Why the U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoff - Bloomberg.com

The US is bankrupt and there is very little that we can do about it. just consider this concept with these back of the envelope calculations.....

There are 78 million baby boomers. They will, over the next 25 or so years, become eligible for Social Security. Obviously, not all of them will be alive in 25 years, but lets assume that in 25 years, 50 million of them will still be alive. On average, in today's dollars, they will collect $2,000 a month in benefits which is $24,000 a year in income.So, they will collect....

50,000,000 times $24,000 equals 1,200,000,000 per year

With US GDP at around $15 trillion, this represents 8% of GDP. Or more than half of the total taxes collected by the Federal government. When you strip in Medicare obligations and other obligations, it will be impossible to collect enough taxes to meet these obligations.

People my age and younger do not hold the fantasy notion that the Federal government of the US will keep their promises to us despite collecting taxes for just these promises over a period of a lifetime.

I do not look forward to the anger as people get screwed but we can be assured that things will change dramatically for Americans. If we do it ourselves, then things will tend towards improvement. If we rely upon the opiate of Washington promises, it will tend towards catastrophe.

U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoff - Bloomberg.com