Government's Foreign Debt Hits Record $5.29 Trillion
By Forrest Jones
August 16, 2012
The U.S. government's debt held by foreign entities hit a record $5.2923 trillion in June, CNSNews.com reported, citing Treasury Department data.
The government’s indebtedness to foreign entities has shot up 72.3 percent since President Barack Obama took office.
In January 2009 the U.S. government owed $3.0717 trillion to foreigners entities, the news service added.
China was the top creditor to the U.S. government, though Japanese entities were a close second.
In June, the Chinese held $1.1643 trillion in U.S. government debt, up slightly from $1.1640 trillion in May.
Chinese ownership of U.S. government debt peaked at $1.3149 trillion in July of last year, with lending trending down since then.
Japanese entities, meanwhile, have been buying more U.S. government debt. In June, the Japanese owned $1.1193 trillion, up from $1.1089 trillion in May. A year ago, in June 2011, the Japanese owned only $881.5 in U.S. government debt.
The Chinese aren't the largest owners of U.S. debt.
"Although the Chinese maintained their place as the top foreign owners of U.S. debt in June, they are not the top owners of U.S. debt in the world," CNSNews.com reported.
"That distinction belongs to the U.S. Federal Reserve, which according to its July monthly report, owned $1.667 trillion in U.S. government debt in June."
The Fed has dramatically increased its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities as part of a monetary-policy effort to push interest rates down to spur recovery. As of the end of June, the federal government's total debt came to $15.86 trillion.
Calls have grown for the government to address its fiscal health.
Read more: http://goo.gl/mkuaf
NATIONAL REVIEW
Lessons from the FRC Shooting
by the Editors
August 17, 2012
‘It was not about you, it was what this place stands for.” So said gay-rights activist Floyd Lee Corkins II after opening fire on a security guard at the office of the conservative Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. FRC among other things opposes gay marriage, a position shared with just under half of all Americans including, until about five minutes ago, President Barack Obama. For this alleged instance of extremism, FRC was in 2010 labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
That the SPLC cannot distinguish between a traditional-family organization and the guys in the white sheets and swastika armbands says a great deal about that organization’s intellectual depth, which is measured in millimeters. Organized homosexuality’s relentless crusade to align itself with the civil-rights movement of the 1960s is on the face of it absurd — such insults as homosexuals have suffered in this country do not include chattel slavery — but the SPLC has been happy to play along, in the course of the past decade or so transforming itself from a watchdog on extremism to a peddler of liberal pieties.
It is fashionable on the left to attempt to tie acts of violence to conservative political rhetoric: Bill Clinton shamefully insinuated that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was inspired by Rush Limbaugh, and a diverse bouquet of self-beclowning Democrats tried to pin the shooting of Gabby Giffords on Sarah Palin’s taste in graphic design. Of course McVeigh turned out to be no kind of talk-radio man, and the man who shot Giffords is an incoherent psychotic with no political agenda. For that matter, it was a man of the Left who shot John F. Kennedy, but a shocking number of otherwise respectable liberals treat the assassination as part of a right-wing conspiracy. So convinced are liberals that the Right is harboring dreams of political violence that irresponsible commentators immediately began speculating about whether the Colorado theater shooter was a Fox News viewer. As it turns out, he thought he was the Joker, not the Gipper.
An exercise in tit-for-tat would be tempting here, but conservatives for the most part know better. Given the routinely violent, anti-Semitic, racist, and misogynist rhetoric associated with the Left — as seen at any Occupy encampment or protest directed at Israel, Clarence Thomas, or Sarah Palin — it is worth remarking upon the hypocrisy of the Left’s trying to blame talk radio or tea-party protests for acts of violence. (And never mind that rhetoric was replaced by actual acts of violence at Occupy events, not at tea-party rallies.) There is in fact remarkably little political violence in the United States, a fact for which we should be grateful.
Read more: http://goo.gl/8R8rz
My Brother's Keeper? '2016' Star Picks Up Obama's Brother's Medical Tab
by Breitbart News
August 16, 2012
Dinesh D'Souza only knows George Obama casually through an interview conducted on behalf of "2016: Obama's America," a movie critical of the president's time in the Oval Office. But the brother of the Commander in Chief called D'Souza, rather than his own kin, when a family medical emergency put the Nairobi resident in the hole for $1,000.
Actually, George has a real life brother who just happens to be the president of the United States. (George Obama is the youngest of eight children sired by Barack Obama Sr.) George’s brother is a multimillionaire and the most powerful man in the world. Moreover, George’s brother has framed his re-election campaign around the “fair share” theme that we owe obligations to those who are less fortunate.Read more: http://goo.gl/EVYlA
One of Obama’s favorite phrases comes right out of the Bible: “We are our brother’s keeper.” Yet he has not contributed a penny to help his own brother. And evidently George does not believe, even in times of emergency, that he can turn to his brother in the White House for help.
So much for spreading the wealth around....
So what’s the real story here? Where’s George Obama’s “fair share”? George’s tragic situation exposes President Obama as a hypocrite. Here is a man who demands that others pay higher taxes to help the poor—even poor people who are not related to them—while Obama himself refuses to help a close relative like George.
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