[kabar]

BTW kabar, a trust fund is not a ‘fund’ if it has no assets, and you admitted in your response to me that T-bills are not assets. I didn’t call you crazy, I was calling your statement that there is a trust fund crazy.

You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts. Trust funds (and the federal government actually labels them as such) do exist. There is a SS Trust Fund, an HI trust fund, a federal pension trust fund, etc. They hold non-market, interest bearing T-bills and are accounted for in our national debt as an obligation of the federal government to pay (Intragovernmental Holdings) just like the publicly held debt. The SSTF is the biggest holder of US T-bills.

Do you think the Chinese consider the $1.1 trillion it holds in US T-bills as an asset?

As far as the SS program is concerned, the T-bills in the SSTF are assets. They can be redeemed to pay benefits, which has been the case since 2010. SS is a pay as you go program and it is now in the red and will be permanently. Once the T-bills in the SSTF are exhausted, benefits must be, by law, reduced to revenue received.

Source: CBO “Combined OASDI Trust Funds; January 2011 Baseline” 26 Jan 2011.

Note: See “Primary Surplus” line (which is negative, indicating a deficit)

But as far as the USG is concerned, they are an unfunded liability, which is why they are included in the $16 trillion national debt. They are not assets in terms of the total federal budget, but rather, debt. It really isn't that difficult a concept to comprehend.

Trust Fund FAQs

[Go_Raiders]

Ooh, the government says it’s a trust fund, so it must be a fund. Well the government also calls tomatoes vegetables, that doesn’t change anything.

And why is your Government entitled to their own facts? At least my assertions are supported by reality, not part of some Ponzi scheme mass delusion.

T-bills are an asset to the Chinese because they can use them to blackmail the US. They know they’ll be paid because the alternative is blood in the streets globally. Intergovernmental debt is just a smokescreen to hide a morally and fiscally bankrupt United States.