Boston U. Econ. Prof. calculates $202 Trillion US Fiscal Gap

[blahblahblah]

Clearly social security and medicare must be abolished.

Of course SSDI and MDCR payroll contributions will need to continue in order to fund government operations. Perhaps the acronyms can be re-assigned:

SSDI – Slave Servitude Debt Interest
MDCR – Mass Debt Community Repayment

[Eugene]

Since no one really knows what’s going to happen to fertility, life expectancy, and particularly health core costs 50 years from now, all these calculations come with extremely wide error bars, making them essentially meaningless. For all we know, scientists might find an effective cure for cancer in a few decades now, single-handedly raising the life expectancy to 95 and “liabilities” to $1 quadrillion. Conversely, maybe we’ll all be treated by cheap robot doctors and our fertility rate will get back to 3 kids/woman thanks to all the Latino immigrants, and, in that case, there may be no liability at all.

[Eugene]

Since no one really knows what’s going to happen to fertility, life expectancy, and particularly health core costs 50 years from now, all these calculations come with extremely wide error bars, making them essentially meaningless. For all we know, scientists might find an effective cure for cancer in a few decades now, single-handedly raising the life expectancy to 95 and “liabilities” to $1 quadrillion. Conversely, maybe we’ll all be treated by cheap robot doctors and our fertility rate will get back to 3 kids/woman thanks to all the Latino immigrants, and, in that case, there may be no liability at all.

[Eugene]

Since no one really knows what’s going to happen to fertility, life expectancy, and particularly health core costs 50 years from now, all these calculations come with extremely wide error bars, making them essentially meaningless. For all we know, scientists might find an effective cure for cancer in a few decades now, single-handedly raising the life expectancy to 95 and “liabilities” to $1 quadrillion. Conversely, maybe we’ll all be treated by cheap robot doctors and our fertility rate will get back to 3 kids/woman thanks to all the Latino immigrants, and, in that case, there may be no liability at all.

[Eugene]

Since no one really knows what’s going to happen to fertility, life expectancy, and particularly health core costs 50 years from now, all these calculations come with extremely wide error bars, making them essentially meaningless. For all we know, scientists might find an effective cure for cancer in a few decades now, single-handedly raising the life expectancy to 95 and “liabilities” to $1 quadrillion. Conversely, maybe we’ll all be treated by cheap robot doctors and our fertility rate will get back to 3 kids/woman thanks to all the Latino immigrants, and, in that case, there may be no liability at all.

[Eugene]

Since no one really knows what’s going to happen to fertility, life expectancy, and particularly health core costs 50 years from now, all these calculations come with extremely wide error bars, making them essentially meaningless. For all we know, scientists might find an effective cure for cancer in a few decades now, single-handedly raising the life expectancy to 95 and “liabilities” to $1 quadrillion. Conversely, maybe we’ll all be treated by cheap robot doctors and our fertility rate will get back to 3 kids/woman thanks to all the Latino immigrants, and, in that case, there may be no liability at all.

[CA renter]

[quote=weberlin]Professor Kotlikoff actually replied to my request for data. I’ve posted the spreadsheet on Google

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ag6gNtHjg5m8dEVOQUxZS25oTmpNcVdTbHlOSmZmX0E&output=html

According to the professor, the calculations are on the ‘Economic Variables’ tab; the $202 Trillion figure is in column ‘Fiscal Gap at 3%’ for the 2010 calendar year.[/quote]

That was very cool of him to get back to you. Thanks for asking for the data, and for sharing it with us.

It looks like he might be a bit optimistic as far as wage growth and unemployment are concerned. Might his numbers be a bit optimistic with respect to the fiscal gap, too? Yikes!

[CA renter]

[quote=weberlin]Professor Kotlikoff actually replied to my request for data. I’ve posted the spreadsheet on Google

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ag6gNtHjg5m8dEVOQUxZS25oTmpNcVdTbHlOSmZmX0E&output=html

According to the professor, the calculations are on the ‘Economic Variables’ tab; the $202 Trillion figure is in column ‘Fiscal Gap at 3%’ for the 2010 calendar year.[/quote]

That was very cool of him to get back to you. Thanks for asking for the data, and for sharing it with us.

It looks like he might be a bit optimistic as far as wage growth and unemployment are concerned. Might his numbers be a bit optimistic with respect to the fiscal gap, too? Yikes!

[CA renter]

[quote=weberlin]Professor Kotlikoff actually replied to my request for data. I’ve posted the spreadsheet on Google

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ag6gNtHjg5m8dEVOQUxZS25oTmpNcVdTbHlOSmZmX0E&output=html

According to the professor, the calculations are on the ‘Economic Variables’ tab; the $202 Trillion figure is in column ‘Fiscal Gap at 3%’ for the 2010 calendar year.[/quote]

That was very cool of him to get back to you. Thanks for asking for the data, and for sharing it with us.

It looks like he might be a bit optimistic as far as wage growth and unemployment are concerned. Might his numbers be a bit optimistic with respect to the fiscal gap, too? Yikes!

[CA renter]

[quote=weberlin]Professor Kotlikoff actually replied to my request for data. I’ve posted the spreadsheet on Google

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ag6gNtHjg5m8dEVOQUxZS25oTmpNcVdTbHlOSmZmX0E&output=html

According to the professor, the calculations are on the ‘Economic Variables’ tab; the $202 Trillion figure is in column ‘Fiscal Gap at 3%’ for the 2010 calendar year.[/quote]

That was very cool of him to get back to you. Thanks for asking for the data, and for sharing it with us.

It looks like he might be a bit optimistic as far as wage growth and unemployment are concerned. Might his numbers be a bit optimistic with respect to the fiscal gap, too? Yikes!

[CA renter]

[quote=weberlin]Professor Kotlikoff actually replied to my request for data. I’ve posted the spreadsheet on Google

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ag6gNtHjg5m8dEVOQUxZS25oTmpNcVdTbHlOSmZmX0E&output=html

According to the professor, the calculations are on the ‘Economic Variables’ tab; the $202 Trillion figure is in column ‘Fiscal Gap at 3%’ for the 2010 calendar year.[/quote]

That was very cool of him to get back to you. Thanks for asking for the data, and for sharing it with us.

It looks like he might be a bit optimistic as far as wage growth and unemployment are concerned. Might his numbers be a bit optimistic with respect to the fiscal gap, too? Yikes!

[GH]

A lot of things can change over 75 years …

That said, the notion of retirement funds, Social Security etc, must be changed from the unknown quantity of x dollars a month until you die to “your account currently contains x dollars – use it wisely in case you live too long”

All government workers and social security recipients should have their retirements converted to a fixed balance, based on their total contributions. You know like every one else?

[GH]

A lot of things can change over 75 years …

That said, the notion of retirement funds, Social Security etc, must be changed from the unknown quantity of x dollars a month until you die to “your account currently contains x dollars – use it wisely in case you live too long”

All government workers and social security recipients should have their retirements converted to a fixed balance, based on their total contributions. You know like every one else?

[GH]

A lot of things can change over 75 years …

That said, the notion of retirement funds, Social Security etc, must be changed from the unknown quantity of x dollars a month until you die to “your account currently contains x dollars – use it wisely in case you live too long”

All government workers and social security recipients should have their retirements converted to a fixed balance, based on their total contributions. You know like every one else?

[GH]

A lot of things can change over 75 years …

That said, the notion of retirement funds, Social Security etc, must be changed from the unknown quantity of x dollars a month until you die to “your account currently contains x dollars – use it wisely in case you live too long”

All government workers and social security recipients should have their retirements converted to a fixed balance, based on their total contributions. You know like every one else?

[Author]

Posts