[DrC]

“Unfunded liabilities are ordinarily imputed given some preset long term interest condition ~ so, what is it?”

Social Security and Medicare trustees use a real (inflation-adjusted) interest rate of 2.9% over the long term since that’s been the average amount of interest paid on long-term U.S. Treasury bills.

http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2012.pdf (p. 87)

[muawiyah]

At the same time SS is not an unfunded liability. And, we aren't paying that much interest ~ we have, in fact, been paying what amounts to 0% interest on some of our more recent bonds.

Germany is paying NEGATIVE INTEREST ~ so that means their unfunded liabilities are good to have since they make money on them, right? (using that as example of why present value analysis, although sending a message, isn't really all that truthful).