World Class Black Hole
65 Trillion - U.S. Financial Obligations Exceed The Entire World's GDP
"The total liabilities of the United States government, including future social security and medicare payments that the U.S. government is already committed to pay out, now exceed 65 TRILLION dollars, which is more than the entire GDP of the whole world.
According to the 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government, which is an official United States government report, the U.S. actually had a budget deficit of 5.1 trillion dollars in 2008.
So why did the Congressional Budget Office report that the federal budget deficit was only 455 billion dollars (which is certainly a total disaster) in 2008?
The difference lies in accounting. The CBO's figures are based on cash accounting, while the 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government is based on GAAP accounting. GAAP accounting is what is used by all the major firms on Wall Street and it is regarded as a much more accurate reflection of financial reality.
So why is there such a big difference?
Well, what the Congressional Budget Office does is some really bad accounting. When you pay social security taxes, the federal government takes that money and instead of putting it away to pay your social security benefits in the future, it takes that money and spends it however it wants.
So what about the future social security and medicare benefits that the government owes you?
There is no money there for those payments.
The government is using that money right now to make the budget look better.
That's right, you have been conned.
And as bad as the numbers from 2008 look, they do not reflect any significant money from the monstrous financial bailouts that Congress has passed.
So 2009 is going to look MUCH worse."
"The total liabilities of the United States government, including future social security and medicare payments that the U.S. government is already committed to pay out, now exceed 65 TRILLION dollars, which is more than the entire GDP of the whole world.
According to the 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government, which is an official United States government report, the U.S. actually had a budget deficit of 5.1 trillion dollars in 2008.
So why did the Congressional Budget Office report that the federal budget deficit was only 455 billion dollars (which is certainly a total disaster) in 2008?
The difference lies in accounting. The CBO's figures are based on cash accounting, while the 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government is based on GAAP accounting. GAAP accounting is what is used by all the major firms on Wall Street and it is regarded as a much more accurate reflection of financial reality.
So why is there such a big difference?
Well, what the Congressional Budget Office does is some really bad accounting. When you pay social security taxes, the federal government takes that money and instead of putting it away to pay your social security benefits in the future, it takes that money and spends it however it wants.
So what about the future social security and medicare benefits that the government owes you?
There is no money there for those payments.
The government is using that money right now to make the budget look better.
That's right, you have been conned.
And as bad as the numbers from 2008 look, they do not reflect any significant money from the monstrous financial bailouts that Congress has passed.
So 2009 is going to look MUCH worse."
posted by nolocontendere at 11:10 PM
2 Comments:
A quarter of our budget goes to "defense" against an enemy that disappeared 20 years ago. I doubt not even Cheney would argue that our 700+ military bases around the world are needed against al Qaeda. But there aren't many pols around with the balls to suggest dismantling even some of them.
Unnecessary and excessive military expenditures have brought down more than a few empires. It's unsustainable. But still we push on into the big muddy.
IMO it's all been positioning for the total crash. They've known the unsustainability of it all for decades and the pedal to the metal financial theft into a black hole was a planned operation to steal as much as they could before the final dénouement.
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