Oh, About Those Unfunded Liabilities
The Market Ticker ® - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Posted 2012-11-27 11:30
by Karl Denninger
in Editorial
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Oh, About Those Unfunded Liabilities
 

In the duh department we have this:

The actual liabilities of the federal government—including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees' future retirement benefits—already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP. For the year ending Dec. 31, 2011, the annual accrued expense of Medicare and Social Security was $7 trillion. Nothing like that figure is used in calculating the deficit. In reality, the reported budget deficit is less than one-fifth of the more accurate figure.

Did you get that?

The entire economy is $15 trillion.

The accrued expense of Medicare and Social Security alone -- and most of it is Medicare -- is half the economy each and every year.  Put that in your head and consider that this would mean that just to keep even we would have to more than triple the existing amount of tax collected, raising total taxation to more than 60% of the economy!

If you have read Leverage you know that one of the pieces that I pound on hard is the medical cost explosion.  I've also written about it extensively here in these pages.  This is why -- it is simply impossible for the promises made through Medicare to be kept.  That is not conjecture, it is not able to be fixed with taxation, it is not a matter of opinion. 

It is mathematical fact.

You're not going to get Medicare, unless (1) you're getting it now and (2) you're reasonably close to death.  For everyone else what you have been promised and what you're going to get are very different, and there is exactly nothing you can do about it.

There is also no "gradual" way to deal with it.

Discussion below (registration required to post)
 

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User Info Oh, About Those Unfunded Liabilities in forum [Market-Ticker]
Goldmanssack
Posts: 1081
Incept: 2009-07-08
Gold
There is no pain, you are receding
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We're so ****ed

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"But like every one of the superstates that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace" - The Obsolete Man, Twilight Zone
Randy123
Posts: 5789
Incept: 2008-09-24
Green
Earth
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No we aren't. The old and infirm are. AS they always have been.

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China is the Enemy. Wake Up.

New Normal. Same As The Old Awful.
Dashingdwl
Posts: 9764
Incept: 2007-06-26
Gold
los angeles
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Math is hard.

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When you are hard and disciplined, you can be principled. People fear you because they have no leverage against you. It's the truest form of Liberty.
Trades50
Posts: 4218
Incept: 2007-10-30
Silver
Land of Tax and Spend
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Go ahead and tell seniors and they get real mad. They say they paid into it, they deserve it and tell you your wrong. Tell public union union workers and they point to the state constitution, they may get violent if you push it.

So it goes on until the money cannot be paid out anymore.

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When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
Jal
Posts: 513
Incept: 2009-03-25

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Quote:
You're not going to get Medicare, unless (1) you're getting it now and (2) you're reasonably close to death.


What makes you think that #2 won't be artificially enacted to solve all those problems?

Its been done in the past, for all kinds of reasons.
Bluebird
Posts: 1381
Incept: 2008-05-02
Silver
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What if a person is reasonably close to Medicare age (63.5 yrs)? Assume that the economy goes Boom before reaching 65 so won't get Medicare?
Genesis
Posts: 130799
Incept: 2007-06-26
Admin A True American Patriot!
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You're still ****ed Blue, because you have to "Get it" until your age of death. Oh you'll get it for a few years, but the promise made?

Not a snowball's chance in hell.

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I don't care if it makes sense -- only if it makes money. -- Me
Bank (n): See scam, fraud and theft. Eat a bankster -- they're low-carb.
What part of "shall not be infringed" was unclear?
Bearshort
Posts: 4489
Incept: 2007-09-13
Green
NYC
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States too, as you all know...new numbers from PA today: Harrisburg, Pa. (AP) -- Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett's
budget office indicated Monday that the governor may attempt to
reduce the pensions of current public employees, a politically
volatile and legally questionable solution to what has become a
$41 billion unfunded liability.
Case law interpreting the state constitution has prevented
curtailing pension benefits for current or retired state
employees and teachers, but the new report states, without
elaboration, that the state can change components of current
employees' prospective benefits "to conform with prior court
determinations regarding deferred compensation."

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"How long to the point of know return?"
Enemies of the State: Bernanke, Geithner, Frank, Dodd, Greenspan, Paulson.

Andysvw
Posts: 1762
Incept: 2010-06-26
Green
Tujunga Ca
Online
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Psychopaths are predictable. A third party could count on them acting in a self serving fashion every time.

Just a thought to chew on.
Trades50
Posts: 4218
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Silver
Land of Tax and Spend
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Quote:
Case law interpreting the state constitution has prevented
curtailing pension benefits for current or retired state
employees and teachers, but the new report states, without
elaboration, that the state can change components of current
employees' prospective benefits "to conform with prior court
determinations regarding deferred compensation."


The judges in states like CA and IL
were elected by the public unions and the FSA.
They are sympathetic to the public unions and
will twist everything to fit the union's cause.

You'll have to oust these ultra-liberal judges first.

I'm waiting for a request from Quinn to Obama for a state bailout. Their already talking about it.

In this environment, be fiscally responsible and be the chump. If your reckless and irresponsible the Fed or the government bails you out.



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When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson

Marvinmartian
Posts: 754
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Green
Pasadena, CA
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Only the scale makes circumstance different from the way it was 100 years ago. Fantastic productivity increases have hidden the theft until now. The real tragedy is that productivity and participation are declining.

A few quotes from Mencken(September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) at:
http://mises.org/daily/1018

"All government is, in its essence, organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man."

"Every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods."

"The storm center of lawlessness in every American State is the State Capitol. It is there that the worst crimes are committed; it is there that lawbreaking attains to the estate and dignity of a learned profession; it is there that contempt for the laws is engendered, fostered, and spread broadcast."

"Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency."

"A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker."
Medicdan
Posts: 8029
Incept: 2010-02-11
Green
Scottsdale, AZ
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I have been harping on this for years. I don't think the $86.8 trillion is correct though. Unless were only talking health benefits. In fact I believe Medicare alone is nearly 80 trillion. Medicare Part D (recalling from memory) is nearly 20 trillion.

Our unfunded liabilities is more like 120 Trillion dollars.


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Arizona & desert gardening
http://azediblegarden.com/
Ladyliberty
Posts: 100
Incept: 2012-05-08

Wisconsin
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Crony Capitalist Uncle Warren has the solution ROFLMAO read the comments here

http://teapartyeconomist.com/2012/11/27/....
Jubber
Posts: 14174
Incept: 2007-07-05
Gold
UK
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Clock says over $121 Trillion

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

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“The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.” Thatcher
Natew
Posts: 66
Incept: 2009-12-16

IN
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You are all so racist.

Math is racist.

Now excuse me while I figure out how to move to mars...
Rickyd
Posts: 585
Incept: 2009-07-07
Gold
Ontario, Canada
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It would be interesting to see these figures from 5, 10, 15 etc etc years ago to see how this has mushroomed.

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"We have a crisis of values that is extremely deep"
Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University
Acebarefoot
Posts: 47
Incept: 2009-05-20
Gold
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Rick...that is easy


There is a button on the upper right of that debt clock called "Debt Clock Time Machine"

Click on it and choose what year you want to see from 2000 till now.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html
Risingcream
Posts: 4407
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Green
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I could see this collapsing the country before any attempt to fix it.

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Civilization...ancient and wicked. --Subotai

“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success”
Rickyd
Posts: 585
Incept: 2009-07-07
Gold
Ontario, Canada
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Thanks Acebarefoot...I was speaking more about the Unfunded Liabilities piece.

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"We have a crisis of values that is extremely deep"
Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University
Rickyd
Posts: 585
Incept: 2009-07-07
Gold
Ontario, Canada
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Ahhh..sorry Acebarefoot..I see Unfunded Liabiliities at the bottom.

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"We have a crisis of values that is extremely deep"
Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University
Captainkidd
Posts: 594
Incept: 2010-05-25
Silver
Pasadena, Texas
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Quote:
Go ahead and tell seniors and they get real mad. They say they paid into it, they deserve it and tell you your wrong. Tell public union union workers and they point to the state constitution, they may get violent if you push it.

So it goes on until the money cannot be paid out anymore.


Right there is the problem. I've preached and preached and preached to friends, family, and others that there is just no such thing as a skittle ****ting unicorn.

But you cannot convince anyone that it is the truth while they are eating skittles.

Once the skittles stop (Who could have possibly seen it coming?????), though, things will take on a radically different hue for all of those who depend on the next shipment of skittles to get through the day.

Quote:
We're so ****ed


Yep, that about says it.

*****************************


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A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a thousand men with guns. --Mario Puzo

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. -- Henry Ford
Duc888
Posts: 7368
Incept: 2008-11-06
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CT, the UNconstitution State
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Quote:
more than triple the existing amount of tax collected


And that's what will happen. Not that it makes sense, or will even work, but you can count on that happening. Bohner is already slipping on the knee pads.

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...burp
Analog
Posts: 543
Incept: 2010-12-29
Gold
arkansas ozarks
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As a senior on medicare, i do get mad about this. The source of my ire is not childish resentment over a "broken promise", unrealistic promises are just lies.

I see medicare as an insurance industry entitlement - they collect big premiums all your healthy years then when you get geriatric and feeble and might actually reverse the cash flow, Uncle Sam takes over .

Bureaucracy expands to occupy the available money. Insurance industry fomented symbiotic paperwork empires within both itself and medical provider sides of the fence. In my view that's why cost is so outrageous. Atop that there's the tort parasites - and insurance industry sells a product for that too.

So what i do have is a childish resentment over too many parasites living off the labors of the industrious.

Let them eat insurance paperwork.

a.

Flappingeagle
Posts: 1229
Incept: 2011-04-14

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Quote:
The actual liabilities of the federal government—including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees' future retirement benefits—already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP.


Isn't this line from your quote one of those 'blow one by them' type of assertations? Doesn't the $86.8 trillion come from many years of liabilities all summed together? If so, then why is it divided my one year's worth of GDP? If I am understanding what that sentence is saying, it is like apples divided by oranges.

Not to distract from the fact that we are in a world of trouble though...

Flap

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Here are my predictions for everyone to see:
S&P 500 at 320, DOW at 2200, Gold $300/oz, and Corn $2/bu.
"You can't build a house of cards on a shaking table." - Tony Johns
The January 2015 AMZN put at $130 (cost $4.25) will be a winner.
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