China to US: we don't want your stinking US Dollars any more

Of course that isn't exactly what they said, but hang on to your hat because things just got a whole lot more interesting as China just announced that they were moving away from using US dollars and buying US government debt. As China and Japan own most of the US debt this could easily cause some massive economic problems.

China indicated on Thursday it could begin to diversify its rapidly growing foreign exchange reserves away from the US dollar and government bonds – a potential shift with significant implications for global financial and commodity markets.

While the US does have a massive debt, the fact it is mostly stored in US dollars it makes much of the problem a lot more manageable. If the US debt is no longer going to be stored in dollars then the US government has much less control over the situation and more importantly at the whim of the companies and countries who own the US debt.