At what amount of debt do markets say "Enough, America" (stats, dollars)

[VTHokieFan]

What do you think? I know the Federal Reserve is the biggest purchaser of our debt, but for the minority buyers, when will they quit funding our wreckless way of life? There has to come a point, maybe 30 Trillion in debt (?) when no one will buy our debt.

[le roi]

i don't think there is a magic number, because it is all relative to other global currencies. right now the entire world is in a "race to the bottom."

you can speculate on gold, but the problem is that if you buy gold you miss out on the potential investments that are available in dollar denominated currencies. If you want to own a share of Apple, for example, you must accept that you'll have exposure to dollars.

[Swingblade]

Originally Posted by VTHokieFan

What do you think? I know the Federal Reserve is the biggest purchaser of our debt, but for the minority buyers, when will they quit funding our wreckless way of life? There has to come a point, maybe 30 Trillion in debt (?) when no one will buy our debt.

We could be at that point at this moment :

As shown in the following graph, those efforts include effective full monetization of recent net Treasury debt issuance. During the three full calendar months since the November 3, 2010 announcement of its purchase program of U.S. Treasury debt, the Federal Reserve more than fully monetized (109%) net Treasury issuance in the same period.
[CENTER][/CENTER]

But notice there is a green shoot? in Dec10 the FR was buying 170% but in Jan and Feb in went down to around 110%. The trillion dollar question is who are the rubes that will fill the void left by the FR when QE ends? Any guesses?