Nice chart showing the foreign holders of our National Debt. "We're gonna need a bigger boat"---load of money to land this debt shark...

There are two parts to the National Debt. (1) Debt held by the "public"--me, you, businesses, investment firms, foreigners (foreign individuals, businesses, investment firms and governments). The chart below shows the major foreign holdings of US Treasurys (interest bearing IOU's, if you will). The sum total of debt held by the public is $9.644 Trillion, of which $4,489.1 Trillion is held by people/banks/governments outside the US. The remaining amount, $5,154.9 Trillion is held by US citizens/banks/corporations/investment firms.  The total National Debt is $14.2 Trillion. The additional $4,556 (or so) is considered "private" debt or "intergovernmental transfers".  This is the money shuffling game played by Congress---it represents money borrowed from a variety of Federal Trust Funds, i.e. Social Security, Medicare, and other Federal pension funds. Our portfolio of creditors is not very balanced--45.9% of our national debt is held by China and Japan and 47% of our total Public Debt is held by foreingers ($4,489/9,644 x 100).



Source: Economix