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Reading this article made me curious just how much is owed to foreign countries. But what I found to be scarier is our internal debt obligations to programs su
by raheemm 18y ago
Reading this article made me curious just how much is owed to foreign countries. But what I found to be scarier is our internal debt obligations to programs such as medicare, social security, etc. "As of October 1, 2008, the total U.S. federal debt exceeded $10 trillion,[16] about $31,700 per capita. Including unfunded Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, and similar promised obligations, the government liabilities rise to a total of $59.1 trillion, or $516,348 per household.[17]" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States)
That's 428% of our yearly GDP. The current tactic has been to use new debt and current tax witholdings to pay social security benefits - but does that not sound like one big crazy pyramid scheme? And how the hell do we get out of this?
- petercooper 18y agoYou extract a lot of fresh wealth somehow - from finding a giant pile of gold under Kansas to producing objects the entire world wants to buy. Or.. you sell or give a lot of stuff to the people who you're indebted to. In this case, that's already begun somewhat by all of the purchases China's making in the US - factories, etc.
- biohacker42 18y agoMost of the (developed) world is in a big pyramid scheme with obligations to retirees. The whole deal was (usually) based on a rapidly growing population and is doomed to fail without one. But old people vote, so you can't cut their benefits. Democracy is not a good system of government it's just the least bad we have. Democracy only fixes hard issues once they reach crisis level.