China Reduces U.S. Treasury Debt Holdings

The figures for January 2010 are out and China continues to reduce its holds of U.S. Treasuries. See the Globe and Mail article here.  Looking at another of my posts showing the continuing slide in the U.S. financial situation, can you blame them?  They need to get out while they can but they are trying to do it slowly to avoid a general run for the exits by the market. That wouldn't help China or anyone else.

U.S. National, State and Private Debt Statistics

At USDebtClock.org there is a fantastic summary of animated statistics depicting all sorts of debt categories for the United States. The figures put into sharp focus the rapidly deteriorating financial condition of the U.S. in general.

Credit Card holders are dumping debt

Further to yesterday's blog on Debt statistics published by the Federal Reserve, here is more proof that one needs to be careful how to interpret articles that have lots of spin. This article from MarketWatch says that 90% of the reduction in credit card debt is due to credit card holders just walking away (defaulting) not from repaying amounts owing. Read the article here.

Lehman revelations continue

Articles appeared this week detailing fresh revelations on how Lehman "misled" investors. An example from BusinessWeek here. To me it is just more evidence of the fraudulent mentality that has overtaken a lot of Wall Street. For a lot more on the shenanigans on Wall Street and the Federal Reserve, see this special report.

U.S. Debt grows at slowest pace on record

This type of article can be a little misleading. See the one on Marketwatch, for example. The article is based on the Federal Reserve's report of March 11, 2010, available here. The Marketwatch article talks about consumer "deleveraging". But that is not what is happening in most cases. Consumers and business are walking away from their mortgages, defaulting on their loans and credit cards and declaring personal and business bankruptcies. So the level of debt is falling alright, but deleveraging? Deleveraging occurs when you are paying your debt down, not when you are defaulting on it. It's just more spin. Meanwhile, as you can see from the excerpt below, government debt continues to expand briskly. Some of these folks will eventually also walk away from their debts, methinks.

Percentage changes; quarterly data, seasonally adjusted annual rates

                  Total   Households   Business   State/local gov.   Federal
2009Q4        1.6       -1.2               -3.2                +4.7              +12.6

 

Auto-updating Gold and Silver Spreadsheet for Coin and Bullion Holders

If you are looking for an Auto-updating Gold and Silver Spreadsheet for Coin and Bullion Holders, see mine here.

China not interested in Gold?

Today a number of press reports appeared suggesting China was cool towards gold. See the Marketwatch article, for example.

Well, I guess you could say that it had the predictable effect. Gold promptly sold off about $12 before recovering most of this by the end of the trading day. The Chinese are getting to be every bit as good as Wall Street when it comes to manipulating the markets. They will pick up more gold at lower prices than otherwise possible as they downplay their involvement in the gold market. Who can blame them? China has a rising foreign exchange resrves to contend with.

Gold continues to migrate from weak to strong hands as the shenanigans continue.