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For part two of CBS' Life and Debt in America, Anthony Mason snared a trip to Kuwait City where he sat down with Bader al-Saad, the head of the emirate's investment fund who "has never spoken to American television before." The Kuwait Investment Authority is "flush with cash from Kuwait's oil profits." Mason put assets at around $215bn. "When Citigroup and Merrill Lynch were hemorrhaging money because of the subprime crisis they needed quick cash" and al-Saad ponied up a combined $5bn.
Most of Kuwait's assets are in Treasury bonds, with the United States $1.7tr in the hole to just six Persian Gulf states: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Dubai and abu-Dhabi. Yet Mason's math is confusing. He says that foreign investors hold 44% of US public debt, stating the total of foreign-held Treasury assets at $2.2tr. Yet Tuesday he told us that the United States' National Debt amounts to $9.3tr. You do the sums: subtract $2.2tr from 44% of $9.3tr and you still have $1.9tr to play with.
The Public Debt does not include government held debt (ie social security trust fund)...hence the discrepency in the math.
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