Who holds the federal debt? China 8%, Japan 7%, SS trust fund 16%, Fed 12%, mutual funds 6% ...

[pampango]

The biggest are the Social Security trust funds (16 percent), the Federal Reserve banks (12 percent), China (8 percent), Japan (7 percent) and mutual funds including money-market funds (6 percent).

Our primary source is Table OFS-2 in the September issue of the Treasury Bulletin, which can be found under the heading “Ownership of Federal Securities.” For additional details, we’ve also drawn on reports of the Federal Reserve System and other U.S. Treasury documents.

The largest portion of the total debt — about 40 percent — was held by federal government accounts plus the Federal Reserve banks.

Another 34 percent of total federal debt is owed to foreigners, including China (which owned nearly $1.3 trillion of the total debt, or about 8 percent), closely followed by Japan, which owned $1.1 trillion, or 7 percent.

The remainder of the total federal debt is spread among mostly private, domestic investors, including 6 percent owned through mutual funds, such as money-market funds. Another 3 percent is owned by state and local governments.

http://www.factcheck.org/2013/11/who-holds-our-debt/

[on point]

1. This is why they want to screw social security so they have money to pay others

[yeoman6987]

2. China

The way the media and other talk about debt and China, I would have thought they owned 99 percent of the debt. I don't understand the worry. Does anyone else understand this? Japan owns close to the same and never a peep about it.

[pampango]

3. Could be a case of using half-truths and semi-facts to prove whatever point one wants to make.

That was particularly true of romney's presidential campaign but is really a republican (though not exclusively so) trait.

[Glassunion]

5. Well, we are on better terms with Japan than China.

Also, Japan has a healthier trade relationship with the US. As of Sept. 2013 the US has noted a $55 billion trade deficit with Japan. Now you compare that with a $238 billion trade deficit with China, and you start to see the picture.

We owe 1.3 trillion dollars to China. We import well over 400 billion dollars a year to a country with no human rights, deplorable working and living conditions. People are starving, yet China is spending all this money we are sending them to build up their military at rates higher in the past year than they have in the past 2 decades combined.

[Wilms]

4. ^