Who owns france national debt

The typical characteristic of a Treasury bill is that it bears a maturity date of less than a year. Governments use Treasury bills to enable them to smooth out the irregular pace of their income streams. Although Treasury bills are supposed to run for less than a year, most governments, including the French governments issue 1 year bills. This is abbreviated to BTFs. They also issue week and week BTFs, but not as frequently.

Despite the name, BTFs do not pay any interest. Instead, they are sold at a discount and redeemed at full face value. By mid, the French government owed 1, billion Euros. That debt incurs a cost. The AFT needs to find money to pay the interest on those debts and cover the costs of increasing the value of inflation-linked bonds.

The AFT is not in a phase of paying off any debt at the moment, so the cost of repaying maturing bonds is covered by the issuance of new bonds. Figures shown are in billions of Euros. The largest source of funds for the French government are overseas investors. In the domestic market, the insurance sector is the largest holder of the governments debts. Below we'll dive into who actually owns the U. Treasury manages the U. The debt falls into two categories: intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public.

The Treasury owes this part of the debt to other federal agencies. Why would the government owe money to itself? Some agencies, like the Social Security Trust Fund , take in more revenue from taxes than they need. Rather than stick this cash under a giant mattress, these agencies invest in U. This transfers the agencies' excess revenue to the general fund, where it is spent.

They redeem their Treasury notes for funds as needed. The federal government then either raises taxes or issues more debt to raise the cash. Which agencies own the most Treasury notes, bills, and bonds? Social Security, by a long shot. Treasury publishes this in its Monthly Treasury Statement.

The other large holders of debt include the Office of Personnel Management Retirement, Medicare, which includes the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund, and then cash on hand to fund federal government operations. Foreign governments hold a large portion of the public debt, while the rest is owned by U. The Treasury breaks down who holds how much of the public debt in a quarterly Treasury Bulletin.

Other holders of the public debt include insurance companies, U. The national debt held by the public is not only in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds but also in Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and special state and local government series securities.

If you were to add the debt held by Social Security and all the retirement and pension funds, almost half of the U. Treasury debt is held in trust for retirement. If the U. As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve is in charge of the country's credit. It doesn't have a financial reason to own Treasury notes. So why does it?

Between and , the Federal Reserve actually tripled its holdings. The Fed needed to fight the financial crisis, so in , it ramped up open market operations by purchasing bank-owned mortgage-backed securities. In , the Fed began adding U. This quantitative easing QE stimulated the economy by keeping interest rates low and infusing liquidity into the capital markets, giving businesses continued access to low-cost borrowing for operations and expansion.

The Fed purchased Treasurys from its member banks, using credit that it created out of thin air. It had the same effect as printing money. By keeping interest rates low, the Fed helped the government avoid the high-interest-rate penalty it would incur for excessive debt.

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