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Strategies & Market Trends : Waiting for the big Kahuna -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter V who wrote (90282)	9/10/2009 4:38:20 PM
From: Larry S.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 94695

No, it is not broke. I suggest that you look at the Monthly Treasury Statements. The latest is for July and it is found at fms.treas.gov. Page down to table 6 to see Trust Fund balances. It shows a SS Trust Fund Balance of 2.3 trillion and growing. The total balance for all TFs is essentially 4 trillion. Of course, there are months when securities in the SS TF are cashed in to supplement revenues to pay benefits. When a few more Baby Boomers retire, it will be required cash in securities regularly but interest paid on the balance will keep it growing for some time further. You will know when revenues fail to cover benefits because the Off-Budget number will become negative and start adding to the deficit. I expect the Unified Budget to be eliminated when it happens to prevent it from adding to the Deficit. It was created by Johnson to help hide the increasing Deficit due to VN and used in spades by Reagan (though I'm not sure that he understood) and Clinton to create the illusion of lower deficits. Yes, Medicare Part D is a real problem. The motivation of the Bush Administration for pushing it through has never been clear to me. I didn't want to believe it but it appears that, as many on the Left have said, it was intended to help big Pharma. It clearly is set up to maximize their profits. You can buy almost anything they produce in other countries for a fraction of what we pay. To make matters worse, they appear to own the FDA. Larry

To: Peter V who wrote (90282)	9/10/2009 6:00:16 PM
From: Larry S.	Respond to of 94695

Sorry, in my prior response, I missed one important bit concerning the potential for a SS revenue short fall and also the Unified budget situation. As part of the Unified Budget, they hide the interest paid on the SS TF (as well as for other TF) under Undistributed Receipts. The interest for July was 117,826 billion paid on the balance in the SS and Dis TFs. This adds to any revenue surplus. I also want to thank you for motivating me to check the latest Monthly Treasury Statement. This may not be the first, but the Off Budget contribution was a negative 265 million in July. This is the first time Ive notice that it has added to the deficit. This means that the demise of the Unified Budget isn't far off. The Y to date number for July was 148 billion. Our reps in WDC may not notice, but their guides in Wall Street will let them know that its time to kill the UB. Larry