[Marxism] China's holdings of US Debt

[S. Artesian]

Michael,

Short note on this---  got no circadian rhythm these days.   I have not been 
able to identify the "holders,"  nor can I prove this-- US BEA, Economic 
Census, etc. do not release information on US corporate cash holdings 
abroad.  Trying to work my way through the Eurostat data to see if there's 
some info there.  And obviously, I have not found the info in China's 
statistical offerings.

I'm attempting to get a measure of the size of US corporate cash held abroad 
based on comparisons of total assets held abroad by US multinationals and 
their majority owned subsidiaries, net PPE, inventory valuations in relation 
to amounts held in the US

The basis of my contention is trade volumes between US-China, EU-China, 
Japan-China, and that the size of the reserves are too large to be 
exclusively "official" govt revenues, i.e. taxes, fees, licenses, 
import/export duties.

In addition, there is a "back door" bit of evidence that gives me a bit of 
confidence-- and that is Malaysia's response to the 1997-1998  crisis-- when 
to protect its reserves against capital flight, it strictly limited 
international capital movement by corporations and individuals.

So.... I think I'm right, and I'll argue as if I know I'm right, but... I 
cannot prove I'm right.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "michael a. lebowitz" <mlebowit at sfu.ca>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 12:47 AM
Subject: [Marxism] China's holdings of US Debt


> S. Artesian wrote:
>>
>    I haven't been able to follow this discussion closely. Have the
> holders of US Debt in China been identified? Do we know what portion was
> purchased by Chinese state banks as part of state policy, what portion
> is held  for them by capitalist exporters and, of the latter, what
> portion belongs to non-Chinese multinationals? This seems to be rather
> important information, and I haven't seen anything to date suggesting
> that a sigtnificant portion is held by multinationals. Your sources?
>          michael
>
> -- 
> Michael A. Lebowitz
> Professor Emeritus
> Economics Department
> Simon Fraser University
> Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6