As Russia & China Shift their Reserves to Gold & The Fed Stops Buying Treasuries WHO will Buy Them?
The United States is able to incur massive deficits funded in part by foreign purchases of U.S. debt and more recently and increasingly through the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed) purchases of T Bonds as part of their multi-year/multi trillion dollar quantitative easing (QE) program whereby they print dollars out of thin air to buy them.
As a result of QE more than a few nations, notably Iran, Russia, China and Brazil have become increasingly concerned that the value of their T Bond holdings are being diluted by the Fed’s massive money printing campaign and have made efforts to reduce their need to hold dollars for settling their trade accounts. Last October, China called for the world to “de-Americanize” because “the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation that have to be terminated”.
Such calls to “de-dollarize” have increased and been joined by Russia as the west battles Russia’s designs on Crimea and Ukraine with economic sanctions. Most recently, Russia and China signed a 30 year gas deal that supposedly does not involve dollars for payment.
What happens when the Fed and China stop buying and Belgium can't cover the shortfall?
Here is an analysis and list of the largest foreign holders of U.S. Treasuries as of March 2014 and of the top gold holding countries:
