WHO IS LENDING US THE MONEY?
As America has become more reliant on foreign lenders, it warns, so it has become more vulnerable to “financial warfare”, of the sort America itself threatened to wage on Britain, a big debtor, during the Suez crisis, considered the end of the British Empire because Britain owed so much money to the USA that the USA had a whiphandle over the pound and therefore the British Government. Warren Buffett, America’s investor-in-chief, warns of potential political instability from borrowing. as I argued a year ago. The Federal Government cut spending after World War II to pay down the war bonds. But since then, political leaders have opted for loans rather than higher taxes. Much of the U.S. debt of nearly $10 trillion is financed overseas. The two countries with the highest external debt are the USA at $10 trillion and the UK at $8.3 trillion. The next two countries on the list, Germany and France, had together less than the debt of the UK. For all their military initiatives, GOP borrowing h
