Some happy thoughts for your solstice celebration

Found on drmss.com:

The US is insolvent. There is simply no way for our national bills to be paid under current levels of taxation and promised benefits. Our combined federal deficits now total more than 400% of GDP.

How's this as some added year-end education:

Of course, it is impossible to print our way out of this particular pickle because printing money is inflationary and therefore a ‘hidden tax’ on everyone. Consider, what’s the difference between having half of your money directly taken (taxed) by the government and having half of its value disappear due to inflation? Nothing. Except that the former is political suicide while the latter is conveniently never discussed by the US financial mainstream press (for some reason) and therefore goes undetected by a majority of people as the thoroughly predictable outcome of deficit spending. All printing can realistically accomplish is the preservation of some DC jobs and the decimation of the middle and lower classes.

(Emphasis mine.)

Or this glowingly positive gem:

And how about the fact that boomers begin retiring in 2008…that always seemed to be waaaay out in the future. However, beginning January 1st we can start referring to 2008 as ‘next year’ instead of ‘some point in the future too distant to get concerned about now’. Our economic problems need to be classified as growing, imminent, and unsustainable.

And let me clarify something. The $53 trillion shortfall is expressed as a ‘net present value’. That means that in order to make the shortfall disappear we’d have to have that amount of cash in the bank – today - earning interest (the GAO uses 5.7% & 5.8% as the assumed long-term rate of return). I’ll say it again - $53 trillion, in the bank, today. Heck, I don’t even know how much a trillion is let alone fifty-three of ‘em.

And next year we’d have to put even more into this mythical interest bearing account simply because we didn’t collect any interest on money we didn’t put in the bank account this year. For the record, 5.7% on $53 trillion is a bit more than $3 trillion dollars so you can see how the math is working against us here. This means the deficit will swell by at least another $3 trillion plus whatever other shortfalls the government can rack up in the meantime. So call it another $4 trillion as an early guess for next year.

Given how studiously our nation is avoiding this topic both in the major media outlets and during our last election cycle, I sometimes feel as if I live in a small mountain town that has decided to ignore an avalanche that has already let loose above in favor of holding the annual kindergarten ski sale.

So when you hear that the government has stopped publishing the M3 number and don't immediately ask what that is and why it's bad, you are also ignoring the impending avalanche.

I was asked today by a friend whether I had any solutions to the problems I point out. I certainly don't have a global solution because we're all tiny pebbles riding in the back of a 4000lbs. pickup. But I know enough to jump off the truck when it's about to tumble into the gorge.

Am I all doom and gloom?

Of course not. Happy solstice. :-D