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Reader question: In this headline – Treasuries, dollar “only game in town” as China buys – what does “only game in town” mean? My comments: It means China doesn’t have an alternative. To spend all (or almost all) its foreign exchange reserve on one currency is risky, but for China, buying American paper is still better than buying, say, the Japanese yen. In short, there’s no better choice. As Jeffrey Caughron, an associate partner in Oklahoma City at The Baker Group Ltd, explains (Bloomberg.com, June 1, 2009): “The U.S. Treasury market is the widest, deepest, most actively traded market in the world. There’s really no other game in town.” “The only game in town” is the catch phrase in question here. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, this phrase dates from the early 1900s, originally alluding to “a gambler looking for a game in a strange town.” A Bookrag.com article points out the game that original gambler was looking for is the card game of faro, a gambler’s favorite in those days. When friends advised him against it – “because the game is notoriously crooked” – the addicted gambler famously replied: “I know, but it’s the only game in town.” In Solitaire, Karen Carpenter sings: There was a man; A lonely man; Who lost his love; Through his indifference A heart that cared; That went unshared; Until it died; Within his silence | 
