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Posted 09/15/2011 6:33 pm
Government figures do not include ANY of the unfunded liabilities that they have promised to pay. When all of that is added up, depending on whose figures you trust and use, the total amount owed is in the area of $75-125T. The upper range of this is easily 6-7x the total national output. Of course, not all of this is due at one time. It stretches out over decades and so can the payments on it.
The bottom line is that we owe a lot of money and we very well may not be able to pay it back. This is hardly surprising because the debt is not shrinking, it is still growing and looks as if it will continue to grow for at least several more years. At some point, we need to stop the growth of the debt and begin paying it down. Other than for a World War II style national survival issue, I see no reason to continue squandering money that we do not have. It's bad when a person does this, when a business does this, when a local government does this, and it is very likely to be bad when a national government does it too. We really do need to ask ourselves, "Do we really want to be like Greece?". If we do, then we should stay on the same path we are on now and that will be the case.
The bottom line is that we owe a lot of money and we very well may not be able to pay it back. This is hardly surprising because the debt is not shrinking, it is still growing and looks as if it will continue to grow for at least several more years. At some point, we need to stop the growth of the debt and begin paying it down. Other than for a World War II style national survival issue, I see no reason to continue squandering money that we do not have. It's bad when a person does this, when a business does this, when a local government does this, and it is very likely to be bad when a national government does it too. We really do need to ask ourselves, "Do we really want to be like Greece?". If we do, then we should stay on the same path we are on now and that will be the case.
