Comments on: Malice in Plunderland

By: Martin Brock

Martin Brock — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:57:16 +0000

Renew the tree of freedom with the blood of patriots?

If you have a shot, take it.

By: Russ Nelson

Russ Nelson — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:44:38 +0000

So what's to be done about i? Renew the tree of freedom with the blood of patriots?

By: Martin Brock

Martin Brock — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:45:42 +0000

That figure ignores growth, but the cost of Social Security and other pension benefits soon rises rapidly, and that's a big problem, and we're denying the problem incredibly. I won't dispute that. The problem was challenging before the incredible deficits and other entitlement expansions of the last eight years. The Bush administration is easily the worst of my lifetime.

By: Crusader

Crusader — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:30:38 +0000

Martin:

If that $50 trillion is over 50 years, then each household will have to fork over 8-9K additional.

By: Martin Brock

Martin Brock — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:43:34 +0000

... with another $440,000 per household for future obligations.

This $440,000 figure simply divides the future obligation by the number of households without specifying the period over which the obligation is due. Is it all due next year, uniformly over the next fifty years, all at the end of fifty years? Uniformly over a million years? Without this specification, the figure is meaningless.

Also, adding the value to the current burden per household is also meaningless, because the current burden includes the current burden already includes Social Security and the other programs.