Unsustainable Assumptions
Why I’m Not Worried About China
There are a lot of folks out there that seriously believe that China is not only a rising superpower, but that they will dethrone the U.S. as the global leader. While there are many home-grown reasons for why the U.S. may tumble from the throne, I’m pretty sure it won’t be because of China’s ascendance. [...]
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 [...]
Capital Gains Roller-Coaster and the Size of Government
New 2009 data from the IRS shows how foolish it is for government to tax capital gains income. As shown in the chart below, capital gains income for 2009 is now back to 2002 levels ($224 billion). Of course, thanks to the housing bubble, this is after a massive run-up in capital gains income to [...]
Disturbing Facts on Social Security
Below is an infographic from the Congressional Budget Office on the current and future state of Social Security . . . not a pretty picture.
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) [...]
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