Public Debt Is Soaring
Global debt has soared to $199 trillion dollars.
The debt to GDP ratio for the entire world is 286%. In other words, global debt is almost 3 times the size of the world economy. (William Banzai sarcastically suggests we send out a space beacon asking aliens to bail us out.)
The Hill reports:
The former U.S. comptroller general says the real U.S. debt is closer to about $65 trillion than the oft-cited figure of $18 trillion.
Dave Walker, who headed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said when you add up all of the nation’s unfunded liabilities, the national debt is more than three times the number generally advertised.
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“If you end up adding to that $18.5 trillion the unfunded civilian and military pensions and retiree healthcare, the additional underfunding for Social Security, the additional underfunding for Medicare, various commitments and contingencies that the federal government has, the real number is about $65 trillion rather than $18 trillion, and it’s growing automatically absent reforms ….”
But former Senior Economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and current Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff says that – when unfunded liabilities are taken into account – the fiscal gap for the U.S. is actually 3 times higher … $205 trillion.
Many states are also deeply in the red … For example:
- Illinois faces a $9 billion dollar annual deficit and $159 billion in IOUs
- New Jersey faces a structural deficit of $10.2 billion dollars
- Pennsylvania has to deal with a $2.3 billion budget deficit
- Wisconsin is running a $2.2 billion dollar deficit
And unfunded pension debts of the states collectively total between $1.4 trillion (according to Federal Reserve figures) and more than $3 trillion dollars (according to a Stanford finance professor).
Europe is in poor shape as well. For example:
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