Amid rising geopolitical tensions, discussions have surfaced about potential economic countermeasures by European NATO nations, Canada, and China, particularly regarding US Treasury securities., Economy, Times Now
Again, your table doesn’t differentiate public and private ownership. You obviously don’t understand the numbers you’re sending. Citing page 1 of your own link:
Investors in the United States and abroad include official institutions, such as the U.S. Federal
Reserve and foreign central banks; financial institutions, such as commercial banks; and private
individual investors.
Both financial institutions and individual investors are private. So your link is totally irrelevant to our discussion (as you would know if you had read it). Yes, for example Luxembourg holds $423.9 billions, but do tou actually think the Luxembourgian state owns it? Of course not! Luxembourg is a trading place where a lot of holdings are based. These holdings hold the far biggest part of those billions. It’s the same with the UK (the London City is another trading place with a lot of holdings). And most of European countries.
As far as I know, the US Treasury doesn’t communicate on this, so we don’t have strict numbers. But it’s a well-known thing, as stated the Financial Times recently:
But this doesn’t change the fact that most of these assets are not actually owned by European governments (the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund being the only notable exception). These stocks and bonds are actually overwhelmingly held by the private sector: thousands of insurance companies, pension plans, banks and other institutional investors, and millions of ordinary people.
I’d love for Europe to have this kind of power, but we simply don’t have it (we have others however, like the “commercial bazooka”).
Nope your turn to prove that none of this debt is owned by European governments.
I’ve provided the most reputable source that says the debt is owned by governments and within their breakdown it says some of those countries are European.
It doesn’t provide a detailed breakdown of private Vs government for these countries but no where does it say that is debt is only privately owned in European nations.
You need to prove that or stop talking nonsense.
Although not technically part of the EU anymore the UK government has confirmed a number of times that it owns US debt. Other nations will certainly do this as well.
Unless you can provide a source that says that no European governments own US debt you’re just making things up.
Show me where I said that European governments owned no US debt, please. I said that it was mostly owned by private agents in Europe. The keyword here is mostly. Mainly. For the greatest part. Predominantly. Don’t change the terms of the discussion now that you feel cornered.
Of course the UK, Luxembourg, France or Ireland own US bonds. But what is owned by European countries is largely dwarfed by what’s owned in European countries. Not a word in the Congress’s document contradict that, and I provided a source that you conveniently ignored.
So if the European countries sold what they own directly, the effect would be weak. For this idea to work, they’d have to make private agents cooperate, and I don’t think they can.
I’m not the respondee but you may want to reread that post. they use the word mainly there to indicate most but not all. You are risking cherry picking the argument. By what I see it, the wording for “only exception” since the word mainly is used, would indicate that the only major exception would be, not the “only exception” would be.
That’s how I read it anyway.
regardless though, the entire theory is silly anyway, doing what the original article suggests would also send the world into a global recession and would be the a classic case of shooting your own foot in an attempt to harm the opponent.
ammendum/post addition: regardless of who owns it though, the outcome is still unlikely. For government it would be political suicide in democratic countries, and for private sector it would be a massive financial dumpster fire. I think finding alternative export/import partners is far more likely to happen than something of the scale the article posts
It’s the last line. Where they say it is owned by governments just not European ones. That’s just wrong. They do own some of it. How much is up for debate but to say they don’t is wrong.
Also agree they probably won’t do anything with it as using it as a lever will also damage global markets, increase the overall cost of debt and impact all the economies involved.
However the world seems so fucking mental at the moment. So who’s to say it won’t happen.
Also I do wonder if China might do it with theirs just because they can, to flex their muscles or as a big fuck you to the US.
I counted, I say 5 times “mainly” or a variation of “mainly” in our discussion and I wrote one ambiguous (if taken out of context) sentence. You’re trying to save face at this point.
Again, your table doesn’t differentiate public and private ownership. You obviously don’t understand the numbers you’re sending. Citing page 1 of your own link:
Both financial institutions and individual investors are private. So your link is totally irrelevant to our discussion (as you would know if you had read it). Yes, for example Luxembourg holds $423.9 billions, but do tou actually think the Luxembourgian state owns it? Of course not! Luxembourg is a trading place where a lot of holdings are based. These holdings hold the far biggest part of those billions. It’s the same with the UK (the London City is another trading place with a lot of holdings). And most of European countries.
As far as I know, the US Treasury doesn’t communicate on this, so we don’t have strict numbers. But it’s a well-known thing, as stated the Financial Times recently:
I’d love for Europe to have this kind of power, but we simply don’t have it (we have others however, like the “commercial bazooka”).
The section you’ve quoted that line from is only talking about privately owned US debt.
As you can see from the actual beginning of the paragraph rather than picking out the words you like at the end.
As I’ve already posted and mentioned right at the start of the pdf
See where it says 44.2% are held by foreign governments. Governments.
In the document from Congress.
About their own national debt ownership breakdown.
Then when we look at the country breakdown of ownership of this debt later on there are plenty of European nations in there.
The beginning of the paragraph changes nothing. Two different sentences can have two different meaning; the text says “in the US and abroad”.
Again that’s a worldwide average. It’s not equally distributed. Prove me wrong instead of repeating your error.
Again, this table mixes public and private investors and is then irrelevant. Prove me wrong instead of repeating your error.
Nope your turn to prove that none of this debt is owned by European governments.
I’ve provided the most reputable source that says the debt is owned by governments and within their breakdown it says some of those countries are European.
It doesn’t provide a detailed breakdown of private Vs government for these countries but no where does it say that is debt is only privately owned in European nations.
You need to prove that or stop talking nonsense.
Although not technically part of the EU anymore the UK government has confirmed a number of times that it owns US debt. Other nations will certainly do this as well.
Unless you can provide a source that says that no European governments own US debt you’re just making things up.
Show me where I said that European governments owned no US debt, please. I said that it was mostly owned by private agents in Europe. The keyword here is mostly. Mainly. For the greatest part. Predominantly. Don’t change the terms of the discussion now that you feel cornered.
Of course the UK, Luxembourg, France or Ireland own US bonds. But what is owned by European countries is largely dwarfed by what’s owned in European countries. Not a word in the Congress’s document contradict that, and I provided a source that you conveniently ignored.
So if the European countries sold what they own directly, the effect would be weak. For this idea to work, they’d have to make private agents cooperate, and I don’t think they can.
Here we go your own post where you sat they weren’t owned by European governments. Only Norway
I’m not the respondee but you may want to reread that post. they use the word mainly there to indicate most but not all. You are risking cherry picking the argument. By what I see it, the wording for “only exception” since the word mainly is used, would indicate that the only major exception would be, not the “only exception” would be.
That’s how I read it anyway.
regardless though, the entire theory is silly anyway, doing what the original article suggests would also send the world into a global recession and would be the a classic case of shooting your own foot in an attempt to harm the opponent.
ammendum/post addition: regardless of who owns it though, the outcome is still unlikely. For government it would be political suicide in democratic countries, and for private sector it would be a massive financial dumpster fire. I think finding alternative export/import partners is far more likely to happen than something of the scale the article posts
It’s the last line. Where they say it is owned by governments just not European ones. That’s just wrong. They do own some of it. How much is up for debate but to say they don’t is wrong.
Also agree they probably won’t do anything with it as using it as a lever will also damage global markets, increase the overall cost of debt and impact all the economies involved.
However the world seems so fucking mental at the moment. So who’s to say it won’t happen.
Also I do wonder if China might do it with theirs just because they can, to flex their muscles or as a big fuck you to the US.
I counted, I say 5 times “mainly” or a variation of “mainly” in our discussion and I wrote one ambiguous (if taken out of context) sentence. You’re trying to save face at this point.