Posted on 05/11/2009 10:32:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Government obligations for Social Security and Medicare may soon exceed the combined net worth of every household and nonprofit organization in the country.
Prices dropped last year. But we still need to invest to protect ourselves from inflation. That's why our retirement-plan investing needs an inflation "tilt." You'll understand why in a few paragraphs.
How bad will future inflation be? I don't know. Neither does anyone else. It could be a normal inflation of 3% to 4% a year. It could also be a banana-republic 10% a month.
What we know is that all governments make promises they can't fulfill. Our government certainly has. Under both political parties, it has taken promise making to a high art. This is not hyperbole. The figures can be found in regularly published government reports.
Much worse than you probably think
The figures exist, but they are ignored. News reports regularly inform us of the growing federal deficit, projected at a stunning $1.75 trillion for fiscal 2009 and $1.17 trillion for 2010. But regularly reported, less visible government obligations have been growing much faster.
In the nearly five years from January 2003 to December 2007, the Medicare trustees reported that the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare grew by a stunning $10.4 trillion. The average annual growth topped $2 trillion.
That exceeds the expected formal deficit of $1.75 trillion this year.
In the 2008 trustees' report (.pdf file), the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare -- promises of future retirement and health care benefits -- total $42.9 trillion. In a few days, we should be able to read the 2009 report. It's a good bet that the unfunded liabilities will show an increase in the new report.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.moneycentral.msn.com ...
LOL...so where exactly does the buck stop? Despite your arguments its the voters responsibility to become informed. Bottom line is the vast majority are too stupid, self absorbed, lazy to do anything like that. Sorry, but the problem is Us not Them (mostly).
About to? I’d say we are already there when every dollar Congress is spending .50¢ of it is borrowed!
Yep and it is going to be very bad the first month those Welfare checks fail to arrive!
Well, I think the rubric that applies is Lincoln's, about fooling the people.
Rahm Emanuel, Tom Daschle, and Barack Obama came up with a formula for fooling some of the people some of the time, just enough to get in and (they hope) do vast damage to the American Experiment, and make it over into a People's Republic.
Let's let the responsibility lie with the liars. Yes, the voters are responsible to learn the issues, but Obama's people were politically adept and determined not to divulge their real agenda to voters. So of course many of them will have cast their votes under misapprehensions.
Lie to me once, shame on you .... I think that applies to Obama and the Rats, too, esp. as many of their voters were quite young and ingenuous, and susceptible to idealistic appeals to emotion.
The bad guys won one, because the good guys were frustrated by the clingy, remorselessly selfish and greedy old-money crowd.
762x54R
The Democrats will eat rat poison before that happens.
They might, however, "means-test" as many people out of the recipient pool as possible, jealously protecting that 51% freeloader population.
good point, particularly if those removed are the "greedy rich".
Never mind that they're the ones who actually paid for the program. Logic and reason have no place in government.
I wouldn’t mind seeing some Dems eat rat poison, though. That’s a happy thought to end the day upon. :-)
America ain’t about to go broke! It be done already broke!
We’re so broke we can’t even pay attention.. KMFDM
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Or as I used to hear someone say, “We can’t buy a pissant a wrestling jacket”.
I’ve heard observed, that it would take about 6 months for the ‘Bamster and his crowd of communists to realize just exactly how empty the Treasury really is. and for that, although it sticks in my craw to say so, we can all heartily thank GW Bush....because, as my grandmother once observed about an errant uncle, the only thing worse than the Obamunists broke, would be Obamunists with resources to try to push their scams. Although it ain’t gonna be a pretty sight when the Acorn crowd realizes he’s out of pie.
“With Erkel in the drivers seat?....silly question!”
That’s very disrespectful. It’s Comrade Erkel to you, fella.
0bama is aging rapidly.
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