economics 101- its China

There is a consensus forming that Washington needs to spend its way out of this recession, to ensure that it doesn't turn into a depression. Economists of both the left and right agree that a massive fiscal stimulus is needed and that for now, we shouldn't be worrying about deficits.

But in order to run up these deficits—which could total somewhere between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, or between 7 and 11 percent of GDP—someone has to buy American debt. The only country that has the cash to do so is China.

Holding 10 percent of all U.S. existing public debt, the government of the People's Republic of China has become Washington's largest creditor, foreign or domestic. It is America's banker.