I was dismissive when I saw the title, but they have real statistics: foreign holdings are at 2012 levels while total treasuries outstanding are 3x larger.

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carefree-bob 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Holdings have increased by $500 billion over the last year. Why cherry pick 2012? Because that was in the aftermath of QE from the great recession and foreign holdings of treasuries were enormous as they rotated out of US private debt and sought the safety of treasuries. Today it is risk on, relatively speaking.

These go up and down based on cash management needs and portfolio allocation choices between public and private debt, and so you can pick one year when cash management needs were high or appetite for riskier were low. And then count on people being dupes, LOL.

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NewJazz 11 hours ago | parent [-]

The trouble is the US never paid down the debt for those years, they just rolled it over and incurred new debt. If foreign holdings decrease further, it doesn't matter if it is simply for cash management reasons -- the US will be rolling over historic debt at historic interest rates.

	▲	carefree-bob 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		By paying down the debt, you mean issuing less debt over time? The US government is not an uncle that pays off his debt so he can retire and move to Florida. An individual does that, but the household sector as a whole does not pay down debt, because for every uncle moving to Florida, there is an Aunt borrowing for a new house. So instead, we talk about things like sectoral debt ratios and do not use language like "when will people in Maine finally pay down debt, I'm sick of seeing people in Maine owing debt". The government is a sector of the economy. You can argue that we are borrowing too much, and I would agree, but you are not gonna fix that until you address the foreign capital inflows. That means rolling back the investor rights agreements. As long as foreign nations can print money and use it to buy dollars in order to stimulate their exports, the US is going to have a problem with excessive debt loads. The flipside of that is that the US will not have a problem of foreign investors decreasing their holdings. It will increase every single year, in line with foreign export demands. If anyone tells you the opposite, just look for the error or the lie, because I guarantee you there is one. This article has both.

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freefolks 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

treasuries are the same as cash. All that means is there is still too much USD Money supply from QE and rates will continue to go higher to reduce the supply.