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How much inflation would you like today? Say “Pengo” - (No, not the game).”

Thank youfor remembering the game, Pengo. I enjoyed the Sega arcade version 30 years ago.

Unfortunately, Mr. North has a bad track record with his Y2K melt-down writings, though he did perform a useful service by getting people to prepare.

The problem with saying $200 Trillion in unfunded liabilities is that a lot of those liabilities (e.g. pensions and SocSec) might be 50 years down the line. If you told a 20 year old man in 1963 making $75/week that in 2013 he would be pulling well over $1,000 a month in social security, his jaw would have dropped. The main part of the problem is that the money itself does not have a fixed value, as we already have real inflation.

As we pay current liabilities, we continue to contract more unfunded liabilities. As long as we have a national debt, however, ALL new debt is unfunded, even if we have a general idea where the money is coming from.

We have a 50 trillion dollar economy, in current dollars. If we had a Reagan style boom, that could be 60 or 70 trillion, easily. A lot is made of the fact that we have the lowest levelof participation in the workforce that we have had in 35 years . . . or 1978 ... Jimmy Carter. We recovered from Jimmy Carter.

This does not mean I am optimistic. I'm not. There are no more boll weevil Democrats. The commie-hippies took over the Dem Party, and we have exchanged William Proxmire and Scoop Jackson for Patty Murray and Tammy Baldwin.

I can even see Nancy Pelosi playing that lady who burned down the mansion in Rebecca, rather than letting a new woman take over, laughing maniacally as flames engulf everything. (Great movie for those who haven't seen it.)