Accounting Gimmickry
New Estimate Shows Public Pension Shortfall Ballooning to $4.4 Trillion
photo credit: emsphotonut41 Joshua Rauh just blogged on “Everything Finance” a new estimate of the current unfunded public pension liability for both state and local governments: Using June 2009 data, Robert Novy-Marx and I measured a $3.1 trillion gap in state and local pension systems, arising from $2.3 trillion in assets and $5.4 trillion in [...]
State Debt Loads are Soaring
We all know that Uncle Sam is drowning in red ink–if you need a humorous reminder check out Remy’s “Raise the Debt Ceiling.” Well, it turns out that states are not in much better shape. According to a new study by Harvard Economist Jeffrey Miron, for the Mercatus Center, states will reach dangerous debt levels [...]
The Real Federal Debt
photo credit: TimothyJ I’m so sick of this debt ceiling debate because it is all a ruse. The federal debt, as defined by the debt sold by the U.S. Treasury, is only a small fraction of all the obligations that the federal government owes. Thankfully, I just found this nifty debt clock (in the sidebar) [...]
Was Quantitative Easing A Plot to Save the Federal Budget?
I’ve never been satisfied with Ben Bernanke’s rationale for Quantitative Easing as a way to save the economy. Did he totally forget the 1970′s where economists had to invent a new term for recessionary inflation now known as stagflation. To me, Quantitative Easing is a recipe for stagflation. Drawing from my GMU/public choice roots, I’ve [...]
Moody’s Penalizes States with Unfunded Pension Liabilities
Here is a news items that you can file under: “what the heck took them so long?” According to the New York Times, Moody’s finally recognizes that unfunded pension liabilities are a threat to the financial well-being of states: Moody’s Investors Service has begun to recalculate the states’ debt burdens in a way that includes [...]
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