What would happen if China stopped buying our Treasury bills?

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

I have a strong faith in bond investors because they have been known to accept high risk bonds quite frequently. In any event since the dawn of the 20th century defaults have only been partial because gun boat diplomacy is dead, and secondly most countries have a central bank which makes it really easy to pay off debt in extreme scenarios. The most extreme example of a partial-default occured in the early 20th century when Russia was unable to collect tax's in order to fund its government,but  Instead of going into an all out default Russia Simply used its central bank to repay its debt.

Particular conditions do have to occur for a default to happen,but these historical standards are pretty good indicators.
1)20% inflation per annium(currency crisis)
2) a High level of GDP/Debt ratio. This number is averaged to 90%,but this is a conservative estimate since it includes countries who have horrible bond ratings.

I think if our country did default than it would probably just repay its debt by rolling out the printing press like Russia did. This move created hyperinflation in Germany(there system was slightly different), and in two other countries,but they eventually recovered from this.

[Torie]

Someone else will buy them at slightly higher interest rates. Heck I buy them.

[Beet]

Someone else will buy them at slightly higher interest rates.

^^^^^

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

Someone else will buy them at slightly higher interest rates. Heck I buy them.

Didn't Isreal have something like that happen to them recently?

[opebo]

No chance of this occuring, but even if it did the Fed could just 'buy' them.