4.5 trillion, Bah!

When I first learned about the U.S. national debt and Bush's addition I was stunned (as I said here ). But of course this isn't the whole story. In fact this is merely a crumb compared to the fiscal gap. Most environmentalists argue that global warming, water pollution and increased affluence damage the planet and we will have to pay for it in the future in the form of; worse weather so worse crops, mandatory filtration of all water we use and health care costs from respiratory diseases caused by inhaling polluted air. Usually the economists blindly say, oh we'll invent something. But here is a problem for future generations that you can't get away from best described by economists Larry Kotlikoff :

"Well, right now, the amount of outstanding debt in the hands of the public is about 4 1/2 trillion. If you look at all the bills that the government has to pay from now off into the future and all the taxes it's going to be collecting, and you look at the difference, which we call the fiscal gap, that amounts to $51 trillion dollars. So the official number is 4 1/2 trillion. "

That's a ridiculous number! The only way out is a pandemic to kill off a lot of the retiring people (I certainly don't want that) because a lot of that is social security for the baby boomers. It just shows the ignorance of the electorate since if any politician where to take this on he'd be cauterized! Maybe it was a good thing the order closed to the U.S. to show us how dependent we are on U.S. foreign trade since when they devaluate their currency to help pay for some of this gap we will be hit as well.