MONTY PELERIN'S WORLD: Economist
Lawrence Kotlikoff has been warning anyone who will listen about the
true indebtedness of the US government. Despite what you are told and
likely believe, the problem is substantially bigger than government
presents it as. But, isn’t that always the case with information
provided by government?
Kotlikoff calculates the present value of government obligations to
be $205 Trillion! This figure is not the summation of all projected
shortfalls from now until infinity. No, it represents the present value
of these shortfalls. In other words, it is what the US government would
have to have invested earning interest today in order to meet all of its
future promises and obligations.
Others
come up with lower estimates than Mr. Kotlikoff, but most of these are
still in the $100 Trillion range. To put this problem into proper
perspective, these low estimates are greater than the total wealth of
the nation. Thus, government could confiscate everything that you and
everyone else owns and it still would not be solvent. But you and all
other citizens would have nothing.
Government has incurred obligations and made promises that can never
be kept, even by raping the population of all its wealth. Charles Ponzi
and Bernie Madoff were pikers compared to this modern technique of
vote-buying, shameless lying and cooking the books.