Quote:
David Walker, the US comptroller general, indicated that the huge holdings of American government debt by countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Libya could leave a powerful financial weapon in the hands of countries that may be hostile to US corporate and diplomatic interests.
Mr Walker told The Times that foreign investors have more control over the US economy than Americans, leaving the country in a state that was “financially imprudent”.
He said: “More and more of our debt is held by foreign countries – some of which are our allies and some are not.”
Mr Walker, who heads the Government agency that is responsible for auditing the national accounts and is also the arm of Congress that scrutinis-es spending by the Administration, said that the US has been forced to rely on foreign investors more because Americans are saving so little.
According to US Treasury Department statistics, Japan is the biggest foreign holder of US Treasury bonds, with almost $623 billion (£310 billion) of US government debt as of December last year. Mainland China is the second biggest investor, with about $397 billion, and oil exporters, which include Iran and Saudi Arabia, had $110 billion.
The UK, while the biggest foreign investor in US equities, is the fourth-biggest holder of US Treasuries.
While Mr Walker referred to Britain as “the best ally the US could hope for”, he told The Times that “anybody who looks at that list will see that some of the countries there are not traditional US allies. You will see that China, Korea and a number of Opec nations are there. Not all the countries on the list share the same economic, national and foreign polices as the US.”
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http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle2120735.ece
Usually you only hear of this:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
But consider this.
http://mwhodges.home.att.net/nat-debt/debt-nat.htm
I've read calculations by serious finance and economy analysts giving even higher debt numbers, reaching to 70 trillion euros (97.5 trillion dollars), and beyond.
It's not so much America paying for it's spacetravelling hobbies. It is the rest of the world.
But when you want adventures in space: make sure you can financially afford it.
Achtung Fangfrage: how many money do the Chinese owe the Americans?
"The decline of great powers is caused by simple economic over extension."
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, by Paul Kennedy