[unkus]

Unpleasant things come to mind.

[rogue yam]

Dang!

This guy is as dumb as Rick Perry!

[kittymyrib]

This figure should be used by conservatives in all interviews, campaign ads, and debate stats. Americans should be told the unvarnished truth about how pathetically broke we are after politicians of both parties have bought votes with our great- grandchildren’s pay checks. That is stealing from generations yet unborn. What kind of future are they supposed to have after we have spent every dime they will ever make?

[RC2]

The $211 Trillion needs to be broken down at to what is causing it. Entitlements need to be fixed but that is not the only problem.

[econjack]

We've got 78 million baby boomers who are poised to collect, in about 15 to 20 years, about $40,000 per person. Multiply 78 million by $40,000 — you're talking about more than $3 trillion a year just to give to a portion of the population...

I thought the Baby Boomers were those people who were born right after WWII. If so, according to this guy, those people are between 45 and 50 right now, since they expect to retire in 15 to 20 years. If I subtract 45 from 2011, don't I get 1966 as the year these "baby boomers" were born? If he screws up that calculation, how does he come up with all the other numbers? All this seems to be incredibly sloppy research at the very least.

[no-to-illegals]

Does the $211 trillion figure include the $47 trillion trade debt?

[mbynack]

To quote the liberals that have been writing to the local paper, “The US economic problems are all because of the tea party”.

[Born to Conserve]

That makes perfect sense. I’ve been figuring the true inflation rate is about ten times the official inflation rate.

[LearsFool]

Yeah, so? What does that mean? Just how much IS $211,000,000,000,000.00, other than “a lot”?

Someone needs to put this in practical terms. In other words, explain the pain we and our children and their children will have to bear because of this. Otherwise it’s nothing more than a big number.

[proxy_user]

It’s not really debt, because it’s not legally binding. Congress can repeal any and all entitlement programs at any time, by a simple majority vote.

[OpusatFR]

We haven’t drawn it out yet, so give me and my spouse the $280K that was paid in by us and our employers and I will forgo my social security.

....crickets...wind....silence

[AFreeBird]

Obviously not Zerø’s new economic adviser.

[Mr. Jeeves]

$211 trillion if the government tries to keep every phony promise made by every phony politician to every phony interest group for the last 40 years. Which it won't. To paraphrase Mish Shedlock, "What cannot be paid out WILL not be paid out."

[ex-snook]

So make SS an insurance retirement system. Set appropriate rates and take out payments for other than retirement. Keep the dollars constant so inflation does not distort payins and payouts.

[Praxeologue]

More detail:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-29/stop-the-fiscal-war-against-our-children-now-laurence-kotlikoff.html

The methodology behind the $211 trillion is bullet-proof.

[riverdawg]

“We've got 78 million baby boomers who are poised to collect, in about 15 to 20 years, about $40,000 per person. Multiply 78 million by $40,000 — you're talking about more than $3 trillion a year just to give to a portion of the population...”

The first of the baby boomers began collecting full SS this year. (Some early boomers began collecting reduced SS in 2008 at age 62.) There were about 78 million boomers who were born between 1946 and 1964, but some of them have already died and many more will die in the next 15-20 years. Also, the average annual SS income for the surviving members of this group will be substantially less than $40,000 per year. So, it's an exaggeration to multiply 78 million by $40,000 and conclude that in 15 to 20 years boomers will be collecting $3 trillion a year in SS. Nevertheless, Kotlikoff is correct to say that the SS indebtedness is a ticking fiscal time bomb. It just doesn't have quite the explosive power he claimed.

[PGalt]

Great post and an OUTSTANDING thread! Thanks to every poster. We are getting somewhere by talking about these socialist poison-pill schemes and all the rest of their parasitic collectives that are sucking us dry.

The socialists have a solution for all of this...Hillarycare/Obamacare/Totalitiariancare. It will drain any assets that you have acquired from your accounts. In return you'll get "Treatment Denied" notification by the death panel commission. More dead Americans...FORCED to pay their entire life but never using a dime in services...that is the goal. Dead Americans are what funds the system. How evil are these socialists? Very. Witness history. Socialism/totalitarianism always degenerates into plunder and lots of dead people. Make no mistake about neo-totalitarianism. It's still war. They'll make it your duty to die.

DEFUND socialist collectives, any and all of them. Start, NOW. Eliminate totalitariancare.

Usually, however, these gentlemen — the reformers, the legislators, and the writers on public affairs — do not desire to impose direct despotism upon mankind. Oh no, they are too moderate and philanthropic for such direct action. Instead, they turn to the law for this despotism, this absolutism, this omnipotence. They desire only to make the laws.

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task. - The Law -Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850