>> there is a rich person on the end of it with the loan as an asset earning interest.
> About half of treasuries are held by the Fed or foreign investors which largely means other governments and foreign companies. Most of the rest are owned by pension funds, banks, local government, insurance companies, etc.
So what? That doesn't mean you shouldn't think about it in terms of a rich person, like the GP suggests.
The modern capitalist system is a very slippery thing to think about, and there are all kinds of traps to mislead people. For instance, facts like the one you point out can draw people away from understanding the truth behind scenarios where the rich are the group that greatly disproportionally benefits while not being the group that benefits the most in absolute terms.
On a related note: IMHO the 401k is one of the greatest propaganda coups in the history of democracy. You have vast swaths of the public owning tiny, insignificant slivers of the overall pie; while the rich own big, disproportionate slices. But then the public votes to increase those tiny, tangible slivers by trading much more valuable but less tangible things.
There is no such slippery-ness or slippage. The system is fundamentally assessable with basic accounting and Econ 101. No, the 401k is not a coup. No, class-warfare advocates cannot fundamentally create value, improve the economy, or the better state of individual well-being—-either temporarily or permanently—-by wealth transfer, and their efforts typically result in gross infringement of human rights. Typically in history these wealth transfers have greatest negative impact against the middle- and lower- tiers of wealth. The study of the encomiendas in Columbia is perhaps somewhat insightful.
Economy is a prime example of a field where a bit of knowledge is worse than no knowledge, and nothing is more deranged than someone who has completed Econ 101, and thinking they now understand the world:-P
Most economists don't understand the world, only their theory of it. A theory which in many experiments has been show to be bonkers. Albeit useful bonkers in certain, limited, circumstances.
> About half of treasuries are held by the Fed or foreign investors which largely means other governments and foreign companies. Most of the rest are owned by pension funds, banks, local government, insurance companies, etc.
So what? That doesn't mean you shouldn't think about it in terms of a rich person, like the GP suggests.
The modern capitalist system is a very slippery thing to think about, and there are all kinds of traps to mislead people. For instance, facts like the one you point out can draw people away from understanding the truth behind scenarios where the rich are the group that greatly disproportionally benefits while not being the group that benefits the most in absolute terms.
On a related note: IMHO the 401k is one of the greatest propaganda coups in the history of democracy. You have vast swaths of the public owning tiny, insignificant slivers of the overall pie; while the rich own big, disproportionate slices. But then the public votes to increase those tiny, tangible slivers by trading much more valuable but less tangible things.