to be a hero ... and it's not really working out for him. The NYTimes takes us inside the White House for the extraordinary meeting:
"We're in a serious economic crisis," Mr. Bush told reporters as the meeting began shortly before 4 p.m. in the Cabinet Room, adding, "My hope is we can reach an agreement very shortly."But once the doors closed, the smooth-talking House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, surprised many in the room by declaring that his caucus could not support the plan to allow the government to buy distressed mortgage assets from ailing financial companies.
Mr. Boehner pressed an alternative that involved a smaller role for the government, and Mr. McCain, whose support of the deal is critical if fellow Republicans are to sign on, declined to take a stand.[Emphasis mine. -- RD]
Leadership! Er, not so much. Boy, is this not turning out well for Mac.
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Here's a useful resource "The Bailout Reader" on the inflationary financing behind a century of mercantilism that has stifled free trade, posted at | blog.mises.org/archives/008620.asp | for those "rubes" who like me are vincibly ignorant and don't like being told they're not one of the illuminati "gnostics" of the 33rd degree enlightened enough to decide our fate:
Ludwig von Mises
Clare, I honor your intentions, but your delivery is false. You cannot lump future liabilities like that, mostly because they are actuarial projections subject to change.
Assets (end of 2007) 2,023.6 214.9
That is the net reserve (really, carryover) for OASI (standard benefits and DI (disability) respectively. They exclude Medicare. The total for OASDI was 2.24 trillion dollars.
The full 2008 Trustees Report, showing sound actuarial principles in descriptions, speculations and conclusions, is at
www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html
In that report, you will see projections over a varying number of years. Your "short-fall" money quotes:
The projected 75-year actuarial deficit in the combined Old-Age and Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Fund is 1.70 percent of taxable payroll ($4.3 trillion in present value terms)...
The projected actuarial deficit in the OASDI Trust Fund over the infinite future is 3.2 percent of taxable payroll (1.1 percent of GDP), or $13.6 trillion in present value terms.
I really must insist on properly labeled numbers here, Clare. I honestly don't think you intend to spin or deceive, but your "$40 trillion" validly takes either label.
The reader should realize by now why these topics are so difficult to follow, let alone discuss. I urge everyone to not even use grains of salt when they see or hear the sound bites, but to reject them immediately until sufficient details are offered.
About the "IOUs":
www.ssa.gov/history/BudgetTreatment.html
More money quotes:
Since the assets in the Social Security trust funds consists of Treasury securities, this means that the taxes collected under the Social Security payroll tax are in effect being lent to the federal government to be expended for whatever present purposes the government requires.
In early 1968 President Lyndon Johnson made a change in the budget presentation by including Social Security and all other trust funds in a"unified budget." This is likewise sometimes described by saying that Social Security was placed "on-budget."
Oh, btw: all puns intended. ;-)
Other Jim - I don't hold Frannie blameless in the subprime debacle, or in their own downfall. However, they weren't the sole cause of the former, either. Private-label securitization of subprimes were done by the I-banks, not Frannie. And while Frannie did buy plenty of subprime MBS, so also did lots of other parties.
Frannie was a contributing factor in the housing bubble. But they certainly weren't the only one.
Thanks Franklin, for the fraternal correction, I lumped in the promises regarding healthcare (Medicare) made to future retirees. They are actually the larger of our unfunded liabilities, in addition to the unfunded liabilities for benefits offered via social security.
In fact I "validly take either label" for two reasons
."__ David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States, warned that is is HIGHER, $53 trillion, or $455,000 per household and increases by $7 billion per day. To quote Mr. Walker,
__ those receiving SSI benefits now are actually being shortchanged the cost-of-living raises that they are supposed to be getting rolled in as annual increases for inflation - see data compiled by Jim Quinn (*), Senior Director of Strategic Planning, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania who reminds us "The great empires of Rome and Britain were not defeated militarily, they went broke."
So while I have no intent to deceive or to spin, I intend to raise my voice in the debate of how to conduct financial affairs for the benefit of my dependents and determine the opportunity costs associated with supporting my retired widowed parent-in-law while "saving" for my own retirement with my spouse in an economy whose rising consumer price index is eating away 12% of the purchasing power of each dollar we earn or save.
The squeeze in on.
Let's talk numbers, but you cannot let folks rest assured in the assumption that the future can be financed as easily as it was in the past, for it certainly will not be.
(*) www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/quinn1.html (add http://)
And lest folks think this wee girl is only interested in microeconomics under squeeze, no!
The slide is on too, in macroeconomics.
Under Bush while our private GDP grew 41%, our public purse deficit has ballooned by 71% - the state is already enslaving us and our progeny to indentured servitude.
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