Jeho počty nie sú príliš zložité. Ide iba o to, čo všetko počítate do svojho dlhu:
"We have all these unofficial debts that are massive compared to the official debt," Kotlikoff tells David Greene, guest host of weekends on All Things Considered. "We're focused just on the official debt, so we're trying to balance the wrong books."
Kotlikoff explains that America's "unofficial" payment obligations - like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits - jack up the debt figure substantially.
"If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, including defense expenditures, and you subtract all the taxes that we expect to collect, the difference is $211 trillion. That's the fiscal gap," he says. "That's our true indebtedness."
We don't hear more about this enormous number, Kotlikoff says, because politicians have chosen their language carefully to keep most of the problem off the books."
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To je viac ako 1560 % HDP. To má byť vtipné?
Ale našťastie tu máme ekonómov, ako je Paul Kruman, podľa ktorého by nás zachránila invázia mimozemšťanov (tým "zachránila" rozumej zvýšila HDP), ako tvrdí v rozhovore s prof. Kennethom Rogoffom a prof. Fareedom Zakariom:
h/t: David Cohen
Nasledujúce video v krátkosti a výstižne ukazuje, aká je finančná situácia USA (a zvyšku "rozvinutého" sveta):
h/t: Perfect Storm Cometh prostrednícvom prof. Guy McPhersona