21 Days: Treasury Says Debt Has Been Frozen at $18,112,975,000,000

originally posted by: xuenchen
I wonder why Obama isn't squawking about this?

Hmmm.

Will this eventually affect social programs?

Because this happens every few months. With the current accounting practices (or lack of) in congress and the fed this is business as usual. The second or third reply to this thread linked several headlines from just the past couple years where this very thing was happening. It happens because congress can't work together and spend incrementally. So we put it on credit, wait until catastrophe is about to strike, then raise the credit limit so we can do it all over again.

originally posted by: glend
Most of the debt is a farce, Japan buys US debt whilst US buys Japanese debt so everyone in reality is just printing fiat to deflate the wealth of their middle class. They now use “extraordinary measures” laws to avoid the so called default, tapping into Civil Service Retirement and Disability pensions which will see them through to November.

link

Nations do this due to fiat currency. It needs to be backed by something. By backing a currency with debt, it means you're backing it with that currency. As a result, the nation that has debt held by the most people actually has the strongest currency. Greece for example has problems because no one wants their debt. On the other hand, the US is in great shape because everyone wants our debt. China has lots, Japan has lots, virtually every nation on earth holds some US debt. That means our currency is backed by every other currency on the planet and that makes it stable and trustworthy.

It's kind of backwards but that's how things work on a national level since each nation can simply spend money into existence.

originally posted by: glend
a reply to: marg6043

Yes agree they do like they are following Japans model. Last year Belgium become the third largest buyer of Treasury bonds by adding $200 billion to their total of $340 billion. But Belgiums GDP is only $419 billion so the BS has become ludicrous.

I found it interesting that china stopped announcing its gold reserves soon after Obama was trying to make a deals with them in 2008. I suspect if fort knox had any gold, much of it was transferred to China in 2008 as a deal not to dump USD (not indefinitely). If China announces tomorrow that they have 10,000 tonnes of gold in reserves a lot of questions need be asked.

A neat fact for you. The US holds A LOT of Chinese debt. We don't hold as much as they do of ours, but as a percentage of that nations GDP we hold way more of their debt than they hold of ours. That makes us the creditor in the relationship. Their currency is heavily dependent on the dollar doing well, while the dollar is less reliant on the yuan doing well.

Crashing the dollar (which they probably have the power to do) would hurt them far more than it would hurt us.

a reply to: Aazadan

Didn't know that Aazdan thanks for informing. I do believe that the fascist rulers this world (Multinationals) are planning to take out the US because its population isn't as pliable as other nations. They have already transferred the US industrial might to China, most of the Gold, next is ownership of world reserve currency. Which means IMF will be taken in more and more Yuan

Its going to be a slow but relentless collapse.

a reply to: johnwick

But you use the dollar right?

originally posted by: glend
a reply to: Aazadan

Didn't know that Aazdan thanks for informing. I do believe that the fascist rulers this world (Multinationals) are planning to take out the US because its population isn't as pliable as other nations. They have already transferred the US industrial might to China, most of the Gold, next is ownership of world reserve currency. Which means IMF will be taken in more and more Yuan

Its going to be a slow but relentless collapse.

China has no power to replace the dollar with the yuan as the world reserve currency. They aren't even trying. What they are trying is a partnership of several nations who can trade among each other without dollars. This will not replace the dollar though. Instead China pushes to the UN on that front. They want a currency backed by all the currencies in the world (like the dollar) but outside the hands of any one nation or bank (unlike the dollar). Essentially, what they want is a currency backed by all, but manipulated by the security council and a special bank.

Implementing such a thing is very tricky though. Take China for example, they make a lot of money by having a weak currency, allowing nations with a stronger currency to offshore labor to China. If we are all using the same currency this advantage disappears and China loses a massive chunk of it's economic power.

a reply to: xuenchen

I was half-expecting this to be frozen at that amount, but it's still going up - $18,178,850,000,000 when I posted this: usdebtclock.org...

Does this mean the U.S. is secretly in bankruptcy proceedings?

a reply to: xuenchen

Hardly-many countries have set a debt ceiling in the past only to crash through it a few years later, and many countries still play hot potato when it comes to laying blame.

originally posted by: here4this
a reply to: johnwick
The only 2 Presidents in this country to actually try to do away with the "Federal Reserve" and hand the economy back to the US Treasury wound up assassinated .Kennedy did and several Treasury notes were printed and they were backed by silver ( the Federal Reserve already had all our gold). After he was assassinated that was reversed and those US Treasury notes were made illegal to use.

You say 2 presidents...
but only mention Kennedy.

Who is the the 2nd President

no federal reserve no debt

a reply to: spoonbender
Abraham Lincoln - was not going to sign the Central Bank Charter and let it run out. Remember , during the Civil War , he stated of the army in front of me and the bankers behind me , it is the latter that concerns me most.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: glend
a reply to: marg6043

Yes agree they do like they are following Japans model. Last year Belgium become the third largest buyer of Treasury bonds by adding $200 billion to their total of $340 billion. But Belgiums GDP is only $419 billion so the BS has become ludicrous.

I found it interesting that china stopped announcing its gold reserves soon after Obama was trying to make a deals with them in 2008. I suspect if fort knox had any gold, much of it was transferred to China in 2008 as a deal not to dump USD (not indefinitely). If China announces tomorrow that they have 10,000 tonnes of gold in reserves a lot of questions need be asked.

A neat fact for you. The US holds A LOT of Chinese debt. We don't hold as much as they do of ours, but as a percentage of that nations GDP we hold way more of their debt than they hold of ours. That makes us the creditor in the relationship. Their currency is heavily dependent on the dollar doing well, while the dollar is less reliant on the yuan doing well.

Crashing the dollar (which they probably have the power to do) would hurt them far more than it would hurt us.

Some facts and figures would be nice to see.

???

** National debt of $18,112,975,000,000
** There are around 115,200,000 households in the USA
** Divide $18,112,975,000,000 by 115,200,000... ...the result is: $157,230.

...ie, the national debt is $157,230 for each US family household

How long would it take for you to save up $157,230 ?

.22LR bullets are so scarce they can be used as payment around here.
a reply to: lordcomac

a reply to: xuenchen

We may as well stop pretending to be in debt.

It's not like we actually owe anyone anything.

a reply to: here4this

You forgot Andrew Jackson.

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon
But Andrew Jackson did not try and do away with the Central Bank , did he? If he did , thanks to you.

originally posted by: here4this
a reply to: spoonbender
Abraham Lincoln - was not going to sign the Central Bank Charter and let it run out. Remember , during the Civil War , he stated of the army in front of me and the bankers behind me , it is the latter that concerns me most.

Lincoln is a traitor.....Really look at the history. He was a sell out and helped lay the ground work for the tyranny we see today.

originally posted by: here4this
a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon
But Andrew Jackson did not try and do away with the Central Bank , did he? If he did , thanks to you.

He did.

There is, of course, more to the story than that source goes into. Members of the Second Bank of the United States did try to assassinate Jackson.

originally posted by: xuenchen
Some facts and figures would be nice to see.

If I can find it I'll give it to you. Google likes to only give the popular China holding US debt pages.

US citizens own 273 billion in Chinese debt
www.treasury.gov...

But then there's holdings by the nation itself. It's actually difficult to find these numbers but I found them a couple years ago.

I'm afriad I'll have to settle with just that link because Google won't cooperate after looking for 30 minutes. Anyways, the answer to your question is that the US owns about 600 billion in chinese debt while they hold 1.1 trillion in ours. When you factor that as a percentage of GDP we end up holding slightly more.

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

Thats right , thanks. And also "the wheel spins as the wheel spins"