Erik Fair
·
October 27, 2019
Studied Computer Science & Economics at University of California, Berkeley (Graduated 1983)
Originally Answered:
What would happen if China asked the USA to pay all the debt it owes it?
Treasury Bonds and Notes aren't redeemable at the
U.S. Department of Treasury, by China or anyone else. Holders of treasury securities (bills, notes, bonds, a.k.a. “treasuries”) have loaned
U.S. Dollar cash to
Federal Government of the United States, and that contract has a “maturity” term from 30-days to 30-years - the answer to a pleading “pay me [early] now” is “no, that’s not what the contract pemits.”
Independent of redemption, there is a very liquid market for treasury securities, so the Chinese can sell their holdings on the open market for whatever they can get for them.
Of course, what they'll get in all cases (redeemed or sold) is
U.S. dollars, which then gives them a currency exchange problem. What to exchange for?
Chinese Yuan (Renminbi)? Or perhaps they'd choose to buy up hard
Assets of some other kind with all that USD.
The Chinese hold $1.1035 trillion of the $22 trillion
U.S. Public (national) Debt as of August 2019:
This hypothetical scenario is somewhat similar to
PIMCO deciding that its holdings of the
Sovereign Debt of Greece (denominated in
Euro (currency)) were not likely to be paid back (i.e., that the Greeks were likely to engage in a
Sovereign Default); PIMCO carefully and quietly sold off all their Greek bonds in 2008 (I don't know what they did with the resulting pile of Euros –
German Bunds, perhaps?) and then announced that they had done so. This sparked the
Greek Debt Crisis and really did lead to the Greek default (I know, I know, they don't call it that, it's not a "formal" default, but what the hell else do you call it when the bondholders take an 80% haircut (loss)?). PIMCO got out before everything got hit, and very probably got most of its value by being quiet about it beforehand.
Could the Chinese get out quietly before le déluge? Um, probably not – their holdings are large (no, I don't know what percentage of total outstanding Greek debt PIMCO had in its portfolio when they decided to sell - I await accurate, relevant answers to
What percentage of the sovereign debt of Greece did PIMCO own when they decided to sell it all in 2007/2008?), odds are good that someone would notice (probably some bear on
Zero Hedge). Besides, we can look at what happened to
The Economy of Greece when the crisis hit for possible effects of a big selloff in treasuries here.
In their case,
Interest Rates on Greek debt rose as high as 50% for 2-year debt. They had to significantly reduce the size of their government (fire lots of government workers), reduce their
Social Welfare payments, and shore up their inefficient, corrupt tax collection system while going hat-in-hand to the rest of the
European Union to borrow yet more to float themselves because the private debt markets would not buy any Greek debt. When you can't borrow money, you have to operate on cash basis: you can only spend what cash you have in hand, or taxes you can actually collect. Or start selling assets, which they did.
So, for the USA ...
First,
there is already some doubt about the
Credit Ratings of the USA due to the
Fiscal Policy (
U.S. Federal Budget) irresponsibility of our
Congress – that's why the
United States Credit Rating Downgrade happened. China dumping all its U.S. treasury security holdings would be a worse expression of lack of confidence so the expectation is that interest rates (yields) on treasuries would rise.
Second, when bond prices fall, bond interest rates rise. Why would prices fall? Oversupply from the Chinese dumping their holdings. The U.S. public debt has a large component of short term debt that rolls over constantly (since we're not paying it down), but that makes it like
Credit Card debt: floating rate. If interest rates rise a lot, boy howdy are we going to hurt. Right now, we're paying (averaged over the whole debt) about 3%, and that takes 20% of federal tax revenues to cover. If rates rise some, that percentage of revenues required to cover will go up, a lot. See:
So, third: we'll be forced to actually cut federal expenditures to within our tax revenues to cover (raise taxes? Uh, yeah, you could try, but it would fail and weaken
Economic Growth (compounding the disaster); see
Can the U.S. Congress reduce the federal budget deficit by raising taxes?). Real, honest to god expenditure cuts, not merely "reduced increases" (which our disingenuous politicians scream are "cuts").
We have massive federal tax revenues: in excess of $3 trillion dollars every year. Unfortunately, the Congress spends vastly more than that, and they've been borrowing to cover (that's what the annual
U.S. Federal Budget Deficit is). Stupid. That's why the national debt is as of this writing over $22 trillion - every annual budget deficit gets added to the total outstanding national debt.
Recession of
The U.S. Economy? Probably.
How deep? Depends on how quickly we readjust our
Economic Policy to cope.
Inflation of the
U.S. Dollar? Mmm, maybe. Depends on how quickly the
U.S. Federal Reserve acts to prevent/forestall it, as is their legal mandate in the
Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
All of this depends on a big assumption: that the Chinese take the $1.1 trillion dollars of cash they get for selling off the bonds and do something to remove that value from the space of all trade in USD, i.e., the world of
International Trade (the USD is the world's
Reserve Currency, remember?). If they decide to buy hard assets that are still part of our world, that changes the outcome.
Think about it this way: PIMCO abandoned Greece, but not Europe or the
Eurozone (I'm sure PIMCO still has holdings of the sovereign debt of many Eurozone nations whose credit ratings are unsullied or relatively less sullied), there were and still are many other places than Greece that one can invest or spend Euros. To a degree, that's true of the USD, also; so if $1.1 trillion moves out of treasuries and is invested in some other USD-denominated asset classes …
Giant Chinese
Venture Capital Fund, anyone? Maybe they’ll fund the next
WeWork (company) like the
SoftBank Vision Fund!