July 22, 2010
It’s HOW MUCH?!?
I’m not meaning to be too pessimistic these days, but I can’t let this pass me up.
A friend on Facebook posted a link to the U.S. Debt Clock. Go ahead and take a few minutes and let those numbers sink in.
The number that caught my eye is down towards the bottom: US Unfunded Liabilities – Social Security and Medicare. $109 trillion. TRILLION. It’s quite literally a check the government will never be able to cash. They could seize all private assets in America ($73 trillion) to try to pay the bill, and they’d still only be 2/3 of the way there.
Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable and empty promises. The sooner we bring an end to these two monstrosities (instead of adding to them, Dubya), the better. Unfortunately, the Two-Headed Beast of a political system in America is busy trying to “bolster” Social Security and “overhaul” Medicare reimbursement rates. I hate to overuse the phrase “rearranging chairs on the Titanic,” but if it applies anywhere, it applies here – the numbers don’t lie. In the meantime, America can count on continuing to pay around $200 billion a year in interest alone. Wouldn’t we like to have our share of that back in our pockets each year? But, as Proverbs says, “the borrower is the slave of the lender.”
