China Reduces Holdings of Treasury Securities

The Obama administration announced that it expects $9 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years. One of the great mysteries of our time is: where will the money come from? As we pointed out last week, even if every dollar of US savings is applied to the task, the feds will still be short. And if they make up the difference with funny money - from their quantitative easing scam - the Chinese vigilantes are likely to get cheesed off and dump their US Treasury bonds.

The evidence shows that the Chinese...and other Asians...are already trying to lighten up on their US debt holdings. This from The New York Times:

"Figures released by the Treasury Department this week indicated that China reduced its holdings of Treasury securities by $25 billion in June, the most China had ever sold in a month.

"Monthly figures can be volatile, and can be revised, so it is risky to draw conclusions from one month's data. In May, China increased its holdings by $38 billion, according to the Treasury figures.

"Nonetheless, the decline highlighted a fact...Asia's appetite for Treasury securities is not growing as fast as it once did. That means the United States will have to turn to other buyers, including American citizens, who are now saving as they did not do during the boom years, to finance the deficits... In the first half of 2009, China and Hong Kong acquired only 9 percent of the more than $800 billion worth of Treasuries that were sold.

"Japan, which was replaced by China as the largest foreign holder of Treasuries last year, has been a larger buyer this year, taking up 11 percent of the new supply of Treasuries.

"Ownership of US Treasuries by China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand - since 1994 - rose to 25 percent, from less than 8 percent. Since then, as budget deficits in the United States grew, the share has fluctuated within a narrow range. In June, it was 24.7 percent."

If Asians don't finance US debts, who will? We don't know... But the fewer bonds Asians buy...the more they are bought with funny money by the Fed. And the more the Fed buys with funny money the fewer Asians want to buy with real money.

How will this end? Badly...we keep saying. There is no way out. Either the feds cease spending more than they can raise honestly, by taxation and reasonable borrowing. Or, the system runs into chronic, mega deficits...like the chronic deficits in the private sector during the bubble years. Then, it blows up.

That is why we caution readers against the dollar and against Treasuries. Most likely, they will both go up this autumn...as investors flee to safety from the next market downturn. But the chances of them blowing up completely are too great. That's why we stick with gold - even though we would not at all be surprised by a period of weakness in the gold market.

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

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