[RKV]

Pat can go back under his rock and stay there, and the sooner the better.

[Orange1998]

Its hard to face the facts.

[spetznaz]

Pat is a blathering sot many a time, however please enlighten me exactly what he got wrong in THIS article? It appears to be quite on target.

Thanks.

[LS]

How about we liquidate . . . wait, that might be construed as a threat.

[kabar]

No need to kill the messenger. The US finds itself in much the same position as Great Britain did in terms of its global role and the very real financial pressures that force us to choose between guns and butter. We will run a half a trillion deficit on a $3 trillion budget this year.

The entitlement programs comprise almost half of our annual $3 trillion budget and represent an unfunded liabillity of about $60 trillion. That percentage will grow as our population ages. By 2030 the number of retirees will double from today's 34 million to around 70 million. At the end of 2007, almost 50 million people were receiving SS benefits: 34 million retired workers and their dependents, 6 million survivors of deceased workers, and 9 million disabled workers and their dependents. Total benefits paid in 2007 were $585 bil­lion. Income was $785 billion, and assets held in special issue U.S. Treasury securities grew to $2.2 trillion [read SSTF, which is part of the $10 trillion national debt.] SS, a pay as you go system, will go into a hole in 2017. Medicare/Medicaid is in even worse shape by a magnitude of three and will become unsustainable by 2013.

The current $850 billion bailout will make matters worse. 17 cents of every federal dollar is spent on servicing the debt. Couple that with about 50% for the entitlement programs, leaves you very little for so called discretionary programs like Defense. If nothing is done to reform the entitlement programs, they will consume 71% of the federal budget by 2060.

This nation has lived beyond its means for some time. We have the lowest savings rate of any developed nation. We are heading towards a fiscal train wreck within a decade. Some very hard choices must be made, including our global role. The Brits drew the line East of Suez.

[slowhandluke]

I agree with the 'under the rock' comment.

Pat has got his history wrong. Andrew Mellon might have suggested liquidation, but Hoover railed against the 'bitter-end liquidationists'.

Hoover tried to intervene to keep things afloat, and FDR did the same things Hoover did, FDR just went further down the interventionist path and for 12 years, not 3.