Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices Message Board

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next

To: Road Walker who wrote (211814)	11/16/2004 5:39:17 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) of 1573624

If Medicare Part B is an “unfunded liability,” so is the Pentagon and most of government: The $18 trillion figure is a distorted figure that the Bush White House has been pushing for some time. It includes as an “unfunded liability” the projected costs over the next 75 years in the Medicare physicians’ insurance program (Medicare Part B). It is an unfunded liability not because of what pool the money comes from (general revenue or some dedicated revenue stream) but because it is a promise that has been made to spend enormous amounts of resources in the future. Military spending (to show another example) is current spending. If we spend hundreds of millions on a warship that hundreds of millions is all spent within a few years. If we spend billions fighting in Iraq, those billions are gone. In both cases the amount spent gets reflected in the budget. Entitlement programs are taking in money now in exchange for the promise to give back money later. The money that we will spend on social security and medicate (including part B) in the future is as real as the money we spend today on a cruiser but it isn't accounted for in the governments budget. Social Security officially has a surplus, but as long as you can get people to believe you (or you can force them to participate) its easy to have a "surplus" by taking in money now in exchange for handing back a lot more later. Imagine if AMD took billions to build Fab36 from someone with the promise that they would give back a larger amount of money later. Imagine also that the money currently coming in is more than is being spent in the current year on Fab construction. Now imagine that AMD refused to consider this money a debt and in fact called the difference between current spending and the money from this source a "surplus" or profit. How do you think investors and regulators would respond? Tim

Report TOU Violation

Share This Post

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next