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The Housing Bubble Blog ForumWall Street, Washington and Personal FInanceNew BoardDoes China Really Own a Lot of F-Word Debt?
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Author Topic: Does China Really Own a Lot of F-Word Debt?  (Read 583 times)
Big V
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« on: September 15, 2008, 12:33:58 PM »

Everyone keeps saying that Paulson et al. bailed out Fannie and Freddie to appease the Chinese.  However, it was my understanding that China held 80% of its reserves in Federal Reserve notes, not Fannie/Freddie bonds.  Is that the case?  If so, does anyone have an explanation for how the Fraddie bailout is more germane to China's economy than to our own?
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Faster Pussycat,Sell Sell
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« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2008, 04:13:48 PM »

Let's just revisit the concept of a "bond".

What is a bond backed by?

It could be backed by an asset, or it could be backed by the expected "cash flow" on something (think of a "toll road" or the "power to tax") or it could be backed by the creditworthiness of a customer (think of the average person on this blog.)

US T-bonds are backed by the "future productivity" of the denizens of the US. Nothing so complicated so far.

Same thing with the Fannie MBS's. They are backed by the assets of the US which in turn are backed by the incomes that will flow through as payments. (I'm doing a bit of simplification here so don't crucify me. I can make it really precise and bore the living crap out of everyone, OK?)

That having been said, they (=China, Japan, etc.) own an awful lot of those MBS's, and they wouldn't like getting stiffed. So the US had to guarantee the bonds.

Now, for all their faults, FNM and FRE were (relatively) conservative so there's a good chance that those bonds are "mostly" going to get paid off. The government is guaranteeing the rest of that "mostly".

This is to basically maintain the creditworthiness of the nation as a whole. Now, you could argue that we could stand to do a bit of belt-tightening but you know how it goes with "cold turkey" and all that.

Does this make more sense?
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hwy50ina49dodge
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« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2008, 07:14:11 AM »

"so there's a good chance that those bonds are "mostly" going to get paid off."  Grin

How long will it take...and how many wheel barrels from Wa-fart will the "emperor" need to transfer his us reserve notes back to the" vault of lead" in China?  Cry
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THIRU
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« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2009, 02:42:04 AM »

At one point in time i watched a documentary on Tv, i think it might have been on Channel 4 about stolen children in china. What i remember was that some of the girls who concieved out of marriage had a problem because it was not accepted. Some of the girls had to go into hiding till they had these babies and then gave them away. I think this was because that was the one child they had to have then if they got married to someone else who wanted a baby, what would happen. Then i think they had a problem of where by if one had more than one child they had to pay a certain amount of money to the government , which if i remember, so many could not afford and would bring debt into the family which was impossible. Then there was that problem of poverty where some actually sold the babies, then i remember a case where they had the elderly rich couples who wanted girls who would look after them as they aged so they had to buy.
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