Underfunded Promises

While the news has been covering the problems with the Greek government's fiscal blowout and the US Debt is discussed fairly frequently; the 800 pound gorilla in the room (as if debt that equals the GDP isn't a big enough beast!) is the future outlays for all of the United States promises to pay retirement, medical care and all the other benefits which politicians seem to use as dangling carrots to keep us re-electing them even when we all think they are doing a horrible job!

Some reports show over $60 Trillion (that is four times the national debt or roughly $200,000 for every man, woman and child in the US!  Think about what you could do for your own financial security with that amount.  

Digging up an article from back in 2009 yields a prediction upwards of $100 Trillion.  Check out this passage:    

In 1966 the feds estimated that the cost of the Medicare program by 1990 would be approximately $9 billion dollars/year; the actual cost was $67 billion dollars/year.

Talk about the expansion of programs!

Look here to see the scale of what the future liabilities really look like; the element on the right is not a skyscraper it is a stack of $100 bills representing the obligations of public benefits.

 Please read more in detail about the graphic here.

Oh yeah, don't forget to add your local and state plans to the numbers above.  Unless you are confident that future costs are already accounted for in your locale.