The points made in this article are not new. Namely: 1. The government conceals the extent of its operating budget deficit by counting Social Security revenue. 2. The real liability for Social Security and Medicare is huge. Even official figures peg it at $33.7 trillion over the next 75 years. What is unusual is such strong language coming from a mainstream columnist:
“Let me be circumspect: Government accounting is vile garbage.”
The president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, is “perplexed” that the Euro-zone economy is growing slowly despite low interest rates. Trichet was also perplexed that, with bond yields at their lowest level since at least World War I and inflation-adjusted short-term rates at zero, growth in the 12-member euro zone was modest and consumers and businesses were low on confidence
In another post, I made the offhand comment that the recent Supreme Court marijuana decision shows that libertarian centralists are naive in hoping to get justice from federal courts. Tibor Machan complained that I am not naming names. The issue of “libertarian centralists” has been discussed at length. See the post Healy on States’ Rights and Libertarian Centralists, which contains many links to many discussions of this topic.
A comprehensive survey by the National Institute of Mental Health has found that most everyone will develop a mental illness sometime in his or her life, reports the NYT. There just aren’t enough government programs out there to deal with the problem!
It’s hard to know what to say any more about the insanity otherwise known as “the housing market”. Compare this article: Californians’ home equity up $1 trillion since 2000, BIA says
The stock-in-trade of all Socialist authors is the idea that there is potential plenty and that the substitution of socialism for capitalism would make it possible to give to everybody “according to his needs.” Other authors want to bring about this paradise by a reform of the monetary and credit system. As they see it, all that is lacking is more money and credit. They consider that the rate of interest is a phenomenon artificially created by the man-made scarcity of the “means of payment.”
British drivers may soon pay by the mile for their use of public roads in the U.K. According to this article, the British government is seriously considering the implementation of a system where individual vehicles would be tracked by satellites in order for individual road-use fees to be assessed.
