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Peter Rabbit's avatar

Well there is this whole Jack Ryan movie, where the plot consists of an attempt by a Russian oligarch to buy up huge swaths of US debt, stage a fake terrorist attack and them dump it all on the market to cause a financial meltdown in the US. Not sure how feasable that is in real life though.

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William Miller's avatar

Foreign state ownership of US treasuries is a form of leverage those foreign holders have over the US economy. If, for instance, China were to decide they no longer want to hold treasuries, they can flood the Treasury market with supply, which would cause treasury yields (mortgage rates and many other interest rate benchmarks tied to treasuries) to spike.

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