Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management, has a bleak perspective on the enormous debt load of the United States.  CNBC recently interviewed him and summarized his take in this article, the excerpts of which are below.

The US is too dependent on Japan and China buying up the country’s debt and could face severe economic problems if that stops, Tiger Management founder and chairman Julian Robertson told CNBC.

Robertson said inflation is a big risk if foreign countries were to stop buying bonds.

“If the Chinese and Japanese stop buying our bonds, we could easily see [inflation] go to 15 to 20 percent,” he said.  “It’s not a question of the economy. It’s a question of who will lend us the money if they don’t. Imagine us getting ourselves in a situation where we’re totally dependent on those two countries. It’s crazy.”

China and Japan are still the largest foreign holders of U.S. debt.  Check out the latest report from the treasury department website to see the trends of their purchases and sales.  The image below is a subset of the data from the treasury website.


foreign-debt-holders-july-2009