Next Stop: Hyperinflation?
You often hear about the "$10 trillion national debt". This is a phenomenal sum, to be sure. But it doesn't even come close to what our REAL obligations are. The "national debt" conveniently leaves out the government's obligations for Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare and similar obligations. Add these figures to the mix and the U.S. is in the hole by about $70 TRILLION! And this is just the projected SHORTFALL. That puts a different spin on things, now doesn't it? These obligations are impossible to meet through taxation. And they will never be met by cuts in government spending (the entire government would have to be practically eliminated... which doesn't sound like a bad idea!) This leaves only two basic options... Either the U.S. government eventually defaults on foreign loans and obligations to retirees Or we hyper-inflate the currency and pay back previous obligations with fresh new money created from thin air Which route do you think politicians will choose? They have already chosen, and the process is now underway. Is your retirement protected? Are you prepared for the inflation that is inevitable?
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You say "Either the U.S. government eventually defaults on ... obligations to retirees. Or we hyper-inflate the currency..." Actually, if you think about it, it already has defaulted on its obligations to retirees so the only thing left (since it wouldn't dare -- at least at this point in time -- default on its foreign loans) is for hyper-inflation of the currency.
One of the causes of this over-whelming national debt is it's size -- how many average citizens can even imagine $1,000,000,000,000 let alone $10T or $70T? Another, as you stated, is convenient leaving out of ALL obligations.
There are, as usual, options other than the two you have reductively suggested, Zak.
I am convinced that real retirement for me as an American lies outside America.
No, it just reflects human behavior. I think that more freedom is preferable to a centrally planned economy or one that is manipulated by the state. I have never seen so much manipulation as in the past 12 months.
There is a huge difference, I think, between (a) an economy that has some checks, balances and reality in it and (b) a centrally planned economy.
Don't use an extreme centralized strawman to throw out any possible moderation of the 'free' market extremism.
Those who have been MILKING their manipulated version of 'free' market - which wierdly is far more 'free' for them than it is for the public - don't really want it to be free, do they? That is, they want to maintain its complex, secret, labyrinthian nature - to avoid responsibility and open participation.
Is it not true, Zak, that the economy (investment, credit, insurance, hedges, derivatives, mortgages, speculation, leveraging, etc) was WAY out of whack, extremely unhealthy and unsustainable, BEFORE the onslaught of ridiculously ineffective government intervention?
Go back six months, or a year, or two years, when govt manipulation was not so much a factor. Before bailouts and stimuli. Was the American economy healthy? Or was it riddled with a cancer of country-club-insider manipulation?