National debt? . I always thought it just meant we put off paying for things for a long time and?

Question

our descendants will have to deal with it. But now somebody tells me that a huge part of our national debt is owed to China! What does that mean? Is this like when third world countries owe money to us? How are we going to pay it back? Can China impose austerity measures on us to makes us pay? Can they foreclose on us?

Answer 1

people worry about China buying our treasury bills but in reality they own very little i think that Saudi Arabia owns more. in the 1980 Japan owned a lot of our debt the best thing to do is not be the largest debtor nation in the world. China and the US are so linked in the world market that neither of us would do anything to each other. The Chinese govt has investment here and sell us billions of dollars worth of goods because for one thing the Chinese people save at a 25% rate and it is difficult for them to get their own people to buy anything! we worried before about Japan after Sept. 11 we worry about the Saudis (perhaps one reason why we support such a terrorist nation). people should realize that the world economies are so interlinked that any kind of program against the US would have effects around the world. it will not be too long perhaps when China and the US are truly head to head. for the most part China technology has not kept up but sadly they follow the US model for their "war machine" and soon would be on par with the US. Maybe the only problem would happen between the US and China if there is an issue with Taiwan. I think that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is leery of making any true waves. I will mention that they are trying to make contacts with countries that we do not deal with but that may be more to deal with their economic interests. Never forget that China is part of the WTO and does their best to follow rules set down by them. so don't worry now about China....for now.

Answer 2

Two things are at play: unbalanced federal budget and unbalanced trade. All of those deficit budgets for half-a-century contribute to part. All of that "made in China" on the stuff we buy contribute in part. We sell the debt (Treasury bonds and notes commonly bought by banks, insurance companies, and pension plans). The Chinese get all those checks on US dollars and the Chinese want to hold on to them, but also to make money on them--by buying those Treasury bonds, for the cash we paid them on our trade purchases. After a while, that too adds up. China owns an enormous amount of US debt. Since about one-quarter of our tax dollars are paying the interest on our debt, and about a third of that pays China. They get paid by us twice.

Answer 3

The debt will never be zero. we havent even started paying it off. 20% of the nation's total revenue each year(hundreds of billions) are going just to pay interest on those debts to keep them from growing. And thats only if we arent borrowing, which isnt happening.

Answer 4

Foreign citizens and foreign governments -- including Chines -- purchase US Treasury securities that finance US debt.