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[quote=Anonymous]maybe we can pause a beat to get serious?

Jack Mintz is a respected Canadian economist.  Here's a link and some excerpts
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/08/21/u-s-worse-than-europe/

[i]...the U.S. is in far more trouble than Europe.
 
This was brought home by calculations presented by Larry Kotlikoff of Boston University at a lecture held at the International Institute of Public Finance, the biggest gathering of public-finance experts in the world. Greece may be bankrupt, but the U.S. looks like a giant Ponzi scheme.

Kotlikoff’s calculations show that U.S. unfunded liabilities total US$222-trillion, the highest of all major OECD countries (12% of the time value of U.S. GDP) once accounting for monetary public debt, Social Security deficits and public-health-care unfunded liabilities

The U.S. reflects the most extreme case of intergenerational inequality. Generation after generation has participated in a Ponzi game, leaving younger taxpayers to pick up the tab for money effectively borrowed by older generations to spend on unfunded benefits. Kotlikoff labelled such practices as “child fiscal abuse,” a rather strong term but not far from the truth.

The United States should be ashamed. While many experts criticize the Europeans for not pulling together politically, U.S. indebtedness is far greater and more dangerous to the world economy.[/i]

Very simply, current policies are totally screwing our kids.  The data is there.  Although it's really fun to blame one party or the other, or to get nasty about earrings or speeches or birth certificates or tax returns, I share the author's puzzlement over our inability to grapple with this intelligently.  I don't blame the pols..they do what we ask.  Clearly we're asking them to duck and they continue to do so and win elections.

The first poster to say "oh yeah?  well (fill in your party) is trying but the other guys won't" gets sent home until he/she can learn to play nice.
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