Is public debt the money the government owes us (the citizens) or ?
In: Economics
National debt isn’t all foreign owed. And part of the national debt is weirdly the country owing itself. Various government insurance and pension funds hold government bonds. This Intragovernmental Debt accounts for 23% of the total national debt. This is in effect the country investing future payouts into current spending.
The remaining 77% is Public Debt. Only 1/3 of this is foreign held which includes Japan and China for over $1 trillion each. Another huge chunk is again weirdly the government owing itself – Federal Reserve and Government is over $10 trillion of Public Debt. The public only holds a tiny slice of the actual debt – only a tenth of the Public Debt.
The thing to takeaway is while debt is a big scary word – government bonds are a nice solid low risk investment (and protected by the biggest overblown military in the world) and your insurance companies and pension funds and mutual funds are not having to worry about trying to keep all your money in something like physical gold or riskier investments.
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