VISUALIZE REVOLUTION!
TRUMPERNOMICS FOR THE
RICH…. and his parasitic family!
Report:
Trump Says He Doesn't Care About the National Debt Because the Crisis Will Hit
After He's Gone
"Trump's
alleged comment is maddening and disheartening,
but at least he's being straightforward about his indefensible
and self-serving neglect. I'll leave you with this reminder of the scope of the problem, not that anyone in power is going to do a damn thing about it."
but at least he's being straightforward about his indefensible
and self-serving neglect. I'll leave you with this reminder of the scope of the problem, not that anyone in power is going to do a damn thing about it."
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a 11 TRILLION
DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!
Barack Obama created more
debt for the middle class than any president in US
history, and also had
the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s
terms, 95% of the wealth created went to
the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
A man walks past the he National Debt Clock on 43rd Street in midtown New York City Feb. 15, 2019. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)
National Debt Isn’t $23 Trillion, It’s $122 Trillion, Group Says
WASHINGTON—America’s current national debt stands at roughly $23.3 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department’s “Debt to the Penny” website, which is so precise that visitors can pick a specific date in the recent past—say Jan. 1, 2000—and get the exact amount on that day: $5,776,091,314,225.33.
While based on those figures, the national debt has more than quadrupled in that time frame, it’s actually much worse than that, according to calculations by Bill Bergman.
“This calculation highlights some of the pitfalls and perils of false precision,” Bergman, the director of research for the Chicago-based nonprofit advocacy group Truth in Accounting (TIA), told The Epoch Times.
“The U.S. government does not include the unfunded obligations for Social Security and Medicare under current law. These massive negative positions are so high that Truth in Accounting believes the ‘true’ national debt runs north of $100 trillion.”
$122,309,089,510,200, to be exact.
Because future obligations aren’t included in current-year accounting, a government budget can technically be “balanced” when, in truth, it’s anything but.
That’s because those unfunded obligations under Social Security and Medicare are benefits the government has promised to pay future beneficiaries, but for which there currently exists no dedicated funding.
The yawning gap between the Treasury Department’s calculation of the national debt and TIA’s reflects how the federal government keeps its books.
“How does the U.S. government justify not counting these obligations as debts? The reasoning has been that the government controls the law, and can change it at any time,” Bergman said.
“We at TIA don’t believe sound accounting allows for this degree of discretion. As long as current law is current law, the government should record these debts, and behave accordingly.”
But that’s not all.
Bergman said that “a true national debt running almost five times as high as the reported debt may suggest deception is at work,” but federal accounting “also calls Social Security and Medicare ‘entitlement’ programs, and [for annual budgeting purposes] calls entitlement expenditures ‘mandatory’ spending.’”
In other words, officials can spend less now and save the difference, raise taxes now for future spending, or hope the economy keeps growing and generates added revenues and budget surpluses down the road.
Federal officials know these options well, and they even allude to them on the annual Social Security statement that future beneficiaries get in the mail: “Your estimated benefits are based on current law. Congress has made changes to the law in the past and can do so at any time.”
The annual trustees for Social Security and Medicare also issue annual reports that acknowledge the spiraling benefits and project the years when each system will be unable to pay promised benefits based on current assets if Congress continues to ignore the problem.
The problem of misleading accounting isn’t unique to the federal government; it’s widespread at the state and local levels as well, according to TIA President Sheila Weinberg.
“While governments’ consolidated or government-wide statements are prepared on an accrual basis, the general and other budgeted funds statements are prepared using the ‘modified accrual basis,’ which loosely resembles the cash basis. These two sets of books lead to misleading and contradictory financial information,” Weinberg recently told The Epoch Times.
Neither set of books includes the unfunded obligations.
“Of course, government officials often point to the financial data from the fund statements, which leave out long-term liabilities and all the expenses incurred, because these statements make their financial conditions and budgets look better,” she said.
Weinberg pointed to New York City under former Democratic presidential aspirant Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying: “For fiscal year 2018, New York City claimed a $4.6 billion surplus, but that was achieved by not including $4.9 billions of earned and incurred compensation costs related to retiree health care benefits.
“New York City used some of its $4.6 billion surplus for additional spending, even though its pension plans were unfunded by $51 billion and the city needs $106 billion to pay for retiree health care benefits that have already been earned. The city’s government-wide statements reported a $3.2 deficit for the year.”
The problem at the state and local levels is that officials rely on standards issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), a private entity established in 1984.
“The board is made up of mostly current or former government officials and others who may have a vested interest in the standards they set,” Weinberg said. “GASB is currently deliberating about changing the standard that requires these two sets of books, but is leaning toward maintaining the status quo.”
Contact Mark Tapscott at Mark.Tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly included a reference to the Financial Accounting Standards Board and a comment about it. The Epoch Times regrets the errors.
The United States at the Point of No Return
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/the_united_states_at_the_point_of_no_return.html#.VsOT8DBA5Nc.blogger
There
is an unquestioned disconnect between the vast majority of the American people
and the so-called elites or ruling class. Whenever I am in the company of
those that are members of this exclusive fraternity, and when the conversation
inevitably turns to the subject of the irascible mood of the electorate, I
offer what I consider to be a valid theory as to one of the primary reasons
why. That is: a plurality of the populace, myself included, firmly
believe the United States is approaching the point of no return to its founding
as a nation of individual freedom and opportunity, and that the 2016 election
is the most significant in 150 years insofar as determining the long term fate
of the country.
More
often than not these acquaintances react as if Chicken Little had just escaped
the asylum and was running amok claiming the sky is falling.
However, in an effort to be kind to the loon in their midst, I have been
told, as a figurative pat on the head, because of my personal background as
displaced war orphan from World War II that I am hypersensitive and what is
going on in America really isn’t as bad as I claim.
Not
as bad as I claim?
Not
since the presidential election of 1932 has the American electorate been so
mired in discontent. Despite the best efforts of the media to portray
this discontentment as limited to the Republican base, a variety of polls have
confirmed a vast majority of the populace shares this same sense of disgruntlement.
Innumerable polls taken over the past seven years are consistent in showing
nearly 7 in 10 Americans believing the nation is headed in the wrong
direction.
Further,
nearly 60% think that the next generation will be worse off than they are. And
few have any faith that the economic outlook for the country will improve in
the near or distant future.
Beginning
in the late 1980’s, the cognoscenti declared that expansive government
spending, globalization and free trade, combined with a comprehensive and
overarching regulatory regime determined to root out so-called corruption and
inequality as well as save the planet from the over blown evils of global
warming, would be the course the nation should pursue. The result of this
foolhardy and myopic scheme:
1. In 1988 the national debt
of the United States stood at $2.6 Trillion, today it is over $19.0 Trillion--
an increase of 635% (and projected to reach $29.0 Trillion by 2026). On
the other hand the debt of all the nations on earth has grown by only 135% since 1988.
2.
Since November of 2008 the working age population has increased by
over 18 million. However, the number of those employed has increased just 5.5
million. Meanwhile those unemployed or no longer in the work force has
ballooned by 12.4 million to a staggering total of 102 million or 40.4% of the working age population.
3.
Another factor impacting on the economic health of the American
people is immigration. In 1988 there were 16 million immigrants
(including less than a million illegal aliens) living in the United
States. Today that number has skyrocketed to 42.4 million (including an
estimated 12 million illegal aliens). This enormous increase (165%) in
the immigrant population has not only put pressure on a stagnant job market but
it has also been a major factor in the decline of median income in the country.
4.
The upshot of all the above is that since 1988 the income of the
top 5% has risen 39.3% (adjusted for inflation) and the income of the bottom 50% has fallen by 1.9%.
5.
Since 2008 the Obama cabal has added
over 18,000 pages to the Code of Federal Regulations. It is estimated that
complying with federal regulations costs the economy nearly $2 Trillion per
year and is, along with taxes and innumerable mandates, one of the principle
reasons for the lack of new business start-ups and loss of jobs to other
countries.
One
of the primary hallmarks of the United States had been that of a classless
society wherein economic factors allowed the citizenry to take advantage of the
marketplace in order to move up or down based on their efforts and willingness
to work. However, this scenario is disappearing as the opportunities for
upward mobility cease to exist. In its place a class driven society,
similar to all other quasi-socialist nations past and present, is now becoming
inevitable as even the Bureau of Labor Statistics admits that the level of
Americans working and in the labor force will continue to decrease over the next 8
years.
Another
of the primary factors in the decline of the United States is that the nation’s
elites, rather than view education as the means for the people to attain
success in a competitive world, have recast it into a vehicle for their pet
theories and political views. Whether it is the promulgation of faux
self-esteem, the obsession with the so-called evils of capitalism and the
nation’s past, and the theoretical joys of socialism among other inane
curricula, the education establishment has assured that the American people are
rapidly becoming among the least well-educated populations in the world.
In
2013 American 15 year olds ranked 32nd among
industrialized countries in math, 20th in reading and 24th in
science. In 1988 this same age group ranked among the top 5-10 nations in
the world in these same categories. Further, recent polls have indicated that
as a byproduct of the radicalized education establishment, nearly 7 out of 10 between the ages of
18 and 29 would vote for an avowed socialist. Thus it is clear that the
future of the country is on very shaky ground.
As
for the issue of freedom: in a recent analysis it was determined that the
United States now ranks 12th among the nations of the world in
economic freedom (6thin 2008) but a dismal 31st in
personal freedom (17th in 2008). The authors of the study commented:
The
decline reflects the long-term drop in every category of economic freedom and
its rule of law indicators. The US performance is worrisome and shows that the
US can no longer claim to be the leading bastion of liberty in the world.
In addition to the expansion of the regulatory state and drop in economic
freedom, the war on terror, the war on drugs and the erosion of property rights
due to a greater use of eminent domain all likely contributed to the US
decline.
Using
the cudgel of the mainstream media, the entertainment complex and the education
establishment, the Left and its surrogate, the Democratic Party, have
successfully inculcated into a plurality of the American people a belief that
there are no moral absolutes and that the state can grant any rights that it so
chooses to whomever it chooses. Further, the nation’s founding documents
are arcane, racially insensitive, and unsuitable for today. Thus religious
liberty, property rights and freedom of speech are under aggressive
assault. The Judiciary is now almost under the complete control of these
same statists, and with the death of Justice Scalia the last line of defense,
the Supreme Court, is in peril.
The
vast majority of the American people sense that the future of the nation and
that of their progeny is in serious jeopardy. However, one of the most
troubling aspects of the current unease and angst among the general public is
what this portends: when anger and frustration evolve into deep seated passion,
reason is too often a casualty. As Thomas Sowell recently wrote:
Too
many nations, in desperate times, especially after the authorities have
discredited themselves and forfeited the trust of the people, have turned to
some new and charismatic leader, who ended up turning a dire situation into an
utter catastrophe,
This
has been true throughout history whether in England in the 1650’s, France in
the 1790’s, or Russia, Italy and Germany in the 20th century.
In
the current campaign for the next president, there are candidates attempting to
tap into the ire of the citizenry by either promising that a purer form of
socialism will magically solve the problems or by claiming that they, by sheer
force of their will and personality, will part the seas and save the
nation. Unfortunately, due to the ill-education of the populace as well
as their angst, far too many seeds of this demagoguery are falling on fertile
ground. The election of any of these candidates will only exacerbate and
make permanent the nations woes.
So
to my ruling class friends safely ensconced in Washington, New York and other
enclaves among the like-minded and wealthy, this nation is at the point of no
return to the country of freedom and opportunity that allowed you to be where
you are. The folks in fly-over country know it and so should you.
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