| Submit your comments on this article |
| Economy |
| Foreign demand for US financial assets falls |
| 2009-06-16 |
| WASHINGTON (AP) -- Foreign demand for long-term U.S. financial assets fell in April as both China and Japan trimmed their holdings of Treasury securities. The Treasury Department said Monday that net purchases of stocks, notes and bonds obtained by foreigners fell to $11.2 billion in April, from $55.4 billion in March. More hope, less change? |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #7 "Of course the US in that case could blandly pronounce the secretly issued bonds to be counterfeit, and make the owner (whoever it was) eat his loss, and it would be SUCH a cool way to repudiate part of the national debt." No the U.S. couldn't because a legitimate buyer would certainly have transaction records and nobody "eats a loss" of 100 bn dollars. |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2009-06-16 19:46 |
| #6 Those bonds are certainly fake. Only nations could or would have them and they certainly would not smuggle ALL of them in a suburbian train into Switzerland. They fit in any diplomatic briefcase. Definitely some Nigerian scam. They have done so before. Inflate numbers and you inflate stupidity. |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2009-06-16 19:43 |
| #5 The $134 Billion in bearer bonds story could be a big one if the bonds are legit. The bonds are either legit, or they're not. No one would issue a bearer bond without serializing them, or otherwise attaching information to them that would enable them to be authenticated. No one would buy a bearer bond that could not be authenticated. Counterfeiting a US-backed bearer bond would be both expensive and futile. US-backed bearer bonds have been illegal to issue to US peeps since 1982. It is rather unlikely that there are still $134 billion of legitimate US backed bearer bonds in existence. So someone has been fooled, but just who is not known at present. If the US has been surreptitiously issuing valid bearer bonds to cover deficits it didn't want publicized, then TSHTF. Of course the US in that case could blandly pronounce the secretly issued bonds to be counterfeit, and make the owner (whoever it was) eat his loss, and it would be SUCH a cool way to repudiate part of the national debt. Of course foreign bond holders might see such a repudiation in quite a different light, but that's a horse of a different color. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-06-16 18:09 |
| #4 This should get interesting. The year that Bush left office, we borrowed $400b on top of rollovers of existing debt. (In 2 terms, Bush added $2T to the federal debt). This year alone, we need to borrow $1.8T on top of rollovers of existing debt. Japan's net trade surplus is zero. China's trade surplus is cut in half. Domestic investors are leery of losing money (at the abnormally low interest rates the Fed has forced upon us by buying huge amounts of Treasuries Zimbabwe-style, i.e. printing money) if they buy Treasuries at the low yields offered. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2009-06-16 11:50 |
| #3 No one else is reporting this but Glenn Beck had a story on two Japanese men caught on the border of Italy and Switzerland with $134 Billion in American bonds, same as cash! If real, it must be a government trying to dump them, or if counterfeit, still requires the sophistication of a government to print them. Reportedly old, mostly from the Kennedy era. |
| Posted by: Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2009-06-16 11:08 |
| #2 Zimbama here we come. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-06-16 10:50 |
| #1 Can't incur a debt if no one buys the bonds. That just leaves you with inflating the money on the books to fund unnecessary patronage programs and handouts. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-06-16 07:53 |