Top 10 Countries the U.S.

Owes Money To Russia is just one of the countries that has billions invested in the U.S. See m ore money pictures. iStockphoto/Thinkstock In 1989, New York real estate investor Seymour Durst spent $120,000 to erect a " National Debt Clock" in Times Square to track the exact amount of money that the U.S. federal government was borrowing to pay its bills. At the time, the countr y had run up a $2.7 trillion tab, but that figure seems almost quaint today [sou rce: Stephey]. In 2008, the clock briefly ran out of available digits when the d ebt topped $10 trillion. By January 2013, the upgraded clock it can now display up to a quadrillion dollars registered $16.43 trillion and some change [source: TreasuryDirect]. Now, it's important to understand that U.S. doesn't owe that entire $16.43 trill ion to its creditors, which is everyone that owns U.S. Treasury bonds and securi ties: individual American citizens, banks, corporations, state and local governm ents, and foreign investors. Treasury securities are essentially government-back ed IOUs. In exchange for a cash loan, the government pays you interest. Only $11 .56 trillion of the national debt represents the debt held by the public or publ ic debt, the money the federal government borrows from outside sources to fund i ts budget. The other $4.87 trillion is tied up in intragovernmental holdings, mo stly in the federal government's largest trust funds: Social Security and Medica re. The question we want to answer today is: who actually owns that $11.56 trillion in public debt? And how does America's skyrocketing national debt rank against o ther industrialized nations? Find out in our global parade of America's biggest sugar daddies according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.