They owe it to a variety of people. They may owe it to corporations. They
may owe it to banks. They owe much of it to foreign treasuries. They owe a
lot of it to workers, i.e. anyone with a pension, i.e. maybe you.
When you hear of "stocks and bonds", the "bonds" bit is mostly that very
debt. Almost anyone can buy it, and the government is in hock to anyone who
does, either at home or abroad. Since your asking specifically about UK
debt, No one knows precisely who owns what (most creditors buy bonds through
agents of one form or another), but upon economic evidence, much of those
bonds are held by "sovereign funds", in other words, the treasuries of other
countries, mostly China and other Asian countries, the Emirates and others
with a lot of cash to invest. What that means is that, say, China, collects
more tax and other revenues than they are spending to run the country.
Rather than dig a big hole and drop the cash therein for safekeeping, they
use it to buy bonds (i.e. debt) issued by the UK and other countries. The
UK uses the cash received to run its own country, and one day, in theory,
the UK has to pay back that cash, plus associated interest.
--Uche
On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 3:19 PM, David Bircumshaw
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> definitely an etc question, not a P, but, as an innocent at home, and naive
> in these matters, I can't help wonderinhg, amid all the talk of economic
> austerities, to whom or what do Briatin & other countries owe all the debts
> they have ? Not the same banks they've bailed out (on ultimately borrowd
> money) ? or not monetary funds that originate in the same countries? That
> is
> to say, we're not like the Universe, as some hold, and based on being in
> debt to ourselves?
>
> --
> (David) "Dave no more" Joseph Bircumshaw
> "Every old house was scaffolding once/And workmen whistling"
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
> twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
> blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
>
--
Uche Ogbuji http://uche.ogbuji.net
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