[Jonty30]

The debt was $60 trillion, at the time of this article. It is now $225 trillion. The truth is that it is probably a lot higher if you were to ferret out all the obligations that are not covered with current monies, like pensions.

The simplest answer as to who owns most of the debt, it's the banks. All banks from the Federal reserve to your local branch.

Individuals have also bought up the debts of the countries, because it's easy interest.

[xoxox]

all live in mortal fear of the little pin that will one day prick it.

[C210N]

you are still peeling layers off the onion here...

So, where did the banks get the “money” to loan out, so that they would be these debt holders?

The answer is the debt is created from whole cloth. From thin air. Money as we know it ******IS****** debt itself. The FED (and other fiat-based central banks) creates new M2 money **at interest**, while governments “pay” the interest on that new money.

This is where BRICS shines - moving towards a PM-backed zero-inflation non-fractional-reserve financial system.

As the US Dollar is taken down right before our very eyes, a new system will rise, PM-backed.

[neverevergiveup]

China owes most of its debt to state-owned banks. So they essentially lend money to themselves and set the payback terms - to themselves. Sounds like a perpetual motion machine.

[yelostar]

The banking system is and always has been owned and controlled by the elite families, claiming the mantle and becoming the unofficial heirs of the Templars - who invented banking.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-38499883

The warrior monks who invented banking
(30 January 2017)

But that system was operated by the government. Templars were much closer to a private bank - albeit one owned by the Pope, allied to kings and princes across Europe, and run by a partnership of monks sworn to poverty.

But at this particular fair, gossip was starting to spread about an Italian merchant who was there, and making a fortune.

He bought and sold nothing: all he had was a desk and an inkstand.

Day after day he sat there, receiving other merchants and signing their pieces of paper, and somehow becoming very rich.

The locals were very suspicious.

But to a new international elite of Europe's great merchant houses, his activities were perfectly legitimate.

He was buying and selling debt, and in doing so he was creating enormous economic value.

But this web of banking services has always had a darker side to it.

By turning personal obligations into internationally tradable debts, these medieval bankers were creating their own private money, outside the control of Europe's kings.

Rich, and powerful, they had no need for the coins minted by the sovereign.

That description rings true even today. International banks are locked together in a web of mutual obligations that defies easy understanding or simple control.

They can use their international reach to try to sidestep taxes and regulations.

And, since their debts to each other are a very real kind of private money, when the banks are fragile, the entire monetary system of the world also becomes vulnerable.

We are still trying to figure out what to do with these banks.

We cannot live without them, it seems, and yet we are not sure we want to live with them.

[Freest Republican]

“For the US, the largest chunk of government debt is held by US-based non-bank investors “

“The simplest answer as to who owns most of the debt, it’s the banks. All banks from the Federal reserve to your local branch. “

I’m not looking it up but believe the correct answer is the federal reserve, followed by SSA, followed by American citizens via mutual funds, retirement accounts, pensions etc....technically that money is obv held in banks but they don’t own the bonds.