U.S. economy or Baghdad: Which will completely free-fall into chaos first?

Ok, since both are doing pretty poorly at the moment the following pictures should help describe the level of chaos I'm talking about for each:

Economy


Baghdad


PB

but what indicators are there that the economy is about to collapse?

some of its dollar holdings. Someone with more knowledge can let us both know how much of the US debt is owned by China-I know it is a lot.

iirc, japan has about 12%, i think the uk is in the same range, and the bulk is held by us citizens and corporations.

I was under the impression that the holdings by foreigners was a lot bigger. But another question--how many of the corps are international corporations, how many US corporations?

also on further looking, uk's holdings are rather lower than china's.

the reason why people hyperventilate about china's holdings is not because its holdings are large as a country, but because so much is held by one entity, the chinese government, in order to keep its currency low relative to the usd. japan's holdings as a nation may be double that of china as a nation, but japan's holdings are held by many unrelated individuals and companies. china could, with a single decision, reverse its course and unload a massive amount of holdings in a way that japan could not.

about how much debt is held and look where it is from: the Senate dems

http://jec.senate.gov/democrats/Documents/Reports/foreigndebtkindnessofstrangers.pdf

and I quote from page one of the report-
In 1965, foreigners owned only 4.7 percent of outstanding government debt (Treasury securities), but that figure was 42.1 percent last year, including an increase of 11.8 percentage points since 2001.


page 3-
-China increased its holdings $61.5 billion to $339 billion, a staggering 450 percent increase

page 4-
OPEC's holdings have doubled in the past two years...from $48.5 billion to $104.8 billion.....

read this and weep, folks.

they are aware and see the problem so maybe we have some hope. The adults are going to back in charge! :)

http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt

note that the grand total is the total of FOREIGN holdings, i.e., u.s. holdings appear nowhere on this chart. so you can't determine the percentage of TOTAL holdings from this information alone, though if the 42% figure cited elsewhere is correct, you can take the country amount divided by the grand total, then multiply by 42%.

this puts china at 6.7%

PB

owe the bank $10,000,000 and you own them."

They have just as much to lose if we default for some reason.

1. Construction Spending rapidly declining, with 7 straight months of both a overall decline in Construction Spending, as well as 7 straight months of declining Residential Construction Spending. (See charts below.)





2. The collapsing housing bubble- October New Home Sales of 77,000 but with over 160,000 New Home Completions.

3. Consumer spending flat for 2 months with no evidence it won't decline further. (See chart below.)



4. Durable Goods orders declining, now 1.8% less than they were in October 2005) (See chart below)



5. An extreme interest rate inversion.

That's really scary.

how close we are to teetering into complete economic chaos. I predict that by this time next year, China will have reached economic supremacy in the world and that the US dollar will no longer be an important international currency.

it will more likely be a slow and painful couple of decades. china and other emerging markets still are highly dependent on american consumerism, so a quick collapse here is not in anyone's interest.

instead, we will slowly slip into irrelevancy while the rest of the world grows strong enough to support each others' markets directly.

The currency sites the precious metals dealers go by are; www.kitco.com---www.thebulliondesk.com---and bloomberg.com.

It has been said on one of those sites that when the dollar descends to 80 cents panic will possibly set in. It is at the mid-80's now. If the Fed. Reserve raises interest rates to attract more foreign investment, the US will go into recession/depression. If it doesn't raise rates-while the Euro zone IS now-nothing will stop the unloading of dollars worldwide.

As we know * inherited a surplus in a peaceful (relatively) world of countries that liked us (mostly). Is it $100 million per day in interest payments alone US pays out to lenders-esp. China & Japan.

China is looking at self-sufficiency now for its products domestically and regionally, for the first time, and really no longer needs us as it did.

No lender wants to hold devalued dollars. Buy gold and silver American Eagles ASAP. if possible...

...and he was talking about how the Chinese are loosening the grip on government ownership in businesses a bit. While good to hear from a Democracy-is-on-the-march perspective, I got a spinchter-clench factor of about a 9 thinking about how bad they could kick our ass if they turned away from a totalitarian form of government.

Guangzhou is a pretty big city. About 6 million in the city itself and another 6 (at least) in the suburbs. That's apparently not all that impressive for cities in China, apparently. He left to go get some KFC, which costs ~$2.00 for a meal. 20-cents a gallon for gas over there, btw.

PB

...Minnesota.

PB

I said "Last Summer before Armageddon" and little has changed since then.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2066962.stm
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2243450,00.html
The Europeans are having their own Enron of sorts, or perhaps it is a way to slow down business, slow down and not spend money, hunker down for the global depression.

out of the dollar?"

Today the dollar closed at $.7498 vs the euro at $1.3338--when the dollar goes to .70 is the big heads up....

Reports from Homeland Security re AL Qaeda hacking the stock & banks financial trading websites possibility during December, sounds like cover-up for the bottom falling out.

cover-up will fold first.

...in my OP.

PB