Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

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.

Strategies & Market Trends : The coming US dollar crisis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Real Man who wrote (4372)	2/18/2008 4:49:07 PM
From: Larry S.	Respond to of 71456

First, I suggest you go to fms.treas.gov and look at the 2007 fiscal year end Monthly Treaury Statement. You will find in Table 2 that the Off-budget (largely SS) surplus revenues were 181 billion, while the outlays were 453 billion. The latest projection for fiscal 2008 are 210 billion and 467 billion, respectively. It will be quite a few years before enough BBs retire to result in Benefits being greater than revenues. If you go further and check the Trustees report on the SS website, you will see that they show revenues covering benefits through about 2015. Redemptions start later since interest on the treauries in the TF is significant. The feature that is special it that their value isn't impacted by market conditions, it is fixed. If you dig through the MTSs, you will find that the treasuries are being redeemed and issued regularly. GAAP makes sense where you know the number of retirees and all you have to guess at is how long they will live and the benefits are paid out of a fund. The purpose is to assure that an adequate number dollars are put in the pension fund to cover benefits. SS is a different animal. We may adjust benefits for SS to ease burden of benefits in the future and we should increase the retirement age but I doubt that we are going to eliminate the program. A large fraction of the surplus contributions that built the TF balance are from BBs and I don't think we elect people who would try to steal it. Larry