William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

The U.S. debt is currently $8,92,456,033,508. Give or take. It appears one of the great advantages of having that type of debt is that it means you don’t have to worry as much about your own markets. Because other countries - who’ve spent their hard-earned money gobbling up that debt - start asking questions when things aren’t going the way they should.

It’s sort of like the mafia, I believe. Mom and pop borrow money from the mafia; mom and pop are failures as business owners; the mafia decides that mom and pop need some direct oversight.

Give or take.

“Foreigners seek oversight on U.S. markets - report”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Investors outside the United States are calling for greater foreign oversight of American markets, banks and credit agencies, according to a report Wednesday.

They argue that the U.S. exports its financial products to international investors, but isn’t adequately monitoring and regulating the securities, as evidenced by the substantial losses related to the subprime mortgage scare, said the New York Times.

“We need an international approach, and the United States needs to be part of it,” Peter Bofinger, a member of the German government’s economics advisory board, told the Times.

Major international banks suffered losses after buying mortgage-backed bonds based in the United States, the report said.

In the past, Washington has emphasized that it does not want foreign oversight. But analysts say Europe and Asia have more leverage now, because they own so much U.S. debt, the Times said.

–WKW

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 9:47 am and is filed under economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.