U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It
Laurence Kotlikoff
"Let’s get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills. Last month, the International Monetary Fund released its annual review of U.S. economic policy.
"..the IMF has effectively pronounced the U.S. bankrupt. Section 6 of the July 2010 Selected Issues Paper says: “The U.S. fiscal gap associated with today’s federal fiscal policy is huge for plausible discount rates.” It adds that “closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP.”
Double Our Taxes
To put 14 percent of gross domestic product in perspective, current federal revenue totals 14.9 percent of GDP. So the IMF is saying that closing the U.S. fiscal gap, from the revenue side, requires, roughly speaking, an immediate and permanent doubling of our personal-income, corporate and federal taxes as well as the payroll levy set down in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act.
Worse Than Greece
Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece."
14 August 2010
Sälj USA!
Nyliberal Utopi
8/14/2010
Etiketter: alan greenspan, ayn rand, blackwater, bush, cheney, Halliburton, KBR, wall street
16 November 2007
Out of Control
'Many in the US military think Bush and Cheney are out of control' Gabriel Kolko interviewed by John Goetz
"Many in the US military think Bush and Cheney are out of control. They are rebelling against Bush and Cheney. Washington Post reporter Dana Priest recently said in an interview that she believed the US military would revolt and refuse to fly missions against Iran if the White House issued such orders. CENTCOM [US Central Command, the military grouping whose responsibilities include the Middle East] commander Admiral William Fallon reportedly thwarted Cheney's wish to sent a third additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. One paper wrote that he "vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM."
Sacrifice the Fifth Fleet
Nyliberal Utopi
11/16/2007