Ponzi schemes: Social Security & Medicare due for total collapse ...

[billstew]

Ponzi schemes: Social Security & Medicare due for total collapse ... no matter how this global finance system crisis plays itself out.

Odds and sods

• Alaska, Hawaii & Guam don't even pay into Social Security, and ditto for Medicare.
• Social Security Disability actually forces the more able out of the workforce permanently -- so their ability to pay any kind of real taxes goes to nil.
• Medicare has been sucked on the US medical community for decades in ways that make this tiny fragment of socialized medicine in the US cost way more than the total cost of running the NHS (in total overall running costs not in direct GAAP costs).
• Most of the US productive capacity has been offshored, so the US lacks a way to export its way out of this manufactured crisis. Except for Agricultural productive capacity, it is not so easy to bring this productive capacity back.
• The relative lack of health care for children in the US will probably indirectly contribute to the implosion of social Security and Medicare -- but it will not be mathematically obvious until after the fact. This has been a 40 to 50 year problem that the US has never really fixed...
• The reduction of the ratio of workers to retirees is actually not part of the real world structural problems of Social Security and Medicare -- but it is a universal 'fly in the ointment' of all national retirement schemes that fail to adapt to it correctly.

[billstew]

Reason for the insolvency of these schemes: ~700k of debt per person in the US

Reason for the insolvency of these schemes: ~700k of debt per person in the US

Here are some spreadsheet numbers that allude to the nature of the problem...

	Known Data		Notes & Sources
	Total US Population	306,001,001	Millions of people via US Census Clock
guesstimate	Total US Working Population	253,980,831	US residents with tax generating income
guesstimate	Total US Tax Paying Population	208,264,281	US residents “taxes > govt resources used”
guesstimate	Removal Working Population from % pop	17.00%	Remove children and elderly poor
guesstimate	Removal non-Tax Paying Pop from % Working Pop	18.00%	Remove nominal tax payers
estimate	Governmental Interest Rate Average	4.55%	Guesstimate
estimate	Commercial Interest Rate Average (non CC)	8.50%	Guesstimate excluding Credit Cards
estimate	Consumer Interest Rate Average, housing	7.50%	Guesstimate
estimate	Consumer Interest Rate Average, non housing	15.55%	Guesstimate, mainly for credit cards
estimate	Federal Government Debt	$53,010,100,100,100	Constant dollars (2009)
estimate	State Government Debt	$5,010,100,100,010	Constant dollars (2009)
estimate	Local Govt Debt (county, city, water districts, etc)	$3,501,000,100,011	Constant dollars (2009)
estimate	Consumer Housing Debt	$30,000,100,100,100	Constant dollars (2009)
estimate	Consumer Credit Card Debt, Car Loan Debt etc...	$20,000,100,100,101	Constant dollars (2009)
estimate	Commercial Sector Debt	$10,000,000,100,011	Constant dollars (2009)
subtotals	Interest Incurred Debt (commercial, 5 years)	$4,250,000,042,505	Constant dollars (2009)
subtotals	Interest Incurred Debt (consumer, 7 years)	$37,520,161,511,513	Constant dollars (2009)
subtotals	Interest Incurred Debt (governmental, 20 years)	$55,984,292,273,110	Constant dollars (2009)
	Debt Total	$219,275,854,427,460	Constant dollars (2009)
	Implied outcomes
subtotals	Debt per person	$716,585	What is owed per person
subtotals	Debt per working person	$863,356	What is owed per working person
subtotals	Debt per (working) tax paying person	$1,052,873	What is owed per tax paying person
subtotals	Debt per {Household}	$2,116,873	Total owed per household (2.28 per House)