Corrupt Government
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Title: We Owe HOW MUCH???
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URL Source: http://dollarcollapse.com/inflation/we-owe-how-much/
Published: Apr 14, 2012
Author: John Rubino
Post Date: 2012-04-14 09:28:27 by Capitalist Eric
Keywords: None
Views: 8841
Comments: 31
One of the problems with the debate over the “national debt” is that there’s no generally agreed upon definition of that term. Is it what the federal government owes, or what it owes foreigners, or what the whole country, private and public sector together, owes? Does it include off-balance-sheet items and contingent liabilities?
There’s a hundred-trillion dollar gap between lowest and highest on this spectrum, which allows each commentator to confuse the rest of us by picking the measure that best suits their point of view. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, for instance, uses “net debt” — the amount that the US owes foreigners — to argue that since this number is relatively small and slow-growing, we’re actually fine. Analysts using broader definitions of debt come to the opposite, more apocalyptic conclusion. Consider this from today’s Wall Street Journal, on the impact of off-balance-sheet obligations:
Smoke, Mirrors and Public Deficits
By RICHARD BARLEY
Are public debt and deficit numbers illusory? Perhaps, judging by the ruses employed by governments and identified by the International Monetary Fund’s Timothy Irwin in a recent staff note. Deficit crises in developed countries may only increase the allure of such devices, although they may do little to help in the long run.European countries got creative as they strove to hit targets to join the single currency during the 1990s. In 2005, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development researchers cataloged 192 cases of one-time measures and accounting maneuvers across Europe—50 in Greece alone—with effects ranging from negligible to 2% of GDP. In 1997, for instance, France took on the pension liabilities of France Télécom in exchange for a payment of €5.7 billion ($7.6 billion), or 0.5% of GDP.
But Europe wasn’t alone in playing games. In 2003, the U.S. proposed buying 100 refueling planes via operating leases, which would have kept the cost from being recognized upfront. The Congressional Budget Office said that was federal borrowing in disguise and would prove more expensive than a normal purchase.
The euro-zone debt crisis has put these techniques front and center. Portugal hit its 2011 target only via a transfer of bank pension assets that shaved 3.5 percentage points off its deficit.
Likewise, the U.K. is taking on the Royal Mail’s pension plan to pave the way for privatization. The plan brings with it £28 billion ($44.8 billion) of assets, thereby reducing the country’s 2012-13 deficit. But the U.K. is also taking on long-term liabilities on behalf of the company with a present value of £37.5 billion—which aren’t recognized immediately. So accounting transforms the Royal Mail’s pension deficit into a short-term gain for the U.K. budget but at a long-term cost.
Keeping long-term liabilities out of the picture is a common tactic: In the U.S., debt was 62% of GDP in 2010, but including civil-service pension and other liabilities raises the total to 113%, Mr. Irwin notes. Public-private plans for infrastructure have also shifted upfront investment costs off-budget but have raised long-term debt risks—often through government guarantees.
The crisis has narrowed governments’ options. One way to flatter the statistics is via optimistic growth assumptions, although skeptical markets and the rise of independent fiscal watchdogs such as the U.K. Office for Budget Responsibility make this difficult. Another way is to shift cash flows forward, as Germany, Greece, Portugal and Belgium did in the past via securitizations of future government revenue. This, too, may now prove a tricky sell.
Investors trying to keep track of governments should remember Goodhart’s law: As soon as an indicator becomes a target for conducting policy, it loses its informational value. It also becomes a target for manipulation. That is a sobering thought given the euro zone’s obsession with deficit targets. They might just conceal problems building up elsewhere.
Then there are the “unfunded liabilities” of entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, which dwarf the official national debt. From a recent Zero Hedge article:
Massive $17 Trillion Hole Found In Obamacare
Two years ago, when introducing then promptly enacting Obamacare, the president stated that healthcare law reform would not cost a penny over $1 trillion ($900 billion to be precise), and that it would not add ‘one dime’ to the debt. It appears that this estimate may have been slightly optimistic… by a factor of 1700%. Because coincident with the recent Supreme Court debacle, in which a constitutional law president may be about to find that his magnum opus law is, in fact, unconstitutional, someone actually read the whole thing cover to cover, instead of merely relying on the CBO’s, pardon Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs’, funding estimates. That someone is Republican Jeff Sessions who after actually running the numbers has uncovered that the true long-term funding gap is a mind-boggling $17 trillion, just a tad more than the original sub $1 trillion forecast.This latest revelation means that total underfunded US welfare liabilities: Medicare, Medicaid and social security now amount to $99 trillion! Add to this total US debt which in 2 months will be $16 trillion, and one can see why Japan, which is about to breach 1 quadrillion in total debt (yen, but who’s counting), may want to start looking in the rearview mirror for up and comer competitors. And while Obama may have been taking creative license with a number that is greater than total US GDP, he was most certainly correct when saying that Obamacare would not add a penny to US debt. Because the second the US government comes to market to fund a true total debt/GDP ratio of 750%, it is game over, and the Fed will have its hands full selling Treasury puts every waking nanosecond to have any time left for the daily 3pm stock market ramp.
Here’s a chart (compiled by John Williams’ Shadowstats) illustrating the impact of adding unfunded liabilities to the national debt:
There are two reasons that debt and unfunded liabilities are treated as separate things:
1) The practice allows government to hide its true obligations in the same way that Enron did — right up to the day it evaporated. In other words, it’s a legally sanctioned lie.
2) Debt and unfunded liabilities are, at first glance, different in some ways. Debt is a legal obligation that gives the lender recourse, i.e. some way of getting back some of their money. In the private sector a lender who’s not getting paid can seize the borrower’s assets or force the latter into bankruptcy court where a judge decides who gets what. With sovereign debt, the creditor (who lent money by buying bonds) can sell those bonds and use the proceeds to buy up the borrower’s assets.
Unfunded liabilities, in contrast, are simply promises that don’t carry a legal obligation. In theory, Medicare could be cancelled tomorrow by Congress. Just like that, the program and its associated unfunded liabilities would disappear.
So the question becomes, how real — and therefore how dangerous — are US unfunded liabilities? The answer is that because they represent a promise to tens of millions of retired baby boomers who expect to get free money and health care for the last 30 or so years of life, they’re effectively more real an obligation than a Treasury bond.
A politician who messes with the Most Selfish Generation’s free health care will find himself back in the private sector before the polls close in the next election. Compare this with the probable repercussions of stiffing China or Saudi Arabia on bond interest — some contentious headlines and a bit of turmoil in the foreign exchange markets that most voters would hardly notice — and it’s clear that unfunded liabilities have, if anything, a more solid claim on future economic activity in the US than does interest on Treasury bonds.
So our true national debt is government debt plus private sector debt plus off-balance-sheet obligations plus unfunded liabilities, which comes to somewhere around half a million dollars per man, woman and child, or two million per family of four.
We can’t pay this of course, so the story of the next few years will be the search for the least painful way of breaking our promises. And history is pretty clear on this: a country with a printing press will always use it before exploring the harder options of actual default, whether through non-payment of interest or cancellation of benefits. (2 images)
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 27.
Then we need to raise tax rates back up to 1953 levels. We didn't have these problems before we started subsidizing the rich.
#9. To: mininggold (#2)
Then we need to raise tax rates back up to 1953 levels.
The effective tax rate back then was much less. As there were all kinds of deductions. Tons of deductions.
#12. To: A K A Stone, mininggold, Capitalist Eric (#9)
mininggold: Then we need to raise tax rates back up to 1953 levels.Stone: The effective tax rate back then was much less. As there were all kinds of deductions. Tons of deductions.
Indeed we need to raise corporate tax levels back to 1953 levels for sure.
The effective corporate tax rates in the United States have declined significantly since 1953. Over the 50-year period 1953 to 2003 federal corporate income revenues have fallen from 5.6 percent of GDP to 1.2 percent of GDP. In 1953 the corporate income tax accounted for nearly 30 percent of federal revenues, but by 2003 the tax collected only slightly more than 7 percent of federal revenue. The effective marginal tax rate on new corporate investment has fallen from 70 percent in 1953 to 32 percent in 2003.
The sharp decline in effective average and marginal tax rates on corporate income over the past 50 years largely reflects tax preferences in the income tax code that directly and indirectly subsidize new investments by corporations. While the effective corporate tax rate exceeded the staturtory rates throughout much of the period 1953-1982, since 1982 the effective tax rates are actually lower than the staturtory tax rates...Overall since 1953 the effective federal tax rate on corporations has fallen by 66 percent.
http://books.google.com/books?id...tax%20rate%201953&f=false
#13. To: lucysmom, A K A Stone, mininggold (#12)
mininggold: Then we need to raise tax rates back up to 1953 levels.Stone: The effective tax rate back then was much less. As there were all kinds of deductions. Tons of deductions.
loonybitch: Indeed we need to raise corporate tax levels back to 1953 levels for sure.
LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Exactly as I predicted, you change your screen-name, to bolster your failed position. Thanks for making me laugh. :)))
Now then, we return to my point: you can tax everyone to 100% of their earnings, confiscate every dollar worth of assets in the entire country, and we will STILL be completely bankrupt.
As usual, you return to your bullshit arguments, even after facts which CONCLUSIVELY destroy your position are laid before you.
As usual, therefore, you attempt to divert the conversation, even being so despicable as to switch screen-names to make yourself look better.
What a laugh.
Oh, and BTW, you STILL have not addressed my points. If you want to dispute the FACTS I have laid before you, you're still invited to try...
LOL.
#15. To: Capitalist Eric (#13)
loonybitch: Indeed we need to raise corporate tax levels back to 1953 levels for sure.LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Exactly as I predicted, you change your screen-name, to bolster your failed position. Thanks for making me laugh. :)))
You're as wrong as wrong can be, however I doubt you'll let that stand in your way.
Now then, we return to my point: you can tax everyone to 100% of their earnings, confiscate every dollar worth of assets in the entire country, and we will STILL be completely bankrupt.
Well you might as well pack it in 'cause there's no hope.
#17. To: lucysmom (#15)
Me: Now then, we return to my point: you can tax everyone to 100% of their earnings, confiscate every dollar worth of assets in the entire country, and we will STILL be completely bankrupt.You: Well you might as well pack it in 'cause there's no hope.
You're finally starting to get it.
There's no hope for the current system, and the U.S. dollar. China has stopped buying US debt, as have damn-near everyone else. The only entity buying it (as noted here) is the Fed- which means we've already passed into the realm of endless money-printing. In this case, they don't have to print it, merely create it with a computer terminal!
Oh, you may get your Social-Security check, but with the inflationary policies currently underway, your check won't buy anything, because the dollar is rapidly falling in value. While the major banks can manipulate the price of precious metals and oil (for a while), the evidence of inflation is as close as your nearest grocery store.
As to whether I should "pack it in," I'm simply splitting my savings between hard cash, precious metals, and things that my family will need for a long-haul economic collapse. My vehicles are paid off, my pantry is stuffed to the gills, my garage is rapidly starting to look like a grocery store, and I've installed extra storage sheds, to make more room in areas that are easier to secure... In other words, I walking the talk.
If you can't afford the typical precious metals like gold or silver, I'd suggest the other precious metals- brass and lead. There's a lot of people that have been on the dole for so long, they're going to revolt when the nipple finally dries up. They'll get desperate, and take matters into their own hands.
Your choice is quite simple: do you want to be a victim, or do you want to ride through the coming hurricane?
Choose wisely, LM. You still have time... but I suspect not too much...
#18. To: Capitalist Eric (#17)
I'm simply splitting my savings between hard cash, precious metals, and things that my family will need for a long-haul economic collapse. My vehicles are paid off, my pantry is stuffed to the gills, my garage is rapidly starting to look like a grocery store, and I've installed extra storage sheds, to make more room in areas that are easier to secure... In other words, I walking the talk.
If it's a long-haul economic crash you're looking forward too, then paying off your cars and storing food ain't gonna help. Guns and amo ain't gonna provide much security for the long haul either. The elites are making plans to leave the country and you had better do the same.
#19. To: lucysmom (#18)
If it's a long-haul economic crash you're looking forward too, then paying off your cars and storing food ain't gonna help. Guns and amo ain't gonna provide much security for the long haul either.
It would seem we *do* agree on something...
The measures I'm taking are to address short & medium- term issues.
It's impossible to predict long-term effects, so my efforts are to improve my marketability, so that I can earn money anywhere in ther world, whether through a large corporation, or hanging out my consulting shingle. If it's through the latter avenue, I already have a team of heavy-hitters lined up, who have all told me they want to work for me, so that's a viable option.
With regard to leaving the country, the answer is "no." This is MY country, my HOME. And nobody is running me off.
The elites are running, because they know if they don't, they're gonna' end up like like Marie Antionnette. And NOBODY will shed a tear for them.
#20. To: Capitalist Eric (#19)
It's impossible to predict long-term effects, so my efforts are to improve my marketability, so that I can earn money anywhere in ther world, whether through a large corporation, or hanging out my consulting shingle. If it's through the latter avenue, I already have a team of heavy-hitters lined up, who have all told me they want to work for me, so that's a viable option.
You're dreamin' Eric. That'll get you through a blip, assuming you learn some manners, but not a long haul.
#21. To: lucysmom (#20)
Capitalist Eric: It's impossible to predict long-term effects, so my efforts are to improve my marketability, so that I can earn money anywhere in ther world, whether through a large corporation, or hanging out my consulting shingle. If it's through the latter avenue, I already have a team of heavy-hitters lined up, who have all told me they want to work for me, so that's a viable option.LM: You're dreamin' Eric.
And your basis of this is what, exactly? Oh, that's right, NOTHING. Yeah, you really do "brandish" your ignorance, don't you?
LOL.
As if your approval (assuming you had a clue what I do in my line of work) really meant anything. LOL.
Get OVER yourself, bimbo.
That'll get you through a blip, assuming you learn some manners, but not a long haul.
More of that "brandishing," obviously... LOL
Your opinions are irrelevant.
You're so limited in your thinking, so completely dulled, that you can't comprehend how people can see the world as anything other than what you see... You come here, to sell people on your personal prison, your untenable beliefs and the indoctrination that you have embraced.
By your logic, everyone should just stick a pistol in their mouth, and pull the trigger...
You first.
LOL.
#24. To: Capitalist Eric (#21)
You're so limited in your thinking, so completely dulled, that you can't comprehend how people can see the world as anything other than what you see... You come here, to sell people on your personal prison, your untenable beliefs and the indoctrination that you have embraced.
You is the angry guy stocking up on weapons, food, and gold daring the world to come try to do you in - talk about personal prison.
#25. To: lucysmom (#24)
You is the angry guy stocking up on weapons, food, and gold daring the world to come try to do you in - talk about personal prison.
It's his way of trying to meet women. He wants the mommy type though.
#26. To: mininggold, lucysmom, Capitalist Eric (#25)
.
You two HAGS are so absolutely REPULSIVE inside and OUT that NO sane man or male would EVER want to be within reach of you vile stupid skanks.
But it's cute how you two HAGS pretend that anybody has any interests in you in that way.
It makes me throw up a little in my mouth but I'm OK now thanks for caring.
LOL!
#27. To: mininggold, lucysmom, Mad Dog (#26)
You is [SIC] the angry guy stocking up on weapons, food, and gold daring the world to come try to do you in - talk about personal prison.It's his way of trying to meet women. He wants the mommy type though.
Mad: You two HAGS are so absolutely REPULSIVE inside and OUT that NO sane man or male would EVER want to be within reach of you vile stupid skanks. But it's cute how you two HAGS pretend that anybody has any interests in you in that way.
That's not what it's about... It's what she does, when she cannot refute facts.
Disinformation Rule #18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents.
If you can't do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how 'sensitive they are to criticism.'
Disinformation Rule #9. Play Dumb.
No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues except with denials they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.
In LoonyMing's case, she's not playing dumb...
I do find her immediate knee-jerk into swapping screen-names amusing, though. It always lets me know when she's hit the wall with her propaganda. :)
Replies to Comment # 27.
#28. To: Capitalist Eric (#27)
That's not what it's about... It's what she does, when she cannot refute facts.Disinformation Rule #18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents.
Eric, Eric, Eric - are you that blind, or just pretending?
You're so limited in your thinking, so completely dulled, that you can't comprehend how people can see the world as anything other than what you see... You come here, to sell people on your personal prison, your untenable beliefs and the indoctrination that you have embraced. Capitalist Eric on this very thread
#29. To: Capitalist Eric, Mad Dog (#27)
Mad: You two HAGS are so absolutely REPULSIVE inside and OUT that NO sane man or male would EVER want to be within reach of you vile stupid skanks. But it's cute how you two HAGS pretend that anybody has any interests in you in that way.
See Eric's rule #18.
#30. To: Capitalist Eric, miningmom, lucysgold (#27)
.
I agree it's a technique used to limit and attenuate actual discussion.
"She" is a despicable libTURD TOOL.
One of a multitude of gaping libTURD zombies infesting our nation.
"Her" act is pretty feeble for sure.
I wonder what it is like to be a willing and animated TOOL for TYRANNY as long as your masters tell you it's actually "PROGRESSIVE"? I wonder what it's like to HATE your nation and people? I wonder what it is like to HATE ALL of America? The US CONSTITUTION?
These people are seriously mentally ill.
Although I sure do admit that they are fun to watch when they don't have power!
They always remind me of a tree filled with drunken monkeys!
(Although, to be fair, the monkeys have orders of magnitudes more class and dignity than the libTURDS do.)
End Trace Mode for Comment # 27.
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