I’ve once heard that the USA owns most of its debt to itself, how is that possible? How can you owe debt to yourself?

Question

I’ve once heard that the USA owns most of its debt to itself, how is that possible? How can you owe debt to yourself?

In: 252

Answer 1

Perhaps you misunderstood? As I understand things, the US floats a lot of loans by selling Treasury Bills, Treasury Notes, and Treasury Bonds. Most of those loans, the US debt, is held by American citizens. While the US, meaning US citizens, own most of the US government debt there is a worryingly large amount owned by overseas citizens and governments.

Edit: u/Caucasiafro made me realize the error in my comment. There are three kinds of Treasury loans. I’ve just fallen into the habit of calling them all Treasury bills as they are all US debt loans with the difference being how long it takes for the loans to mature.