The future looks bleak

[fornax]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Many of those other Nations likely have Unfunded Liabilities as well. Would be interesting to see what they all are.

Quite possibly. And it's possible that the US is OK compared to them. But maybe not. Maybe other countries actually count their pensions and other social obligations. My point was that Stunt's post was about how peachy our position is because we have only 60% debt-to-GDP ratio. That's bollocks. Frankly, I don't see how future governments will pay $50 trillion. That's impossible for any reasonable assumptions of productivity increases.

 

[imported_Aelius]

Originally posted by: fornax

Originally posted by: sandorski
Many of those other Nations likely have Unfunded Liabilities as well. Would be interesting to see what they all are.

Quite possibly. And it's possible that the US is OK compared to them. But maybe not. Maybe other countries actually count their pensions and other social obligations. My point was that Stunt's post was about how peachy our position is because we have only 60% debt-to-GDP ratio. That's bollocks. Frankly, I don't see how future governments will pay $50 trillion. That's impossible for any reasonable assumptions of productivity increases.

Even if the US wanted to they couldn't pay off the debt. They would need to take it out of defense or other major funding to do it. Even then we are talking about maybe 100 billion at most. That's a drop in the bucket and I would be surprised to see more than half of that go past the intrest against the debt. Let alone actually reducing the debt.

I think under the current system it is a no win scenario.