“I wonder what China would think of such a move as they own our great debt.”
From what I have read, China is only buying new bonds 5-yrs or shorter maturity. I speculate that a lot of their commodity dealsin africa and whatnot are being paid in their longer-dated treasury paper. They know they aren’t getting out of their dollar exposure completely, but they are doing a lot to try to limit the damage.
No one has any real choice on the reserve currency issue, the US is debasing their paper and it simply isn’t a good instrument anymore.
Related on the debt stuff, the 100billion in treasury notes carried by two japanese nationals into switzerland has just vanished off the radar. They were RELEASED (not arrested). Treasury refused to ever make a serious comment on the event.
Nah, those guys were filipino from what I’ve read. If you google their photos you may find that you concur, based upon their appearance, fwiw.
The Phillipines has a history that is absolutely perfect for con artists, and this isn’t the first time by any means, usually weaving romantic stories of crashed B24 bombers lost in the jungles full of treasures, secret intriques with various governments, etc. Counterfeit government securities are nothing new, but wouldn’t you be initially skeptical of even one 1934 dated instrument denominated in a cool billion? The “Kennedy” bonds shown in the photos would ostensibly have been issued sometime in the 1980s, judging from the depiction of the space shuttle, though none were issued that anyone knows about.