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"US Debt Is 3 Times More Than You Think" Warns Former Chief US Accountant
In a shocking admission for most of mainstream America, the former U.S. comptroller general says the real U.S. debt is closer to about $65 trillion than the oft-cited figure of $18 trillion, thanks to unfunded liabilities which simply cannot be ignored. As The Hill reports, unless economic growth accelerates, he warns, "you’re not going to be able to provide the kind of social safety net that we need in this country," adding unequivocially that Americans have "lost touch with reality" when it comes to spending.
Dave Walker, who headed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said when you add up all of the nation’s unfunded liabilities, the national debt is more than three times the number generally advertised.
“If you end up adding to that $18.5 trillion the unfunded civilian and military pensions and retiree healthcare, the additional underfunding for Social Security, the additional underfunding for Medicare, various commitments and contingencies that the federal government has, the real number is about $65 trillion rather than $18 trillion, and it’s growing automatically absent reforms,” Walker told host John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on New York’s AM-970 in an interview airing Sunday.
The former comptroller general, who is in charge of ensuring federal spending is fiscally responsible, said a burgeoning national debt hampers the ability of government to carry out both domestic and foreign policy initiatives.
“If you don’t keep your economy strong, and that means to be able to generate more jobs and opportunities, you’re not going to be strong internationally with regard to foreign policy, you’re not going to be able to invest what you need to invest in national defense and homeland security, and ultimately you’re not going to be able to provide the kind of social safety net that we need in this country,” he said.
He said Americans have “lost touch with reality” when it comes to spending.
Walker called for Democrats and Republicans to put aside partisan politics to come together to fix the problem.
"You can be a Democrat, you can be a Republican, you can be unaffiliated, you can be whatever you want, but your duty of loyalty needs to be to country rather than to party, and we need to solve some of the large, known, and growing problems that we have,” he said.
* * *
Of course, that is to say nothing of the other unfunded liability - America's Pension Ponzi, as we detailed previously...
Just how big of a problem is this you ask? Well, pretty big, according to Moody’s which, as we noted last month, contends that the largest 25 public pensions are underfunded by some $2 trillion.
It’s against that backdrop that we present the following graphic and color from Goldman which together demonstrate the amount by which state and local governments would need to raise contributions to "bring plans into balance over time."
From Goldman:
Unfunded pension liabilities have grown substantially. There are several factors behind this, led by lower than expected investment returns and insufficient contributions from state and local governments to the plans. The two issues are related. The assumed investment return is used as a discount rate to determine the present value of liabilities. The higher the discount rate, the lower the estimated liability, and the lower the periodic payment into the fund a state or local employer is expected to make. There is, of course, no clear answer about what the discount rate ought to be, though the fact that the average assumption used by private plans has continuously declined for more than a decade suggests that the rates have probably been too high and that the current average assumption of 7.7% may come down further.
Contributions have also generally been lower than necessary to stabilize or reduce unfunded liabilities because of the rules around how those unfunded liabilities are amortized. Payments into pension plans are generally meant to account for the future cost of benefits accrued during the current year, as well as catch-up payments equal to some fraction of the unfunded liability left from prior years. Many plans target payment amounts that would work off this underfunding over 30 years, though some use shorter periods. However, the amounts of these payments are often backloaded, with the result that even if the “required” payment is made in full the unfunded liability often grows.
A separate but related issue is that some states have simply declined to make even the “required” contribution, which is probably lower than it should be in any case due to the factors just noted. For example, over the last few years New Jersey has made on average only around 40% of the expected payment. New accounting rules promulgated by the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) will penalize underfunded plans with a lower discount rate, but the change is fairly minor and, in any case, affects only the accounting; it will not impose any new legal requirements to make the contributions.
If state and local governments are ultimately forced to devote more resources to these obligations, the effect on state and local spending would be noticeable. Exhibit 8 shows the states’ pension contributions, as a share of gross state product, with two potential additions. The first is the level that would be required to simply meet the “actuarially required contribution.” To bring the plans back into balance over time, further contributions would be necessary. In aggregate this would raise government pension contributions by something like $100bn per year (0.6% of GDP), lowering spending in other areas (or raising taxes) by a similar amount. In theory, OPEB costs could push this adjustment a bit higher.
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Kotlikoff says true US debt is $210 trillion or over $1,720,000 per taxpayer
Kotlikoff goes on to illustrate that the fiscal gap is increasing at an alarming rate and that delay makes our problem much worse. In 2003, just a little more than a decade ago, the fiscal gap was $60 trillion. But by last year it had catapulted to $210 trillion. The fiscal gap may not continue increasing as rapidly as it has over the past decade, but with each passing year - as Congress and the President do their best to avoid action - our hole grows deeper by substantial amounts.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2015/04/08-federal-debt-worse...
Good. Let's hurry up and destroy the dollar. It's the only way to end the fed and clean house. Then we can stop having wars to prop up the petrodollar. The world will be a safer place when America collapses under its own bullshit.
I agree...Just Default....tell all of these pther countries that have leached off us...FUCK YOU....Sorry......just like many countries do to us. Be done with it...Full Reset.... This pimple just keeps building and building...we have to pop it so it will heal.
I also agree, collapse the system, so we can start over. Probably good if its on Bernies watch, that will really put a stake through socialism.
Unknowingly the future beneficiaries of entitlement programs such as social security look to them as an asset that will be there in the future, when unlike what Paul Krugman would have you believe, debt taken on by fools, the government in this case, cannot be considered an asset. It thus cannot be considered a zero sum game.
Things are getting scarier by the day. It may be a good time to start learning about Bitcoin.
http://bitcointeaching.com/
Debt doesn't matter..... till it matters.
"Americans have lost touch with reality" when it comes to spending.
What do you expect when the Federal Reserve central planners keep lowering interest rates and blowing bubbles?
Our turn for a bailout. There is no such thing as money when it is created out of the ether. They only do accounting to make us get up and go to work to service their system. They'll have to maintain S.S. and Welfare/EBT if they want to keep the peace and the "money" flowing back to their handlers on Wall Street in the great circle-jerk that is the new economy of the New Rome.
I expect people to have some self discipline. The Fed and banks are only one side of a transaction.
When everything you've ever been taught about economics is wrong... blame the teachers and their paymasters (government and thus, bankers).
This is a deliberate fraud. It is probably the most diabolical, deepest, broadest, and longest lasting fraud ever perpetrated in the history of the universe.
Doogie Howser in da house!!
if the dollar wasn't so strong...parasites from all over the world wouldnt come here. Of course, gas would be $12 per/gallon, but maybe it would be worth it.
They go to USA because USA will take in slave labor. Few other countries will.
As history has shown us Govts & their currency never last. Not one has ever survived the centuries. Thank God. It's only a matter of time. Unfortunately they will blame everyone else on the way down.Its People vs Govt.
" It's the only way to end the fed and clean house. Then we can stop having wars to prop up the petrodollar."
Unfortunately currency collapses usually lead to more socialism and less liberty. Weimer Germany, Russia before the Bolsheviks took over. The Odd favor that something much worse will replace the current system. Rarely does a collapse result in a quick recovery. It can take more than a generation before a real recovery begins. May people alive today will probably not survive it.
1 smart, Mach 3+ cruise missile, with a low-yield N-warhead, from any of their Buyan-class, Caspian-based light corvettes at our 75 yr. old concept--obsolete mega-carriers will end the PetroDollar Imperium for good. Or sell it to the Iranians and let them do it...same result: goodbye Dollar.
"obsolete mega-carriers will end the PetroDollar Imperium for good"
FWIW: Aircraft carriers to serve a purpose to put airpower almost anywhere. It not intended for use in a war with a nuclear armed adversary. In a nuclear war, Subs are the primary weapon, which the US has the largest number of "Boomers" (Nuclear armed subs). Aircraft are the best platform to support conventional ground operations since the be quickly positions to deliver a lot of conventional firepower.
That said I am not a proponate of going to war.
Part of me agrees with the "let if fall" sentiment. Another part is scared of what kinds of desperate measures pathocrats in finance and government would do to try to keep their power.
Dude - WTFU.... Let it fail? The math says it will fail. Protect yourself. The $210T is just Federal Gov't.
Canary is correct. There is no sense in letting it fail if the people who caused it remain in control.
There are many implications of this FACT that are being ignored.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/ignoring-the-absolutely-in...
Timing is a question, not what will happen. Not visible in sock prices, I think.
In a rational world, we could fix the economy by getting rid of the government overhead, and the result would be being top dog in manufacturing and technology again.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/military-priorities/
"Kotlikoff says true US debt is $210 trillion"
And the rest.
How the fuck am I out of money? I still have checks!!
Kotikoff knows also about the hidden assets thru the CAFR- Cafr1.com . They plan to bankrupt the quasi corp. structure, and divest into the republic side. Mass. state made changes in 1985 for this plan. US government owns more than 70% of the assets, besides the derivative markets too. Enjoy Chris Holliman
Do a discounted cash flow for your own account. I paid in 800k during my wrporking carrer with employer portion and with 4% earnings. Then i did just a dcr on soc sec and the amount was massive and i am 70. Then fugure out something for medicare and prescription drug. Its a heavy number. Multiply that times the 60 million currently getting soc sec, plus 140 million current workers plus x numbers of non workers like spouce who will get soc sec and medicare.
No way this is affordable. Why, because it is a ponzi scheme.
Ponzi schemes can work as long as you keep broadening the base of the pyramid - 10s of millions of illegial immigrants and QE - in a relative vacuum without competition. We don't live in a vacuum and there is competition. This is what the PhDs don't understand.
"10s of millions of illegial immigrants and QE"
10s of millions of uneducated immigrants will speed up the collapse. The poor illegals will consume even more gov't wealthfare and reduce productivity.
Dass rayciss. They just like errbuddy.
In fact that is what is happening, AND you see a situation where USA is no longer USA but a bunch of unrelated people living together.
This number can be created. The FED could monetize the debt. It's not the same as owing 4,000,000 tonnes of gold. Fiat can be created. And this is the most likely course that will be taken.
Face it, there is no turning back from here. We're living on a prison-ship, and the ponzi-financial system is melting down.
Trillions of fiat dollars of unfunded liabilities is nothing. Debt ceilings are nothing. The USD is doomed.
bahahahahhahahahahahahahahhah
Corruption kills empires, and the apathetic, indifferent, despondent sheeple will be fleeced.
He is right and that is why the infrastructure in USA is shitake while in pther debt countries like Japan and places in Europe it is much better.
USA is just hiding their debt. But when the shitake hits the fan, it is NOT going to be pretty.
It's not a liability until it's due. The ass clowns that spout this stuff add up what they think will be due in decades to come but never factor in contributions that will be made. Using their method the lunch with your family on Oct. 12, 2043 is an unfunded liability. That round of beers you will buy one night in 2032 is an unfunded liability. Every single expense for the rest of your life minus any current savings is an unfunded liability. Anyone who spouts off about unfunded liabilities but doesn't take into account expected inflows decades into the future is pushing an agenda hoping to convince the ignorant that there is a bigger problem than there really is. After looking at all the comments on this thread not a single person realized they are being scammed. Guess your thinking caps were still at the dry cleaners. Or your more than willing to be played for a sucker.
You are correct that the $200 trillion liability figures bandied about do not take into account offsetting revenue streams such as future social security and Medicare tax streams which are required given current laws. However, the $60 trillion liability figures, if I'm not mistaken, are net liability figures, are growing every year, and require draconian new taxation laws or massive cuts in government largesse to tackle. That likely won't happen before a complete collapse as politicians recognize that there would be enormous disruption and economic turmoil in trying to get to a stable equilibrium of inflows and outflows. So the net liability figures will continue growing until creditors have their "emperor has no clothes" aha moment and the financial system blows up.
Pay the young to exterminate the old, three birds, one cruel stone.
Can't pimp the world on a plastic card, bitchez.
LOL! Most of the young are far too busy with their heads stuck in their electronic devices and and social media horseshit. mine are not, they know what hard work is, and they sure as hell can shoot straight as well.
You get what you give motherfucker.
My son saw his first tablet last night at dinner with friends. He was curious for about 5 minutes than he went flying back outside to play. The other kids joined him. When they came back inside they were are all smiling and huffing and puffing from being out of breath. Nice to instincts kick in at times.
You only need to get rid of 5k people, 10 at most and this will all end........
We have "The List" Pablo.
We have their home addresses, their children's names, emails, telephone numbers, work adresses, etc...
No worries.
PLEASE share with me.
Inefficient. It only took 2977 to get started.
Im willing to push a little deeper to make sure we get a good clean start. Call me old fashioned.
This juicy tidbit is whats gonna throw the market in the green,and above 18,000
Americans have "lost touch with reality" when it comes to spending.
Not so much. I think most Americans are well aware that they don't have much left to spend after/if they pay for basics.
Might as well call it a bajillion zillion dollars debt.
"A bajillion zillion is not enough. And...ummm...aliens." -P. Krugman
The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (POLICE STATE) is 100% bankrupt and will never EVER be able to pay off all of the U.S. debt with real money.
WWW.USDEBTCLOCK.ORG
Now with the printing press, and printing FIAT currency out of thin air to INFINITY, we should be fine with the SHEEPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Carriers and nukes are all that stopping the collection calls, so its
just the credibility of US armed forces stopping bankruptcy, and a fire sale of assets.
Hence the desperation over Syria and the Spratleys.
Fire sale of assets? Please explain.
If .gov defaulted on a UST payment, you think there is asset recourse?
Notable amongst many notasbles is the GAAP deficit. +/-$5.9T Federal Tax Reves are $3.2T. We are so fooked.
It's like they are cutting our arms and legs off and feeding them to us. And we're eating it!
I OBJECT!!! As a busness owner I have not lost touch with spending! Only the government has lost touch with spending. Dont include me in your overstatement of the current situation. Also, as most americans go, being lied to doesnt mean they have lost touch with reality, they were never told what reality is!!
Ignorance is bliss right? Should we be glad they trust and believe in the government?
Those that know reality are in the minority when it comes to the slave population. Have you considered that government's purpose is to spend? Some have this fantasy idea that the government is there to protect the citizens. From the government's view point, maybe they think the reality is they are supposed to spend and we slaves must continue to sacrifice more to accomodate it.
Agree that not all of us have lost touch, but you need to take a look around. As the poster above stated, those who haven't lost touch with reality are in a minority. Just look at the housing market. The sheep keep buying these overpriced, depreciating shit shacks even though less than 10 years ago, the market imploded. Forty-plus-year-old shacks without current updates going for over $400,000. They are living in a fantasy land and this a COMPLETE detachment from reality. And this is in Illinois, where a good portion of the population doesn't get that Illinois is dead broke.
People have a short memory.
Attribute this to herd mentality. Wall Street calls it animal spirits.
YOU may have not but MOST mericanos have. That is yet another reason why we left USA for good. NO HOPE!
only three times??? he is a bit low... but it's only funny money... it's not real.
I don't think that anybody really knows what the so called unfunded liabilities amount to. I'll take $60 trillion to $210 trillion as a reasonable enough range to make the statement that they amount to a fuckton factorial and the US's debt is never, ever going to be paid back in real terms.
Fisher, former President of the Dallas Fed, also warned about US debt and unfunded laibilities on May 28, 2008 and no one paid attention. Now debt and unfunded liabilities are at least $50 trillion higher and growing at $8 trillion a year but nobody cares:
Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percent.
Let’s say you and I and Bruce Ericson and every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household’s income.
http://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2008/fs080528.cfm
Dick "the Hawk" Fisher...lol.
Just another empty suit who went along with almost all of the FED's horrible decisions while pretending he was a sane voice who actually wanted the FED to act responsible.
Well some Americans certainly have. But what the fuck did you expect the outcome to be of rewarding bad behavior at all levels of society!!!!
Free John Corzine, Jamie Dimon, and Llyod Blankenfein...!!
Oh wait, nevermind...
Moral hazard can be a real motherfucker...
Truth for Angelo Mozilo.
For those who haven't awakened from their sheepie slumber, reality is a bitch, and she will bitch slap you awake when the time comes for this farcial fraud to end.
65 trillion? What is he, the President of Optimists International? It's much, much worst....
Default is not just to foreign governments. It means stealing from American pension funds, privately held portfolios, endowment funds, trust funds, government funded organizations. It is a tangled spaghetti monster of disasters- that will happen.
"US Debt Is 3 Times More Than You Think"
Whew, glad I’m not on the hook for that bullshit. I didn't sign any contract...
The contract was signed for you when you were issued a birth certificate.
At that point, you became a 'tax unit'
"The contract was signed for you when you were issued a birth certificate."
Although it's a popular meme, I had no say in it. No consent on my part. A contract requires consent of all parties that "agree" to it.
Thus, it is null and void.
I like where your head is at but you cant be free of it, try. They wont let you. You are a slave. Not a free man. You never where.
Well, if you believe that then I feel empathy towards you.
You can be as free as a breeze if you look into it. Most people are afraid of being free. No safety nets...etc...thus they crave to be "led".
It's much safer being a pooch sitting on a rug next to a fireplace in the evening than being a Dingo.
I have looked into it. I guess you and i have a different idea of freedom.
it's up to each of us to decide.
you're right, if you go around worrying about whether "they" will let you, then you're still a slave.
only thing you need to be free is to consciously realize that fact, and live this reality.
Start here:
https://kateofgaia.wordpress.com/
http://servantking.info/
Tell that to Irwin Schiff who recently died a not so nice death for thinking along those lines.
Secede... or else!
Oh bite me. My future consumption of pizza is an unfunded liability. It is not a cause for panic.
It is for the Pizzeria. The lessor of the retail space, the restaurant suppliers, the employees, etc.
Their customers are all unfunded liabilities, yet they opened their doors. 50 years ago. And are still at it.
you may write code but you are brain dead economically
no one has promised you free future pizza.
Real Debt on a realistic NPV is well over 200T but if there is crisis those assumptions go out the window. No way out.
18. 65. 220.
Just some f###ing numbers that don mean nuffin...
Fuck it just round up to an even quadrillion and be done with it. For a while.
Wealth tax (just to see the look on their face).
What kind of debts? Who holds them? Who benefits from the debt instruments? Where are the debts lodged? Are they denominated in a foreign currency?
Let's say we had a Sovereign money system, and we are in debt to our neighbors, who saved their money. Then when we pay back our debts, we simply returned money we previously borrowed. The money doesn't extinguish.
Many of the debt instruments in a DEBT SPREADING CREDIT MONEY world, of the type we are in now, were used to hypothecate new credit. When this credit returns to pay off its debts, then said credit disappears from existence.
That means, to pay off the debts is to vanish the money supply. This then means there is no money to do transactions and to have an economy.
Yes, the situation is that absurd. Debt instruments also like to grow relative to their former credit. Sometimes the debts double or triple, so they they ask back much more than what they created.
Then there are other types of debts that claim money from money supply. They are claims that were not used for hypothecation. For example, a municiple bond is issued and grabs existing money from money supply - then no new credit, it is just a transfer. Or, a municiple bond is put on a double entry ledger, to then make new credit, then new credit is created.
Same bond, TWO DIFFERENT ACTIONS.
Few economists, or most pundits, will tell you how to pay off debts, or what is best way to manage an economy. The sky is falling, the sky is falling is the best they can do, and they seem to be confused most of the time. Really, all we have to do is change over the money system... it is a law change.
The credit money system is designed for rent seeking. It's design is fraudulent and since systems predicate their output, then debt/credit money systems lead man into a cycle of fraud and debt slavery.
When one hears the term "unfunded liabilities" that is debt holders projecting their fears. Oh no, I won't be paid if the money supply is vectoring to pay government promises to its citizens.
Some debt holders are legitimate, other debts are fraud.
The parasite needs to be ejected.
www.sovereignmoney.eu
If you like "honest money", stop complaining and join a Credit Union folks. No inflated CEO salaries, no million dollar bonuses, no Zios on the Board of Directors, and no ATM fees. If main street just walks away from all the big banks, they are left with just big corporate finance and their derivative ponzi schemes. I have not had a bank account since 1978 and do just fine.
The US is facing deflationary tidal waves of globalization, technology, and illegal immigration. The response so far has been to "put it on the credit card". We need to either 1. lower our standard of living and make do with less (but too many folks are already at rock bottom) 2. stop manipulating interest rates and other free shit for the 1% 3. keep racking up debt until she blows sky high. 4. start a war. I don't think #4 is really gonna work anymore though, it's getting hard to find a good enemy these days. And if you get rid of SS you had better give me back what I already paid in you fuckers.
The Murrican standard of living will be lowered for you, courtesy of an increasing tax burden. You want to see your future? Look @ the UK. They have their NHS (hooray), but the average Brit lives with poorly made stuff, everything from apartment furnishments to cars to clothes to food. The answer? Remind them about NHS, enable them to get sloshed regularly, and then blast a techno version of 'Rule Britannia'.
I cant wait til the .govnors have to choose between free shit and military spending.
If I were the guy "in charge of ensuring federal spending is fiscally responsible," from 1996 to 2008, I would be hiding somewhere, not pointing out my stupendous failure on the job.
“Americans are out of touch with reality” because they are brainwashed stupid with mass propaganda to love fascism (corporatism) and hate democracy. The man on the street is like a dog in the gutter with the self- awareness of a dog.
Last month, for the first time in years, interest paid on the debt in this country increased. How interest paid was decreasing as our debt was increasing is a mystery for the ages.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
He said Americans have “lost touch with reality” when it comes to spending.
More correctly, "American Governments have lost touch with reality when it comes to spending".
No we've all lost it. We all have been taught and now understand debt is a vurtue.
No we've all lost it. We all have been taught and now understand debt is a vurtue.
One making a trading promise (indebting oneself) is not virtuous. One delivering on a trading promise (paying back a debt) "is" virtuous.
Governments "never" deliver on their trading promises. They just roll them over, and that is default. Governments are "not" virtuous.
I would alter that statement: American governments (or any other government) never had touch with reality to begin with. So they didn't have it to lose.
A little antidote. Apparently Dick Cheney has a book out in publication. I only found out because a couple of people I know told me they are reading it in admiration. I got them upset when I told them Cheney is a murderous psychopath who tells people what he wants them to believe, not what he believes.
This is an unsolvable problem. There's a reason they're not fixing it -- it can't be. Most of those spending obligations are hard promises. They will be broken promises, but they'll need the cover of a complete collapse to break them.
Debating the dollar amount or whether the debt will ever be satisfied is simply moronic.
It won't take a collapse, just military to enforce whatever solution they see fit to demand.
This is the reality.
“This is an unsolvable problem.”
You forgot to add your qualifier, “According to my knowledge…”
If you would acquaint yourself with the Declaration of Independence, you would know that the problem is eminently solvable; something like “alter or abolish such governments and set new guards for our liberties”.
But this lead to a major problem, “HOW is that to be done?”
Quick, what's 210 divide by 65?
Here's an idea for " The Donald ".
First, nationalize the Fed.
Second, empower the US Treasury to abolish debt obligations.
Third, empower the Treasury to issue new obligations at whatever value decided upon backed by the assets of the USA including all military assets.
Fourth, rework the IRS.
Until there is a Republican in the WH, this will not be widely reported. Look for a sudden flood of bad economic news beginning in 2/17.
Republican?! are you on drugs?! they are the same lying c*cksuckers as the Dems-they could give shit about this country
Time to hang all 535 morons + Criminal in Charge for fraud, treason
Just need to split off Detroit as am SPV and load it with the bad debt. Problem solved.
"Americans have “lost touch with reality” when it comes to spending"
Even though there is a recoprd amount of debt the Federal Reserve tells us we don't spend enough.
It's the Federal Reserve that's causing this mess.
Nothing changes until there's a currency crisis.
We are well past the point of no return.
Perhaps the end will be quick.
“the rear number is about $65 trillion…”
Actually, he is rather modest, and understates the case; probably because he thinks nobody would believe him if he told the real numbers.
I don’t blame him.
The “$65 trillion” he speaks of are actually “present-value” dollars, an accounting piece of trickery invented by publically-appointed thieves to conceal their thievery from ordinary men.
You can multiply his number by… well, it would be more convincing if you took the time to study data, formulas and assumptions provided in a recent Financial Report of the US Government.
It leads you to the conclusion that the system cannot survive.
And, when you realize the system limps from one month, one year, to the next by financially cannibalizing following generations of Americans, you realize it is a system that does not deserve to survive.
The economic problems with America are intractable and cannot be ameliorated in time to avoid a complete systemic worldwide meltdown due to interconnectivity of all banking systems. The economic matrix is the weakest design link in the system. In brief, America was designed to implode if, and when, the weakest link in the Ponzi chain breaks. Pre-2008 it was assumed that 5% default on subprime was to be expected.
Post-2008 default rates have surpassed the critical limits that industry was capable of handling. Today, default rates are way over 10% en masse. There is literally no way to get on top of the outstanding debt obligations. Bottom line is the BIG crash is inevitable.
I dunno why he blame a Mericans for spending "out of touch" though, they have been pushed by monetary policies and powers that be to do that.
There's really no cause for alarm ;-). The U.S. government can default on its debt with virtually no ill effects except a need to balance its budgets for at least two decades afterward.
If YOU default on your debt, of course, there's hell to pay. The creditor goes to court and gets a judgment against you; they can take your house and car and then when they garnish your wages you're likely to get fired and good luck finding another job or starting a business when you have a recent bankruptcy and no car. You'll be lucky to even find an apartment to rent at some exhorbitant charge. They might even put you in prison.
But it's different for sovereign states that print their own fiat currency. Especially when they have the biggest, best-equipped military in the world. Just WHO is going to collect? Domestic creditors have no recourse against their own government. Foreign creditors can, as Greece has shown, be very nasty indeed, but only if you enable them. Remember, Greece could have walked away from its debt if it were willing to leave the Euro. It also helps to be able, as we are, to feed yourselves and keep your lights on out of your own resources. Certainly, China could cut off our supply of cheap computer chips and it might take about 18 months to rebuild our own capacity to mine and manufacture the necessary materials. But by no means would we be reduced to having to develop chemical substitutes for our basic industrial inputs, like Germany with its shortage of foreign currency leading up to WWII. Wal-Mart might go out of business from not being able to import lots of plastic crap from China and fall-apart clothes from Vietnam, but for the most part, Americans have the resources they need to manage without much foreign trade, and plenty of resources to buy what they actually need on a cash basis.
What we DON'T have the resources for is the extremely high percentage of national product that is wasted in paying "rents", interest, and fees to the banking industry, and the people who would actually suffer from a default are always primarily the bankers. Which is why you hear so much moaning and groaning and public scaremongering about the dangers of the debt. International Banksters want neither to stop lending lots of money and getting rich off of doing nothing, nor to face the risks of their business model. "Risk" is something they use to justify their incomes, not something they actually want to pay off on. So they try to pretend that its "necessary" to renege on promises made to people who spent decades working their butts off, so that the banksters can get paid, on time and with interest. Because DISASTER if the banksters don't get paid. For the BANKSTERS.
ALL caused by the Federal Reserve, both the debt, but also politicians' behavior and people's attitudes.
Money and stores of value are the absolute life-blood of society. Put that under centrally-planned control, and you will effect 1000 different things.
These problems will only start to get fixed when all of those currently AND previously responsible are stripped of everything they own and are held accountable under the law, imprisoned and the root causes of the problems fixed. The litany of crimes and participants who are complicit seems almost endless.
I'm confident many of my previous posts on this topic were clear about what will happen to unfunded liabilities, especially pensions. In summary, you're going to get screwed out of most if not all of it when the next phase of transition in the global criminal enterprise takes place. Which in a way is almost too ironic because the benefits U.S. citizens claim or will receive was one of the ways everyone was fraudulently misled into being enslaved as a part of the Federal Reserve system being implemented. (i.e. Social Security).
So the psychopaths that have fraudulently enslaved everyone on the planet have not only done so knowingly and willingly with malice of forethought but are also going to steal up to 100% of the benefits they promised everyone as a term and condition of their enslavement. And they'll gladly take it all laughing at you and mocking each "person" stupid enough to let it happen. At least right up until the time they find enough mindless minions of theirs to put one of the billions of rounds of hollow point bullets they purchased with your hard work right into the heads of you and your families. They'll do this because they don't give a crap about you, your family or your complaints, they want to eliminate their future potential to be held liable and accountable for their crimes and they're psychopathic. I never said they weren't somewhat intelligent or creative.
None of these problems are ever going to get fixed by team red or team blue either individually or combined. On the contrary they've been facilitated and exacerbated by Red and Blue individually and in tandem. They're the ones offered up as front men and women for their masters who concocted this global criminal enterprise. They are perpetuating the problem and will solve the problem by screwing as many people as possible as hard and as fast as they can right up until the end. All the while denying any knowledge or responsibility or passing it off to their faux partner in crime either Red or Blue. And if necessary they periodically and temporarily (until the pardon) offer up an occasional scapegoat or two to calm the masses.
Questions
In 10 years as a top level government employee and licensed CPA at what point did Dave first realize what was happening with respect to the government fraudulent misrepresenting information and when did he publicly disclose this information?
Is the book "Enough to Make You Sick--: Tainted Counterfeit Imports!" correct when they said Dave first disclosed this right before his resignation from the his government job?
Why does The Hill post not mention that Dave is a current employee of PWC serving the Public Sector?
Does Dave see this article as either misleading or serving as a conflict of interest with respect to his previous or current relationship between the government, his employer and himself?
Does Dave see any conflicts or problems with this knowledge and information in relation to any oath he has taken or any moral, ethical standards or legal duties and obligations he is required to operate under as either an employee, licensee or organization where he is a member?
Is PWC willing to offer up and deliver a solution if the government promises to pay them at some future date and defers payment as an unfunded liability?
I'm long physical bourbon and scotch. So, no matter what happens, It will be great!
This under-reporting of debt is the same for most developed nations.
It is when a politician tries to pretend things are better than they are and the debt becomes hidden to justify it.
The UK had an article a couple of years back where guesstimate on unfunded liabilities was used because the truth can never be reported and 3x what the government figure states.
The economic stagnation like Japan is when you pretend that this increased level debt does not exist but you seem to spend alot of money and achieve absolutely nothing.
WELL YOU ARE SPENDING MORE AND MORE ON SERVICING THIS DEBT BUT CANNOT ADMIT IT SO GOVERNMENTS LOOK BLOODY USELESS WITH SPENDING OUT OF CONTROL.
About sums it up and the truth.
Walker is an optimist.
Can't know for sure. But I think when this collapse hits, it's going to come fast and furious. I give it another year or two.
And THAT is the main reason that the rich folks are leaving USA in droves. It is NOT because of taxes, as the media would have you believe. It is so they do not get lynched by mobs when the entitlements the masses are used to come to an end.
Understanding that over 99% of the currency in circulation is the balancing transaction to a debt, meaning it is the 'check' to some debts' "checkbook", means that in reality the debt is INFINITY.
You can't pay off the debt. Not ever. Because there is not enough money in existence to do it. EVER.
It is a rentier system.
If you know something about accounting...in simple terms it goes like this:
- Government issues a Bond.
- Central Bank puts bond on their Asset Sheet.
- Central Bank 'creates' a balancing entry on their 'Liability Sheet' in the same amount...such that it is numerically possible to buy said bond.
'POOF!' Currency just came into existence.
EXCEPT...the money to pay the interest on the debt from which it springs did not come into existence. So, for any single debt to be payable a larger debt, to secure the creation of a larger amount of currency, will have to be taken.
The debt is infinity. By the time there is $60 Trillion in existence, the debt will be some multiple of that number.
And those who receive the interest on this debt (nearly $2Trillion of which is currently defaulted mortgages), gain additional ownership of societies total resources with each transaction...in essence gaining ownership of future generations' wealth, before they've ever produced it, or even been born.
But that's not as bad as it gets.
Those who get currency without production, needn't bother with spending their currency to ensure the factors of production are available such that production can renew. They spend it on other things. The things they spend it on require businesses and inputs to produced. Those businesses and inputs draw resources away from the businesses and resources needed to satisfy the needs and desires of people who aren't gifted with money-for-nothing.
Furthermore, they're doomed.
A business dependent on monetary inflation for survival is an unsustainable one, because monetary inflation creates no value, only redistributes value at the cost of impairing production. And in systematically impairing production, production will eventually be unable to continue within such a system, and will default... And whether the businesses go out of business, or whether they join the crony-service industry, or whether they join the structurally unemployed - or joint those looking for a free lunch, doesn't matter.
What matters is that when there are too few producers in such a system the monetary base wil contract, and the unsustainable businesses wil cease to exist.
Actually...it is in progress as we speak. Only the central bankers and governments are busy at the moment entertaining the illusion that they can expand credit by borrowing the money themselves, with which to back the creation of currency to replace that which evaporated in the defaults.
Economists don't entertain the concept that though the aggregate monetary base may have been kept stable, its composition has been poisoned, and that they will have to exponentially repeat the process as those monetizing debts they've taken mature.
Pleasant dreams.
What a hoot...this guy is just another day dream believer who thinks the problem can be fixed.
I guess if you admitted that it cannot, possibly, ever, under any circumstances be even tweaked a bit the no one would listen (might explode their heads coming from a government official).
An honest statement would be a warning to prepare. No one can say it though because confidence is so critical. If Yellen or Lew ever tried to explain things it would be over before the first commercial break.
Notice math is taboo at all presidential debates....numbers are more scarey than the Ruskies and ChiComs combined. Fortunately Americans don't need no stinkin numbers....exceptionalism does just fine.
What a hoot...this guy is just another day dream believer who thinks the problem can be fixed.
I guess if you admitted that it cannot, possibly, ever, under any circumstances be even tweaked a bit then no one would listen (might explode their heads coming from a government official).
An honest statement would be a warning to prepare. No one can say it though because confidence is so critical. If Yellen or Lew ever tried to explain things it would be over before the first commercial break.
Notice math is taboo at all presidential debates....numbers are more scarey than the Ruskies and ChiComs combined. Fortunately Americans don't need no stinkin numbers....exceptionalism does just fine.
LongBCBigBudeom.
I had a feeling 18 trillion was too good to be true !
Satan America (& its allies) are only printing paper , giving it as Treasury bonds to developing countries and buying all the goody goodies . Thats the new world order as assumed by them.
The developing countries, are exporting their best produce & minerals to the west and getting paper money in return, if they oppose they are sanctioned.
WEST MUST BE DESTROYED
Sorry, true debt is more like $220 trillion, not $65 trillion. Not that it matters much, since anything over $12 trillion amounts to "game over" (beyond point of no return).
And, of course, that doesn't count individual or corporate debt.