Posted on 09/29/2008 7:15:06 PM PDT by kabar
Think $700 billion to bail out Wall Street is expensive? Just wait. The mortgage meltdown is cheap compared with the coming fiscal firestorm fanned by unfunded Social Security and Medicare costs.
Together, these programs hold unfunded obligations totaling $41 trillion - 60 times larger than the proposed Wall Street bailout. And even this understates the difference, because $41 trillion is the current net value of the unfunded obligations over 75 years. The actual cumulative yearly deficits these programs face over the next 75 years are several magnitudes larger than $41 trillion.
[Snip]
The entitlement problem is simple to understand. In the 1960s, five workers paid the taxes for each retiree's Social Security and Medicare benefits. Today that ratio is just 3-to-1. The coming retirement of 77 million Baby Boomers will drive that ratio down to 2-to-1 by 2030. That means every two children born this year and who marry in 2030 will have to support themselves, their children - and the Social Security and Medicare benefits of their very own retiree. The cost will be staggering.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I don’t think it will strike so suddenly...I think they’ll be able to sink us more slowly.
It will be very, very bad.
I’m surprised that people in San Fransisco are willing to admit that the Welfare state will bankrupt us.
Anywa, am I the only one who thinks the government will just go back on their word and slash services, all the while promising ever new and thrilling programs?
I thought the Democrats and their publicists in the liberal media say there is no Social Security and Medicare crisis.
Just like they told us there was no crisis and Fannie and Freddie...
I thought the Democrats and their publicists in the liberal media say there is no Social Security and Medicare crisis.
Just like they told us there was no crisis and Fannie at Freddie...
In 2017 SS goes into the red and Medicare goes into the red even earlier, i.e., circa 2013-14. The baby boomers are starting to retire. It is sooner than you think.
We will all be choking.
It will be soon...but they will play games to hide the full impact at first--just making it worse.
Our political leadership has failed us. They are more concerned about getting reelected, which is why they avoid addressing the big issues. When the sh*t hits the fan, they will all be pointing the fingers at one another and then asking the public to suck it up and accept higher taxes and reduced benefits.
Kind of hard to hide an elephant in a phone booth.
Nonsense. I was forced to put my hard earned dollars in long before they were born.
Although the market failed today, NOTE THAT THE FED RELEASED $630 Billion today, AND, THE MARKET TANKED ANYWAY!!! The point of the post is that we have not seen anything yet. Correct.
Here is the bloomberg piece noting the non-effective release of vast funds in one day that failed to impress the market irrespective of the US Houses failure to pass a so-called ‘bailout’ bill..
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahwz_k5JvuB8&refer=home
As I've said before, those costs are no problem at all - they simply won't be paid. Grandpa's going to be greeting people at Wal-Mart until he's 95 to pay his drug bill. ;)
Trust me no one will be happy it will suck big time
I just turned on the TV and was listening to Newt Gingrich talking to Greta on Fox. did I hear correctly that this bill had some kind of money going to Goldman Sachs that would have ended up in Paulson’s pocket?
If someone heard this let me know.
Some things fail because of the DemocRATS
Democrats Defend Fannie/Freddie from Regulation - 2004 Video and
McCain’s Early Recognition of Fannie/Freddie Crisis
Great post, kabar. Thanks. Frederic Bastiat talked about this here...
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Socialists desire to practice legal plunder, not illegal plunder. Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism?
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
If so, these people are to be put out on the street,
They are not part of the greatest country on earth.
Those dollars don’t belong to you. Once they are put into SS and Medicare, they belong to the USG. SS is a Ponzi scheme. Those collecting it now are getting out far more than they paid in. That won’t be true for our children.
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