The New TIC data are out from the FED. It shows that the BoE bought $45 Billion of US debt in February alone. That purchase increased the UK’s holding of US debt by 20% a fifth in a month. Total holdings now up to $279 Billion.
Why? And particularly why, at a time the UK is running out of cash and its own credit? Frankly the purchase is insane.
I can only repeat what I have said before – is this half of an operation whereby the UK makes sure the US can always show it has buyers for its debt and in return the US does the same for the Uk by buying our debt in return.
Someone please offer me a plausible alternative.
If I am correct then the financial lies are not at our doors, but already at the heart of our nations.
Hey Golem
can you please provide a reference for that 45 billion?
Raw TIC data here. http://www.treas.gov/tic/snetus.txt
I think I'm reading this properly. But please correct me if I have got it wrong. Soon if you can, so I can correct the mistake and apologise.
I did check over at Zerohedge here.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/march-tic-data-released-broke-uks-treasury-holdings-go-exponential
My reading differed from Zerohedge's but I defer to their far greater knowledge and went with their figure.
I, for one, hold your explanation to be the most plausible.
This kind of hard fact surely must be possible to verify/falsify during question time in the British parliament. At least one MP must be interested?
If the question is not hinged too firmly on 'operation', but focuses on the exact quantity of holdings and liabilities versus the other government for every last 6 months (do they even out?), it should not be possible to dodge the question altogether.
In Norway, I have started asking questions to the Finance departement's communication department – with some progress – puzzled at recieving private citizens' queries. Surely your 'homologue' institution in GB provides similar services – for obtaining hard facts.
Thanks for that, there's some interesting information in those tables.
Not sure about your theory though I don't know enough to suggest any alternatives. Wouldn't that only really work if the volumes of the trades between the US and the UK were kept confidential? As it is, I'd have thought the transparency would keep the US and UK relatively honest unless they think the debt traders are muppets.
Tam,
One thing I am confident of is that there is no transparency at all.
No reasons need to be given. Various fronts can be and are used to buy, while disguising the end buyer. The Chinese have, by all accounts been using off-shores in the Caymans for some time.
But conspiracies aside the simple fact remains that there has been no credible buyer identified for all the hundreds of billions of debt that are being bought. The FED has been buying a LOT. Funds buy but not to keep. Who are they selling on to?
The stakes are so life and death at this point that any hint of a no-bid at the FED and the world really would end for them.
I admit it is ONLY a theory. But remember the banks have done this among themselves for years. They call it subordinated debt. It's how so many banks are tied together in a debt suicide pact.
I rally believe nations have gone down the same path.