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Depending on the growth rates that were assumed, the net present value of those unfunded liabilities was estimated at somewhere between $34 and $77 trillion dollars with their best estimate being around $55 trillion. And for each year that we fail to deal with the problem, the estimate is that the unfunded liabilities will increase at an annual rate of $1.5 trillion. If the off balance sheet liabilities are included, that $49 trillion net worth you were describing vanishes or is even negative.

Sounds like you don't understand the difference between external debt and unfunded liabilities. Or how either one impacts household net worth.

At present rates, without the unfunded liabilities, the people of the United States are spending $2 billion dollars a day more than they earn.

You don't understand this either. America's GDP is $12 trillion a year. How do you figure we're spending more than we earn? We are spending money we've earned. The foreign holders of these dollars we've spent need to do something with their dollars. They've decided to invest them in our debt and equity securities. Doesn't mean we haven't earned the money we've spent.

Maybe read a book on economics? You'll make fewer embarrassing mistakes in your posts. Or not.

"Sounds like you don't understand the difference between external debt and unfunded liabilities. Or how either one impacts household net worth.

Perhaps not, but by 2016, I suspect most Americans will understand that the Gokhale-Smetters unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare are exactly analogous to the off-balance sheet liabilities of Enron and that what happened to Enron will prove to be an excellent metaphor for what is going to happen to the United States if we don't abandon socialism.

When the unfunded liabilities begin to mature and have to be funded with cash, you will understand the difference between the external debt and unfunded liabilities and how they will impact household net worth. And when the government begins to monetize those unfunded liabilities, you will learn how it impacts household net worth, but it will be too late.