Go to the St. Louis Federal Reserve FRED database, and find data on the total public debt by the federal government (GFDEBTN) and the amount of debt held by foreign and international investors (FDHBFIN).

Download the data into a spreadsheet, and make sure both data series are in the same units of measurement (either millions or billions of dollars). To do this, if a series is in millions and you are converting it to billions, divide the series by 1000.

a) Calculate the percentage of the debt held by foreigners and international investors for each quarter. What is the most recent value? Comment on the size of foreign bond holdings to total debt.

b) Create a graph showing the percentage of debt held by foreign and international investors, from 1980 to the most recent data available. How has this relationship changed over time? What, if anything, does it say about the burden of U.S. debt?