The Best 30 Minutes You Could Spend All Day

[lithera]

This will help you understand where we're at financially as a country, a little better, I think.

Scary stuff.

Comments

[autobotsrollout.livejournal.com]

It's mostly accurate, but alarming language about "future unfunded liabilities" (the $53 trillion figure) is probably the most deceptive argument a fiscal budget hawk can make. Yes, the federal government owes that money in the future, but it's like me worrying about the rent I'm going to have to pay next year or the year after that or so forth.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

That's true. Still, it is something you're aware of and the possibility that it could change for the better or worse. While I'm not specifically freaking out about what I'll pay next year, I'm also not planning to take a trip to Italy with that money, either.

[qijm.livejournal.com]

I was very pleased to see they addressed the social-security-as-general-revenue issue.

[seanb.livejournal.com]

Obviously, we need to start killing Baby Boomers as soon as they cease being valuable laborers. That will bring the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs under control.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

*chuckles*

Ummmmm. I'm not sure that'll work out so well.

[seanb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, execution decrees for a large class of people have some pretty nasty historical overtones. A pity, since killing humans is great for the environment and the economy.

Perhaps we can develop a culture of suicide, where one-click suicide buttons in every hospital, hotel, nursing home, apartment, and prison cell is considered to be a fundamental right?

Raising the retirement age is also a classical hack to this sort of system. We did it once, but only to a new limit, not to a sliding scale. It would be interesting to define retirement age as a percentile of the population's age, which would neatly dance around waves like these boomers. Once you pass the 80% mark (or whatever) on the OldFart system, you get full retirement benefits.

In the long run, these ideas might be more humane than what we really end up doing.

[m00t.livejournal.com]

What, you mean leaving them out in the cold?

I say we start turning them in to oil.