Someone today was wondering what percentage of American businesses are owned by Americans. I suppose the answer might exist somewhere. I asked Mr. Google who instead showed me this interesting item from Business Insider. Who owns our debt? The Chinese, of course. That’s what people always say.
According to this article, the Chinese own 8%. The bulk of it is still owned by us and the various forms of us:
If you ever try comparing the debt situation in the US and Japan, someone will invariably say: Well, Japan can afford a lot more debt because it’s all domestically owned, whereas US debt is owned by the Chinese.
It turns out this isn’t really true, though unfortunately this destructive myth continues to dominate political/economic debates.
Yes, China holds a lot, but they’re not dominant, and when you add it up, most debt is actually domestically held, just like in Japan.
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