Richard W. Fisher of the Dallas Federal Reserve and Charles Hugh Smith on how much America has promised more than can be provided

The entire notion of entitlements based on age

requires an ever-expanding population of working contributors

and an ever-expanding economy.

If either condition isn't met, then the programs fail.

Fisher's message is clear:

our entitlement programs will fail because there is no way to raise $100 trillion

in additional taxes in a declining economy.

Charles Hugh Smith

"Please sit tight while I walk you through the math of Medicare.

...The infinite-horizon present discounted value of the unfunded liability for Medicare A
is $34.4 trillion.

The unfunded liability of Medicare B is an additional $34 trillion.

The shortfall for Medicare D adds another $17.2 trillion.

...If you wanted to cover the unfunded liability of all three programs today,
you would be stuck with an $85.6 trillion bill.

That is more than six times as large as the bill for Social Security.

It is more than six times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy.

I want to remind you
that I am only talking about the unfunded portions of Social Security and Medicare.

It is what the current payment scheme of Social Security payroll taxes,
Medicare payroll taxes, membership fees for Medicare B, copays, deductibles
and all other revenue currently channeled to our entitlement system
will not cover under current rules.

These existing revenue streams must remain in place in perpetuity
to handle the “funded” entitlement liabilities.

Reduce or eliminate this income and the unfunded liability grows.

Increase benefits and the liability grows as well.

To solve the entitlement deficit problem,
discretionary spending would have to be reduced by 97 percent
not only for our generation, but for our children and their children
and every generation of children to come.

And similarly on the taxation side,
income tax revenue would have to rise 68 percent
and remain that high forever.

...For the existing unfunded liabilities to be covered in the end,
someone must pay $99.2 trillion more or receive $99.2 trillion less
than they have been currently promised.

This is a cold, hard fact."

Richard W. Fisher
Dallas Federal Reserve

$100 trillion in unfunded liabilities is the number now,

but if spending continues rising at triple the rate of the real economy,

then that number will only grow.

If we're honest about our accounting,

then the U.S. economy hasn't grown at all since 2008; it's shrunk by $6 trillion,

a sum we have masked by borrowing and spending $6 trillion in Federal debt,

money that replaced the decline of private borrowing and spending.

...We need a national conversation about reality, not wishful thinking.

We need to grasp the nettle and talk about triage,

about conserving Social Security for those with no other sources of income,

and about devoting our scarce resources for palliative and preventive care.

The Status Quo is completely, utterly unsustainable,

but that needn't bring the nation to its knees--unless we actively insist that it does so.

Charles Hugh Smith

"Religion, Rangel and the Debt Ceiling" "what would Jesus do?" With some Baby Boomer angst from Polifrog

"Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., called out for his fellow lawmakers and all Americans
to do "the Lord's work" as a solution to fixing the debt ceiling.

"These are not political questions," Rangel asserted. "These are moral questions."

The raspy-voiced congressman urged spiritual leaders
to highlight the role federal programs including Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security play
in protecting the vulnerable, sick and poor
despite Washington's concern about the $14.3 trillion deficit.

When has the boomer generation ever known sacrifice?

...The national debt problem is their pig, but they refuse responsibility for it.

...they selfishly support ...debt over thrift, they choose “The Man” over liberty,

and they push poverty on all generations, but their own.

"Why don't you call your pastor, your rabbi, your imam?

There has to be a moral answer," Rangel preached to reporters.

It was just a year ago that the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee
was censured by his colleagues for various ethical violations.

Before Rangel's comments, Friday's debate about cutting Social Security
was discussed at a Ways and Means subcommittee hearing
where congressmen vacillated on whether reforms would lessen the debt crisis.

The majority of the boomer generation never gave a thought beyond their own peers.

First rejecting the thrift, success and sacrifice of the greatest generation

then engorging themselves on a combination of free love, consumerism, and me-ism

made possible by the very sacrifice they rejected.

Now with the bill for all their excess firmly on the table,

they pass it on to subsequent generation,

...perpetually living off the plate of another.

.

Polifrog

Today the U.S. borrows 40 cents for every dollar it spends,
much of it from the Chinese and sends the bill to our children and grandchildren,
and part of that's to cover Social Security," said Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas.

While lawmakers from both parties
are asking what President Obama is going to do about the debt ceiling,
Rangel continues to ask, "what would Jesus do?"

Bree

"Jesus entered the temple area

and drove out all those engaged in selling and buying there.

He overturned the tables of the money changers

and the seats of those who were selling doves.

And he said to them, "It is written: 'My house shall be a house of prayer,'

but you are making it a den of thieves." (Matthew 21:12)"

Via Karl

Where once churches and community helped the down trodden
we now funnel that help through a soulless government.


Never before has our country suffered a more worthless, selfish, shiftless, horrible,
or gluttonous group of malcontents
so intent on shifting their individual responsibility to society at large and beyond
than our aging boomer generation who refused all sacrifice.


Polifrog