CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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12 Comments:
Look at public education, okay it's broken. Well anyway, I don't have to worry about it because me and my family will not be participating in any of these broken programs but you will. Enjoy.
Great cartoon. There were many friends online posting on their Facebook Wall about the fairytale that Obama was telling tonight during his speech to congress.
Thanks for a great cartoon.:)
Seems like numbers remain stubbornly unsusceptible to President Obama's rhetoric.
What was interesting was the body language this evening. The narrowed eyes, and chin agressively thrust forward when he entered the Chamber. There seemed to be anger despite the smile which was mirrored by Michele Obama.
When Obama addressed his remarks to the American people, he only momentarily looked into the camera glancing away quickly. The entire speech was directed while looking left & right with only 3 brief glimpses direcly into the camera. Very reminiscent of his "waffle" speech when Russia invaded Georgia.
A critical moment in the speech involved promising the American people that the health care bill would not cost additional money yet he failed to maintain eye contact.
My impression was that this was a very spotty, partisan performance very short on specifics.
When a cartoon is that succinct and that funny, I have no choice but to put it on my office door.
Umm...except Medicare and Social Security are not broke. And the only reason Medicare might be broke in the near future is because you guys don't want to reform it.
Social Security is sitting on billions in Treasury securities and will have no problem till 2037. Afterwards, just bump the retirement age up to 70 and problem solved.
"When Obama addressed his remarks to the American people, he only momentarily looked into the camera glancing away quickly."
The people on this site demonstrate their stupidity on a regular basis. Honestly, you will criticize this guy for any thing!!
So, just to let you know, this address is technically meant to be to Congress. Look at videos of other addresses to Congress by other Presidents and you'll see the exact same thing. So, how weird would it be in a room full of Congressmen that he would be staring ahead at the camera.
"Social Security is sitting on billions in Treasury securities"
Not exactly. The Treasury has raided the coffers, and in return given them what are essentially IOU's. Unlike T-bills, these IOU's can't be sold on the market for cash.
Besides, the bottom line is that that we are more than $10 trillion in debt, and Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and Unemployment make up approximately 60% of the federal budget. The simple math says that something somewhere is out of money.
Mach,
I did not say that I expected that he would look into the camera for the entire speech. Merely observed that he directly addressed the American people at 3 points in the speech, each time he looked into the camera and each time, he glanced away very quickly.
It would have been more effective if he had looked at the camera at those 3 points in 45 minutes for just a moment or 2 longer. Particularly, when he was talking about the cost of the plan.
Umm...except Medicare and Social Security are not broke.
Really?:
Medicare is tough for two reasons. One, the shortfall in Medicare is six to seven times larger than in Social Security. Social Security is a major problem; Medicare is a crisis. You add both of those... shortfalls together and you're getting something that's ... between $80 and $120 trillion in total present value shortfalls. ... People can't even imagine how big that number is. If you took the total value of the United States, except for the people (all the land, houses, buildings, everything that's non-perishable, your washer and dryer, cars, and so forth), it has about a value of about $50 trillion. So we're talking about a shortfall of twice the value of the value of the U.S. except for the people. Now, the value of the people is about three times that. We're just talking about biblically large shortfalls. We've never seen this type of problem.
- Wharton insurance and risk management professor Kent Smetters, a former deputy assistant Treasury secretary and economist for the Congressional Budget Office
Knowledge@Wharton
Anon.,
Thanks for the great article. Unfortunately, there is one key phrase used "present value".
Present value is the estimated current value of a future amount to be received or paid out, discounted (see discounting) at an appropriate rate, usually at the cost of capital rate (the current market interest rate). PV provides a common basis for comparing investment alternatives.
PV here is the current discounted value of future obligations. Medicare may well be bankrupct by 2018.
Since SS & Medicare are only allowed to hold U.S. treasuries in effect loaning the government money to presumable be paid back at some future date, it can well be argued that a country up to its ying-yang in debt may not be able to honor these obligations.
2009 Medicare Trustees Report predicts that Medicare will run out of money by 2017. A full download is available at this link.
This is only 8 years away. A lot closer than global warming.
If the government is so inept, why exactly is the health insurance industry scared silly by the public option? Clearly a govt. run program could not compete with their excellent service and value, so why are they spending millions lobying against it? Further, if the US Government cannot be trusted to run any program (the above cartoon, the comments that follow, and public opinion seem to support this) why are we using foreign policy to spread our "broken" system around the world?
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