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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (1854)	8/20/2008 9:21:31 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 86356

Um, bonds are in essence IOUs. Yep.. and when there's a SS surplus, it increases the national debt. So all that BS that was spewed back in the '90s about "lock boxes" etc was just that.. BS.. IOW, any SS surplus is nothing less than a "hidden tax" on the economy and furthers the argument that the government has more of a right to your money than you do. And in times of excessive surpluses in the SSTF, it forces the government to issue additional debt to cover it (since those funds can't be invested in anything but government debt). And then, of course, the politicians are "forced" to spend it, right? Hawk

To: Road Walker who wrote (1854)	8/20/2008 4:37:52 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

Um, bonds are in essence IOUs. Most bonds are between two parties that have a contractual obligation due to the bond purchase. The SS bonds are more of an accounting fiction. If the Treasury didn't pay them there would be no possible collection on them and no default. And most importantly they are IOUs from the government to itself. There is no net debt or fund, since they exactly cancel each other out. Since the government is on both sides of the "debt" it can arbitrarily decide that the fund contains $0 or $9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999, and their is not net difference to the solvency or balance sheet of the federal government.