America's Financial Future

[T50_Omaha8]

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First of all do we know what interest rate he based the PV of future obligations on?

[/ QUOTE ] No. He doesn't say anything about that. Instead, he just throws up some shocking figures we're supposed to blindly trust.

Interest rates MUST have been some part of this calculation, however, and the time frame he happened to choose made the effect of interest rates on the present value of our debt obligation about as large as it could have been.

I'm not talking about the Fed's future monetary policies or anything like that. All I'm saying is that he showed a figure that the average American would look at and say, "Gee, our fiscal obligations have DOUBLED in five years! Holy [censored]! We better do something about this right now...at this rate, we'll owe ten times our GDP by 2010!"

I'm a big fan of curbing government spending (esp on welfare) and reducing debt, but I'm a bigger fan of honesty and truth--I don't like incoherent and misleading arguments, whether they support my positions or not..