Dysfunctional economics and our Asian enabler

Mr. Johns only sends word of financial news around only when it's...really fucking grim. But it's always important stuff so I pass it along. This is from the Financial Times:

During the past few years the US has become dependent, not so much on millions of investors around the globe but on a few individuals in a few of the world's central banks.

In 2003, the most recent year with full international statistics, central banks financed 83 per cent of the US current account deficit, with Asian central banks accounting for 86 per cent of flows.

A similar picture is emerging for 2004. Despite a good start to the year, when the private sector was a large net purchaser of dollar assets, central banks came to the rescue again. The People's Bank of China has let it be known that China increased dollar reserves by $207bn (€159bn) in 2004, financing nearly a third of the US current account deficit, estimated at $650bn.

You can read the whole troubling thing here.