I was doing some research where which to obtain Canadian pennies as since they have been quit being made, and was looking for folks up north to call and just happened upon this. An indicator, apparently through the IMF of gold holdings per each nation by year in USD.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FI.RES.TOTL.CD

China's has almost doubled since '08, and has more than anyone, although considering their population, it shouldn't be the greatest surprise. The US's has fallen to almost 1/4 of what it was from '11 to '12, and Greece's did similar (and we all know what kind of shape they are in). Japan's holding's at half of China's (and still a hell of a lot more than the US), I would have to say is the nation with the most reserve holdings per population capita, which seems of all the fiat currencies, perhaps theirs has more true value, but then again... how many zillions of ¥en have they printed? The downfall we are sinking into by creating more and more bonds in order to print more and more of those lucious crispy greens. Not the slap-your-grandma-good down-home Southern soul food greens either; these will make you sick if there's too much of it.

If you take a look at http://www.usdebtclock.org/ and go to the "World Debt Clocks" link at the top, you'll see Japan is doing a lot better than us in regard to external debt vs GDP as opposed to the US, although their public debt vs GDP is horrendous. It would appear that overall, China, Russia, and Saudi are the big 3 players with economic strength, 2 nations which we could be looking at going into butted heads with quite nicely if the Prez seeks to fulfill this Syria business to its utter stupidity. Based on a comment of his yesterday, he would intend to go to Syria whether or not Congress would approve it and polls that show that only about 7% of the nation wants it (shows where his head is at). The fact they intend this to be a quick 60-90 day ordeal tells me something fishy is about to hit the fan, because most of our recent conflicts have taken years, not a short couple of months, and with rumors of nukes having been transported around the country yesterday, you start to wonder what the hell is going on behind the curtain. If you're wearing pants right now, you might want to hold onto them; if not, well... kick back and enjoy the show in comfort.