Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
Tim describes how US national debt may be as high as US$200k / household. Now some interesting question related questions are: - who is that debt owed to? - what proportion of current year US tax revenues go to service that debt? some of the debt may not be being serviced (no interest paid and just left to increase -- eg pensions etc, but this just makes the problem worse as the future debt will grow faster with no interest paid). Some completely back of the envelope calculation: if the average US household has an annual income of US$50k, and the interest rate on the US national debt is 5%, that interest payments represent 20% of the average US households gross income. But isn't 20% fairly close to what the average household's direct tax rate? How close is the US to reaching a standstill where 100% of collectible tax revenue goes to fund debt service, and all current spending comes from increased future debt? Adam
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
Bear in mind that the holders of US debts do not want the debts paid, only the interest, and in fact want both to increase as they have consistently since the US government went into hock. A prime reason holders of US debt fear other countries defaulting on their debt is that that might become a promising political campaign in the US where debt of all kinds are glorified and where unpaid debts are the greatest sins so long as the debts are owed by the USG and credit card, family home and car, debtors. Gigantic debts by well to do are signs of accomplishment and no wealthy person wants to be large-debt-free. Instead what is wanted is a top-notch credit rating, that is desirable to be an debtor who can call for whatever is needed at the moment without expending the small amount of cash on hand, which is called pocket change. The biggest debtors are the super rich, and their combined debts exceed that of the US Government. Such debts are customarily called investments purchased with borrowed money or other forms of investments. These superwealthy schemes based on superimpositions are very large Ponzi schemes, nearly all of which rely up government underwriting either by permissable law or by assurance of bail-out -- not surprisingly as a last resort to claim national security is at stake, or even less surprising, require war to thin the complainers of small debts and to boost war industry replenishment of large fortunes. Nothing peculiar about the US doing this, for it is what governments were invented for: to assure continued well-being for the favored while promising a chicken in every for the starving and promising as well that the starving must work for the chicken freely stolen by the wealthy. Capitalism didn't begin this dreadful state of affairs, it merely copied more brazen versions and cloaked its intentions with simulated democracy, sometimes smirkingly called free market forces by its beneficiaries. Getting the small debtors to lust after Wall Street is nothing compared to getting them drunk with patriotism so they'll send their idiot off-spring to kill those hungry like themselves while George slurps Hagen-Daas from Condi's navel. The key to success is getting the really smart hungry people to feed your mind and gut and wipe your ass while believing like national security teams they are really in charge. How do you do that? The successful claim it was hard work and luck, and anyone can do it. Haw. Haw. Haw.
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
On Friday, July 12, 2002, at 12:13 PM, Adam Back wrote: Tim describes how US national debt may be as high as US$200k / household. Now some interesting question related questions are: - who is that debt owed to? A partial list (not in any particular order, especially not necessarily in order of amount of overall indebtness): * holders of U.S. Treasury bonds, T-bills, and other U.S. Treasury-backed instruments * pensions for government employees (other than the parts of government which opted out, a provision not offered to any non-government folks!). Notably, military pensions, which have been getting more and more lucrative. * the default fraction (estimated) of loan guarantees and loan insurance for programs like the Student Loan Guaranty program, mortgages for vets and other favored persons, etc. (Note that we are _not_ including the overall loan amount, only the fraction that is very likely to be a debt to the government...actuarial and risk assessors have pretty good models.) (By the way, as an aside, this practice of co-signing for a loan, of agreeing to be the repayer of last resort, is humorously called suicide with a fountain pen.) * Social Security. A massive overhang, not carried on the books. * promises made to other governments to keep their coffers full in exchange for siding with the U.S., or not blowing up as many of our airliners, or not launching rusting nukes at us, or not sending millions of immigrants to our shores (These promises could in fact be broken. And they should be. The U.S. should pull its troops out of Europe--57 years after the end of WW II--and out of South Korea and of course out of the Mideast. Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and all of the other basket cases should be cut off. If Jews in America want to keep bailing out Israel's economy, fine. But none of my money or anyone else's should be coerced out of them.) - what proportion of current year US tax revenues go to service that debt? Between 20 and 35 %, depending on the cost of money, smoothed over several years. This is only for the officially counted part of the debt. some of the debt may not be being serviced (no interest paid and just left to increase -- eg pensions etc, but this just makes the problem worse as the future debt will grow faster with no interest paid). This is the same reason to vote against _most_ bond issues. While there are legitimate uses of debt, and for spreading repayments over the useful lifetime of a school, prison, or whatever, too often a bond issue is advertised as not costing the taxpayer. This results in building that is not needed, or in outright fraud. (As in many countries, where bonds and lotteries are set up to build nuclear reactors in the jungle that are never really intended to be started up.) Some completely back of the envelope calculation: if the average US household has an annual income of US$50k, and the interest rate on the US national debt is 5%, that interest payments represent 20% of the average US households gross income. But isn't 20% fairly close to what the average household's direct tax rate? Don't forget corporate taxes. The official national debt is $67K per household (100 million households). 5% of that is $3350, which is about 6.7% of the $50K per year figure you cite. Which is about 33% of the 20% tax figure you cite. If one computes the _true_ national debt, the one I talked about, then the numbers are roughly as you describe. The actual national debt is as if every household were paying for a second $200K house on top of the one they now live in or rent. (And despite the figures on current home prices, which are at the margin, the average household does not pay for a $200K mortgage.) Looking at the demographics of the work force, as the pig in the python of the Boomers move into retirement, their earning contribution to income taxes will drop sharply. Will it be made up by having skilled younger people, Hispanics, Taiwanese, Indians, etc. paying these costs? Personally, I doubt it. I don't think the 20-year-old kids of today are going to have the job skills to make the backbreaking payments necessary. Nor should they. Why should they be indentured servants to a generation which just said Charge it! How close is the US to reaching a standstill where 100% of collectible tax revenue goes to fund debt service, and all current spending comes from increased future debt? If unfunded liabilities are counted, which they should be, we are approaching that point now. (By not counting them, we are setting up a future where those 20-year-olds are paying 80% of their income in taxes. I don't think that's viable, for multiple reasons.) By the way, there are already many countries in the world already in the situation where all of the tax revenues go into servicing the national debt, and where that debt is still compounding annually. --Tim May How we burned in the prison camps later
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
On Friday, July 12, 2002, at 12:13 PM, Adam Back wrote: Tim describes how US national debt may be as high as US$200k / household. Now some interesting question related questions are: - who is that debt owed to? A partial list (not in any particular order, especially not necessarily in order of amount of overall indebtness): * holders of U.S. Treasury bonds, T-bills, and other U.S. Treasury-backed instruments * pensions for government employees (other than the parts of government which opted out, a provision not offered to any non-government folks!). Notably, military pensions, which have been getting more and more lucrative. * the default fraction (estimated) of loan guarantees and loan insurance for programs like the Student Loan Guaranty program, mortgages for vets and other favored persons, etc. (Note that we are _not_ including the overall loan amount, only the fraction that is very likely to be a debt to the government...actuarial and risk assessors have pretty good models.) (By the way, as an aside, this practice of co-signing for a loan, of agreeing to be the repayer of last resort, is humorously called suicide with a fountain pen.) * Social Security. A massive overhang, not carried on the books. * promises made to other governments to keep their coffers full in exchange for siding with the U.S., or not blowing up as many of our airliners, or not launching rusting nukes at us, or not sending millions of immigrants to our shores (These promises could in fact be broken. And they should be. The U.S. should pull its troops out of Europe--57 years after the end of WW II--and out of South Korea and of course out of the Mideast. Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and all of the other basket cases should be cut off. If Jews in America want to keep bailing out Israel's economy, fine. But none of my money or anyone else's should be coerced out of them.) - what proportion of current year US tax revenues go to service that debt? Between 20 and 35 %, depending on the cost of money, smoothed over several years. This is only for the officially counted part of the debt. some of the debt may not be being serviced (no interest paid and just left to increase -- eg pensions etc, but this just makes the problem worse as the future debt will grow faster with no interest paid). This is the same reason to vote against _most_ bond issues. While there are legitimate uses of debt, and for spreading repayments over the useful lifetime of a school, prison, or whatever, too often a bond issue is advertised as not costing the taxpayer. This results in building that is not needed, or in outright fraud. (As in many countries, where bonds and lotteries are set up to build nuclear reactors in the jungle that are never really intended to be started up.) Some completely back of the envelope calculation: if the average US household has an annual income of US$50k, and the interest rate on the US national debt is 5%, that interest payments represent 20% of the average US households gross income. But isn't 20% fairly close to what the average household's direct tax rate? Don't forget corporate taxes. The official national debt is $67K per household (100 million households). 5% of that is $3350, which is about 6.7% of the $50K per year figure you cite. Which is about 33% of the 20% tax figure you cite. If one computes the _true_ national debt, the one I talked about, then the numbers are roughly as you describe. The actual national debt is as if every household were paying for a second $200K house on top of the one they now live in or rent. (And despite the figures on current home prices, which are at the margin, the average household does not pay for a $200K mortgage.) Looking at the demographics of the work force, as the pig in the python of the Boomers move into retirement, their earning contribution to income taxes will drop sharply. Will it be made up by having skilled younger people, Hispanics, Taiwanese, Indians, etc. paying these costs? Personally, I doubt it. I don't think the 20-year-old kids of today are going to have the job skills to make the backbreaking payments necessary. Nor should they. Why should they be indentured servants to a generation which just said Charge it! How close is the US to reaching a standstill where 100% of collectible tax revenue goes to fund debt service, and all current spending comes from increased future debt? If unfunded liabilities are counted, which they should be, we are approaching that point now. (By not counting them, we are setting up a future where those 20-year-olds are paying 80% of their income in taxes. I don't think that's viable, for multiple reasons.) By the way, there are already many countries in the world already in the situation where all of the tax revenues go into servicing the national debt, and where that debt is still compounding annually. --Tim May How we burned in the prison camps later
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
- who is that debt owed to? You never, ever, collect debt from one that has a bigger gun than you do. 'debt' as a notion has meaning only between equal parties. Everything's OK and taken care for, no need for panic or doomsday predictions. = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
On Friday, July 12, 2002, at 04:16 PM, John Young wrote: Bear in mind that the holders of US debts do not want the debts paid, only the interest, and in fact want both to increase as they have consistently since the US government went into hock. Most such debts have finite lifetimes. For example, the 10-year Treasury note, which is currently the de facto standard. At the end of 10 years, it's done with, period. The principal is repaid (unless the debt was of the kind that pays an interest rate and a principal reduction part). Now the debt holders may well buy other instruments, and usually do, but it isn't an especially accurate or useful model to say holders of US debts paid, only the interest. Gigantic debts by well to do are signs of accomplishment and no wealthy person wants to be large-debt-free. I know many wealth people, and this is not so. (*) Most of them have no significant large debts. Many of them have mortgages on houses, because of the way the IRS subsidizes mortgages over other kinds of debts. Net worth is this: assets minus debts. This is why high net worth individuals are so characterized. (* The high net worth individuals I know range from people with several billion in assets, down to tens of millions (I believe, but most don't say publically or to me), and on down to the few millions or less.) The biggest debtors are the super rich, and their combined debts exceed that of the US Government. Such debts are customarily called investments purchased with borrowed money or other forms of investments. Current margin requirements are about 50%. When stocks or other assets drop, margin calls result. Bernie Ebbers got a big one a year or two ago on Worldcom. I've known folks who have gotten margin calls, and it isn't pretty. Most folks I know, the wealthy ones, tend to keep their margin debts at a small fraction of the allowable maximum. --Tim May, Occupied America They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
On Thursday 11 July 2002 13:32, Tim May wrote: (Regarding SS and other USG liabilities) Charge it...some future generation will pay. I hope not. Addressing only the SS issue and not other USG debt, I'm attempting to organize a nation-wide grassroots movement. On a to-be-announced F-day, every member of the movement will kill a designated old fart, one who has long since taken back out of SS anything s/he put into the system and is now subsisting solely on SS checks and other welfare. Bonus points for killing an old fart who has taken much more out of the system than he put in and yet was loudly agitating for an increase in benefits to help the greatest generation, who gave so much for their country. Old farts who are still working or who are living on saved assets are exempt. I'd prefer a system which simply cut off benefits once a person's own contributions had been exhausted (sort of like, you know, a personal retirement account) but that seems to be a non-option. (I'd _really_ prefer a system where each person was responsible for his own late-life well-being, but that kind of talk just gets you thrown in the loony bin these days.) Anyone interested in the F-day movement might also be interested in L-day (for lawyers) and CP-day (for career politicians). Web sites forthcoming. SRF -- Steve FurlongComputer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel Vote Idiotarian --- it's easier than thinking
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
On Thursday 11 July 2002 13:32, Tim May wrote: (Regarding SS and other USG liabilities) Charge it...some future generation will pay. At 02:25 PM 7/11/2002 -0400, Steve Furlong wrote: I hope not. Addressing only the SS issue and not other USG debt, I'm attempting to organize a nation-wide grassroots movement. On a to-be-announced F-day, every member of the movement will kill a designated old fart, one who has long since taken back out of SS anything s/he put into the system and is now subsisting solely on SS checks and other welfare. Bonus points for killing an old fart who has taken much more out of the system than he put in and yet was loudly agitating for an increase in benefits to help the greatest generation, who gave so much for their country. Old farts who are still working or who are living on saved assets are exempt. Wrong target. Suggest you rename it L-day for federal Legislator Day. Members should consider themselves patriots in the true sense. Since not many citizens are so ideological, I suggest a voluntary redistribution of wealth from the ideological to the families of those patriots who take up the challenge. Likely participants may be those who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and have not been economically fortunate (or wasteful enough) to leave their families a meaningful inheretance. The sooner the redistribution stops the sooner the economic health of the nation will improve. Loading up the nation with debt and leaving it for the following generations to pay is morally irresponsible. Excessive debt is a means by which governments oppress the people and waste their substance. No nation has a right to contract debt for periods longer than the majority contracting it can expect to live. I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23 Communicate in total privacy. Get your free encrypted email at https://www.hushmail.com/?l=2 Looking for a good deal on a domain name? http://www.hush.com/partners/offers.cgi?id=domainpeople
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
Tim May writes: As everyone should know by now, and probably does, the Social Security scheme in the U.S. is nothing more than a large Ponzi scheme. Payroll taxes, amounting to about 15% of income up to some level (ratcheted upwards every few years), go straight into the General Fund, where the 34%-39% top tax rate funds and all of the other taxes go into. The General Fund (not its official name...it may not have one) issues the SS Geheimstatssecuritatwelfarefund an IOU for the trillions owed by the General Fund to the SS G. Those IOUs are not even computed as part of the national debt. (!!) Talk about using Enron accounting! Standard accounting rules are completely inappropriate when looking at the situation for an entire country over a period of decades. By this reasoning, a young family borrowing money to buy a house is making a huge mistake because it will be in debt to the tune of several years' salary. What is overlooked in this analysis is that the family, just starting out in the world, can expect increased income over years to come. In the long run, that house will be very affordable based on the expected growth in income. But standard accounting principles do not take into account expected future income. This shows up most drastically in the case of Social Security, where we are supposedly $20 trillion in debt. What about the income which will be used to pay off that debt? Those figures are not included. The fact is, like a young family starting out in the world, we have every reason to expect our income levels to rise steadily over future decades, just as they have done in the past. The world is not a static place. Technology and science are improving at an ever-increasing rate. These translate into productivity improvements, greater national income, and a higher standard of living. In fact, with biotech, nanotech, and all the other -techs that are expected to become feasible within the next few decades, there is every reason to expect that our income will begin growing at unprecedented rates. See some of the predictions at www.kurzweilai.net for examples of what the future is likely to bring. (For a good laugh, get Tim May to repeat his prediction about how nanotech will never go anywhere! This at a time when you can hardly pick up a business magazine without finding another article about this new investment opportunity. Take it as further evidence of his prognosticative abilities, which are demonstrated in this thread as well.) Against this background, it's pointless to worry about a Social Security debt amounting to $200,000 per household over many decades. By the time today's young people are old enough to begin collecting retirement, two major changes will have occured: First, the world will be a much wealthier place; standards of living will likely have more than doubled; technology will have created commonplace devices that would be literally priceless today. For such a world, providing the retirement benefits at the levels specified by today's laws will be easy and cheap. But second, and more importantly, health and longevity will likely have increased substantially as well. By 2040 it's highly unlikely that a 65 year old man will be facing the kinds of health limitations that a man of that age has to deal with today. Four decades of medical research will allow people who are elderly by today's standards to retain considerable health and vigor. There will be no need to retire by 65 if people don't want to; they can work productively for many more years. Of course these changes will have almost infinite ramifications as they affect other parts of society. The world is likely to be a very different place in the next decades, as the pace of progress continues to quicken. It's impossible to predict how it will all work out. But it seems safe to say that the world will give people far more choices and opportunities than we see today. Those people who do choose to retire at a youthful 65 can be easily supported by the incredible productivity increases which the working population enjoys. In fact, retirement benefits may well be increased far beyond what seems practical today, as by the standards of our future wealth, today's comfortable living is seen as the squalor of poverty. We have seen this trend going on for many decades, and it is only going to increase in the future. There are great things ahead, and it's sad to see someone who claims to have a clear vision of the future get caught up in such petty concerns as Social Security obligations. There are serious problems ahead, some of which were brought up by Bill Joy in his famous article. But paying for Social Security isn't one of them.
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
On Thursday 11 July 2002 13:32, Tim May wrote: (Regarding SS and other USG liabilities) Charge it...some future generation will pay. At 02:25 PM 7/11/2002 -0400, Steve Furlong wrote: I hope not. Addressing only the SS issue and not other USG debt, I'm attempting to organize a nation-wide grassroots movement. On a to-be-announced F-day, every member of the movement will kill a designated old fart, one who has long since taken back out of SS anything s/he put into the system and is now subsisting solely on SS checks and other welfare. Bonus points for killing an old fart who has taken much more out of the system than he put in and yet was loudly agitating for an increase in benefits to help the greatest generation, who gave so much for their country. Old farts who are still working or who are living on saved assets are exempt. Wrong target. Suggest you rename it L-day for federal Legislator Day. Members should consider themselves patriots in the true sense. Since not many citizens are so ideological, I suggest a voluntary redistribution of wealth from the ideological to the families of those patriots who take up the challenge. Likely participants may be those who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and have not been economically fortunate (or wasteful enough) to leave their families a meaningful inheretance. The sooner the redistribution stops the sooner the economic health of the nation will improve. Loading up the nation with debt and leaving it for the following generations to pay is morally irresponsible. Excessive debt is a means by which governments oppress the people and waste their substance. No nation has a right to contract debt for periods longer than the majority contracting it can expect to live. I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23 Communicate in total privacy. Get your free encrypted email at https://www.hushmail.com/?l=2 Looking for a good deal on a domain name? http://www.hush.com/partners/offers.cgi?id=domainpeople
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
Tim May writes: As everyone should know by now, and probably does, the Social Security scheme in the U.S. is nothing more than a large Ponzi scheme. Payroll taxes, amounting to about 15% of income up to some level (ratcheted upwards every few years), go straight into the General Fund, where the 34%-39% top tax rate funds and all of the other taxes go into. The General Fund (not its official name...it may not have one) issues the SS Geheimstatssecuritatwelfarefund an IOU for the trillions owed by the General Fund to the SS G. Those IOUs are not even computed as part of the national debt. (!!) Talk about using Enron accounting! Standard accounting rules are completely inappropriate when looking at the situation for an entire country over a period of decades. By this reasoning, a young family borrowing money to buy a house is making a huge mistake because it will be in debt to the tune of several years' salary. What is overlooked in this analysis is that the family, just starting out in the world, can expect increased income over years to come. In the long run, that house will be very affordable based on the expected growth in income. But standard accounting principles do not take into account expected future income. This shows up most drastically in the case of Social Security, where we are supposedly $20 trillion in debt. What about the income which will be used to pay off that debt? Those figures are not included. The fact is, like a young family starting out in the world, we have every reason to expect our income levels to rise steadily over future decades, just as they have done in the past. The world is not a static place. Technology and science are improving at an ever-increasing rate. These translate into productivity improvements, greater national income, and a higher standard of living. In fact, with biotech, nanotech, and all the other -techs that are expected to become feasible within the next few decades, there is every reason to expect that our income will begin growing at unprecedented rates. See some of the predictions at www.kurzweilai.net for examples of what the future is likely to bring. (For a good laugh, get Tim May to repeat his prediction about how nanotech will never go anywhere! This at a time when you can hardly pick up a business magazine without finding another article about this new investment opportunity. Take it as further evidence of his prognosticative abilities, which are demonstrated in this thread as well.) Against this background, it's pointless to worry about a Social Security debt amounting to $200,000 per household over many decades. By the time today's young people are old enough to begin collecting retirement, two major changes will have occured: First, the world will be a much wealthier place; standards of living will likely have more than doubled; technology will have created commonplace devices that would be literally priceless today. For such a world, providing the retirement benefits at the levels specified by today's laws will be easy and cheap. But second, and more importantly, health and longevity will likely have increased substantially as well. By 2040 it's highly unlikely that a 65 year old man will be facing the kinds of health limitations that a man of that age has to deal with today. Four decades of medical research will allow people who are elderly by today's standards to retain considerable health and vigor. There will be no need to retire by 65 if people don't want to; they can work productively for many more years. Of course these changes will have almost infinite ramifications as they affect other parts of society. The world is likely to be a very different place in the next decades, as the pace of progress continues to quicken. It's impossible to predict how it will all work out. But it seems safe to say that the world will give people far more choices and opportunities than we see today. Those people who do choose to retire at a youthful 65 can be easily supported by the incredible productivity increases which the working population enjoys. In fact, retirement benefits may well be increased far beyond what seems practical today, as by the standards of our future wealth, today's comfortable living is seen as the squalor of poverty. We have seen this trend going on for many decades, and it is only going to increase in the future. There are great things ahead, and it's sad to see someone who claims to have a clear vision of the future get caught up in such petty concerns as Social Security obligations. There are serious problems ahead, some of which were brought up by Bill Joy in his famous article. But paying for Social Security isn't one of them.
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
The problem with your analysis is that it completely misses the impact of the extended lifetimes (~150 years for anyone alive in or after 2020 that doesn't die from accident or intent) that are going to accrue. And it's only going to go up from there. Within 200 years the effective lifetimes will be irrelevant. The current insurance and investment industry is toast in about 20 years. The current economics is based (unknowningly) on 'fast cycle' times regarding resources and how quickly resources get returned to the pool as individuals and such die out (it's that 'property right' thing). That is about to change, so rapidly it will be a eyeblink (something 2-3 years) compared to anything before. Coupled with this is the DECREASED interaction between groups that these technologies foster. They will create a force to fractionalize the 'market' into smaller more goal focused groups. An additional stressor, and one which all current estimates ignore, is the 3rd World. One day in the very near future we will all, across the globe, get up one morning and be confronted with a virus based solution for aging (at least as we currently understand it). If a small group of people (ala Beggars in Spain) are allowed and the rest are denied then a 'social divide' (aka All hell breaking out all over at one time) is going to occur. It will be violent, and it will have a negative effect on the technology curve. This saving technology might kill us via side effects. People came together because the technology wasn't there to allow them to live alone. One day soon technology will reverse this as the level of technology that is possible, compared to the level of technology in general, to that available to the individual will become unity. Why unity? Because technology will not, can not, extend forever. It will not go on and on. The universe is too filled with 'exclusion rules' to allow this. Yes the technology is rising exponentialy, because it's a function of tanh. Thermodynamics will not be denied. [1] Couple this with the fact that irrespective of the technology level the Earth doesn't have the resources to support life indefinitely. The Earth is not indefinite. This has some serious implication of its own. The most important is that we must get off the planet as a race. Living on planets that support life should, and will, become gardens where people visit on vacations. Too precious to waste on individual ego. This implies that mankinds future is to the stars. But this very boundary condition limits the time that a planet has to get off the planet, or drown in its own waste. My estimate is that it's about 200-250 years and we're about 50 years into it. We're not doing very well. This also raises another potential explanation of why we don't see Roger. The vast majority (as in asymptotic to 1) don't make it within the 200 year window. The result is a slow slide to eternity with the planet getting more fucked up on a daily basis. If you really understood what was going on, you wouldn't give a shit about Social Security. Tim's understanding of human psychology is about as swift as his understanding of the Uncertainty Principle and running time 'backward'. As usual he confuses ego and individual perspective as some universal. He just can't seem to grasp the concept of 'observer dependency'. I guess that's another example of 'May Pole Physics'. ps I'm back, as I slowly dig out from a two month blizzard of work... [1] As a complete aside, the realy interesting question here is will when it is all said and done, will the maximum technology allow the creation of other cosmoses? It would certainly explain why we don't see Roger Ramjet scooting around on a daily basis. On Fri, 12 Jul 2002, Anonymous wrote: Tim May writes: As everyone should know by now, and probably does, the Social Security scheme in the U.S. is nothing more than a large Ponzi scheme. Payroll taxes, amounting to about 15% of income up to some level (ratcheted upwards every few years), go straight into the General Fund, where the 34%-39% top tax rate funds and all of the other taxes go into. The General Fund (not its official name...it may not have one) issues the SS Geheimstatssecuritatwelfarefund an IOU for the trillions owed by the General Fund to the SS G. Those IOUs are not even computed as part of the national debt. (!!) Talk about using Enron accounting! Standard accounting rules are completely inappropriate when looking at the situation for an entire country over a period of decades. By this reasoning, a young family borrowing money to buy a house is making a huge mistake because it will be in debt to the tune of several years' salary. What is overlooked in this analysis is that the family, just starting out in the world, can expect increased income over years to come. In the long run, that house will be very affordable based on the expected growth in income. But standard accounting
