Ever wonder who we as a country owe money to? Foreigners are the answer about a third of the time. Of the United States’ $11 trillion debt, $3.3 trillion is owed to the following countries, according to a very cool graphic that ran in the June 8, 2009 issue of Newsweek (but is not available online, sadly).
Thanks to a reader named Dan who supplied this chart:
$767.9 billion – China
$686.7 billion – Japan
$213.6 billion – Caribbean countries
$204 billion – France/India/Korea/Mexico/Singapore/Turkey
$192 billion – Algeria/Bahrain/Ecuador/Gabon/Indonesia/Iran/Iraq/Kuwait/Libya/Nigeria/Oman/Qatar/Saudi Arabia/U.A.E./Venezuela
$138.4 billion – Russia
$128.2 billion – U.K.
$126.6 billion – Brazil
$124.3 billion – Egypt/Israel/Italy/Netherlands/Norway/Thailand
$106 billion – Luxembourg
$89.5 billion – Belgium/Canada/Chile/Colombia/Malaysia/Philippines/Sweden
$78.9 billion – Hong Kong
$75.8 billion – Taiwan
$67.7 billion – Switzerland
$55 billion – Germany
$54.7 billion – Ireland
$156.7 billion – all others
Related:
Friday Fun: what comes after trillions? (BargainBabe)
National Debt Clock (Brillig.com)
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Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price. 
Try out this link as a graphic for this post.
Debt chart
But who do we own the other 2/3 to?
That is yet another reason I don’t want to buy things
made in China. Even though we are getting a low
price on things . The people who are making these
items are working for pennies for long long hours
and live in terrible conditions. yes they are making
some money, but the government is not only taking
advantage of it’s own people but now owns our
country. We make that more possible every time
we buy something from there.
“But who do we own the other 2/3 to?”
Ourselves. But pointing that out is far, far less sensationalistic than just drinking the Kool-aid and going along with the hand-wringing over a potential (and non-existent) decline in foreign appetite for dollars. (In fact, even China, while cranking up its rhetoric, is buying dollars/debt at a near-record pace.)
By the way, by this measure (determining who “owns” America by the amount of the debt they own):
American ownership of debt – 70%
Chinese ownership of debt – less than 7%