"That isn't how it is done."
I didn't say it was, Tide. Neo was suggesting a HYPOTHETICAL 'reason' for the necessity of government deficit borrowing. (His example: weather in Florida.)
As to SS, yes of course I know there is no 'investment' of the proceeds. By law they purchase T bonds from the government (which, in our current situation of near-uncontrolled deficits, adds to the future obligations of the government) and they DISHONESTLY ignore that future obligation when they count the Social Security proceeds in the 'general unified budget' as REVENUE --- thus disguising the TRUE SIZE of the current and future deficits.
(They also use an arbitrary fiscal 'horizon' of 75 years which further artificially reduces the imbalances, whereas private enterprises use an 'infinite' horizon), but that's getting a little wonky.
The gist of the current situation: under this 'Enron-style' smoke-and-mirrors accounting that our government uses, the current deficit appears to be around 4.5% of GNP.
But, using generally accepted accounting principles (i.e., striping out the lies that are meant to hide the truth from the public), we are already at a deficit that is between 7 & 8% of GNP --- a post WW II high, and in raw magnitude, the largest deficit in the history of the world.
Consumption spending is over 5 times greater then national savings. The vultures approach. |
