So who owns the obligations? Many individuals and foreign states.
So who's that, it doesn't give any sense of proportion.
It's complicated as one can never be sure how a bond get wrapped into another product sold in foreign, and often obscurely complex structures. But we do have some estimated data points.
Contrary to another comment pointing at China, this country accounts only for tiny fraction of the overall amount credited.
For example, the UK, Japan, individually own more U.S bonds than China.
Anyhow they each represent around 1 trillion, so where is the rest coming from?
The majority of creditors in value are U.S entities and U.S individuals.
Some may recall a bank in California that went bankrupt a year or two ago. Unveiling a financial gig certain institutions enjoy doing: accumulate bonds as it always pays.
So who owns the obligations? Many individuals and foreign states.
So who's that, it doesn't give any sense of proportion.
It's complicated as one can never be sure how a bond get wrapped into another product sold in foreign, and often obscurely complex structures. But we do have some estimated data points.
Contrary to another comment pointing at China, this country accounts only for tiny fraction of the overall amount credited.
For example, the UK, Japan, individually own more U.S bonds than China.
Anyhow they each represent around 1 trillion, so where is the rest coming from?
The majority of creditors in value are U.S entities and U.S individuals.
Some may recall a bank in California that went bankrupt a year or two ago. Unveiling a financial gig certain institutions enjoy doing: accumulate bonds as it always pays.
A few references: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/20-countries-holding-most-us...
https://www.crfb.org/papers/qa-gross-debt-versus-debt-held-p...
Edit: another comment nicely broke down list of which U.S entities own what.