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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (5773)	8/22/1998 6:05:00 PM
From: Joseph G.	Respond to of 9980

Mike, the noise was that federal budget including social security contributions is showing surplus for the time being (couple of months already). [SS fund gets Treasury paper for SS contributions minus SS payouts, which is positive now, but is expected to turn negative within ~10 years as number of retirees grows. ] However, the actual Federal Gov. budget [not including SS fund accumulation] is still in deficit. Total treasury paper (public debt) outstanding thus still grows, but politicos made lots of noise that IF SS fund is included in the budget + SS fund, the whole thing shows a little surplus on current basis. That is, if one were to neglect SS obligations, then Federal budget is balanced. An example [not very appropriate] for a private individual would be: you contribute to a pension plan, but also spend more than you have left on current life by borrowing. If you were to count everything together, you could say you're net saver if your plan contributions + earnings in 1998, say $10k minus, debt accumulated in 1998, say $9k, was positive, say +$1k. However, you are still accumulating debt that you will have to repay from your retirement income. Hope this helps. -g-