The U.S. Fiscal Gap Is Now $222 Trillion. Last Year, It Was $211 Trillion

[SEE3772]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/...-trillion.html

[joe bloe]

I'm not sure it even matters any more. Bankrupt is bankrupt. The number might as well be a gajillion. We're screwed.

[CuteOldGuy]

They won't read it. Here's an excerpt:

Republicans and Democrats spent last summer battling how best to save $2.1 trillion over the next decade. They are spending this summer battling how best to not save $2.1 trillion over the next decade.

In the course of that year, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap -- the true measure of the nation’s indebtedness -- rose by $11 trillion.

The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones.

Some question whether “official” and “unofficial” spending commitments can be added together. But calling particular obligations “official” doesn’t make them economically more important. Indeed, the government would sooner renege on Chinese holding U.S. Treasuries than on Americans collecting Social Security, especially because the U.S. can print money and service its bonds with watered-down dollars.

For its part, economic theory sees through labels and views a country’s official debt for what it is -- a linguistic construct devoid of real economic content. In contrast, the fiscal gap is theoretically well-defined and invariant to the choice of labels. Each labeling choice changes the mix of obligations between official and unofficial, but leaves the total unchanged.

Tax and tax. Spend and spend. They are too damn dumb to know what they are getting us into.

Read the rest of the article, it will be good for you.

[SEE3772]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

They won't read it.

[joe bloe]

I feel like I'm on the Titanic. The captain has just steered the ship into an iceberg, and has announced, he plans on hitting more icebergs in the future. Fifty percent of the passengers still think he's doing a fine job.

[waverunner234]

Originally Posted by joe bloe

I feel like I'm on the Titanic.

Perfect!

[Guest123018-4]

Yep and the Capitan is yelling "Forward".

[CuteOldGuy]

Quick! Let's rearrange the deck chairs!

[joe bloe]

The band is still playing. It can't be all that serious. Calm down everybody, this is the Titanic; it can't sink.

[IIFFOFRDB]

whats the number after a trillion? I did not think I would ever need to know...

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

whats the number after a trillion? I did not think I would ever need to know...

One thousand trillion is a quadrillion. That's what it will cost for six pack in about two years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrillion

[gnadfly]

According to WTF, we're cool. We have all that money in the Social Security Tust Fund to fall back on.

[SEE3772]

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

whats the number after a trillion? I did not think I would ever need to know...

Global Derivatives Market
"It has been estimated that the the notional value of all the derivatives in the world is somewhere between 600 trillion dollars and 1.5 quadrillion dollars"...

http://m.seekingalpha.com/article/58...arket-collapse

[joe bloe]

Here's where we're headed.

[Guest123018-4]

Hey we all know the solutoon is higher taxes on 1 percent of the tax payers and then everything will be all right, yessir, everything will be allright.
We just need to redistribute that wealth so everybody will get a piece of the pie and then we can make more pie and take all the wealth from them again.
Wait how many times can you redistribute the wealth?