the one defaulting, then the one not get his money back.

cnautofan 13y ago
So now, you are becoming not only lazy but also shameless, WTF, where's your bottom line?

namdnay 13y ago

> the greatness of this nation .. We got lazy, demanding and needy What are you talking about?

illuminate 13y ago
American exceptionalism, which amounts to calling America the best because "we're the best", not because of our product.

encoderer 13y ago

Groan. Do you have any notion of how small of percentage of our debt they actually own? We owe most of our debt to ourselves.

LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
You are wrong. No, we don't. This used to be the case in the 1980s. Almost 50% of our debt is owned by foreigners: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#Foreign_holdings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_Sta... That's exactly why the current crisis is so dangerous. Because the FED won't be able to simply raise the interest rates. (that would squeeze the capital from the USA to the foreigners). They keep interest rates as low as they are currently - inflation will hit us sooner or later (already at 10% if you use US Government formula for calculating inflation from the Reagan years). The raise interest rates : well, that's akin to credit card holder raising interest they owe to the bank. Foreigners will earn even more from their debt holdings. So, from the two evils to choose from, the FED will choose to print into oblivion because that will be politically more acceptable than repaying obligations to foreigners. BTW, US Treasuries are currently at their all time (almost 300 years time) high. If that's not a bubble then I don't know what is.
- encoderer 13y ago
  Striking to me that you posted a link that directly supported what I was explaining. --- As of January 2011, foreigners owned $4.45 trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 47% of the debt held by the public of $9.49 trillion and 32% of the total debt of $14.1 trillion.[71] The largest holders were the central banks of China, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Russia.[73] The share held by foreign governments has grown over time, rising from 13% of the public debt in 1988[74] to 25% in 2007.[75] As of May 2011 the largest single holder of U.S. government debt was China, with 26 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities (8% of total U.S. public debt).[76] China's holdings of government debt, as a percentage of all foreign-held government debt, have decreased a bit between 2010 and 2011, but are up significantly since 2000 (when China held just 6 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities).[77] --- The key fact here is: China holds 8% of US debt. Eight Percent. Also worth mentioning that according to those same numbers we hold a majority of our own debt. So please, tell me more about how "wrong" I am.
  - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
    The link explains that we hold only half of our debt. So while you were correct to point out that technically the US public owns most of it, still 47% held by foreigner is so high that everything what I said in my post is still valid. We can't raise interest rates because this will result in funds going from the US to foreigners. Economic suicide. And we won't be able to keep them at zero too. I specifically used word foreigners and not China too. Now, eight percent my seem not too much, but it is 16% of the foreign held debt. Let's say that China for purily political reasons decides to sell all the US debt they hold on a single day. When - as I said - the US Treasuries are valued at their 300 years high, so looks like a bubble, so temptation may be there anyway. I think all these central banks arounf the world sitting on the piles of the US Treasuries are just really, really worried at that point. It's like owning mortgages on plenty of houses back in 2007. If one of them can't take the pressure anymore and sells, everyone will, the bubble bursts. Plus China may have additional political agenda to do it (i.e. too may US bases around their country). This will crush prices, force rest of the foreigners to sell, making US Treasuries effectively worthless. Bam, the bubble bursted. Welcome to the world where the US dollar isn't the world reserve currency anymore. Now, nothing to worry about. The US will be just fine after the default. As many other countries were fine after defaulting. Look at the UK and why they quit Sues Canal in early 1950s. Because the US threatened them with open sale of all the UK bonds (guilds) we had. From this point on the UK empire is officially just en "empire". Because we got them by the balls. As China has us now.