This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This website reports 213 trillion in unfunded liabilities, listing the US Treasury as its source, though I can't seem to find the exact source myself.
https://usdebtclock.org/
I read the document around page 63 like the Forbes article says and couldn't find it.
https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/261/FSOC-2016-Annual-Report.pdf
More options
Context Copy link
Recursive link-following from the above Forbes post says that the 210 trillion is an estimate by a cabal of right-wing economists of the NPV of future federal deficits out to an infinite horizon (as of 2015). In other words, it is a voodoo number - it is sensitively dependent on assumptions made about demographic and technological change in the 22nd century.
The up-to-date equivalent number out to the 75-year horizon used in the official Financial Report of the United States Government (see Cato commentary) is $80 trillion
The 213 trillion on the Debt Clock is given by debt ($34 trillion) + unfunded Social Security benefits ($27 trillion) + unfunded Medicare benefits ($41 trillion) + unfunded federal employee pensions (including veterans' benefits). The debt clock doesn't give a number for the employee benefits, but the official number is about $13 trillion. It looks like the reason why the numbers don't add up is that the debt clock people are using the 75-year horizon for the SS and Medicare numbers given in isolation, but the infinite horizon numbers (which, for those two programmes only, are official US Treasury numbers) as part of the grand total.
Those big scary SS/Medicare numbers are not "liabilities" in an accounting sense - the debt clock misleadingly describe them as GAAP numbers, but a private-sector organisation with underfunded pension liabilities would account for them very differently under GAAP. They are just NPVs of future cashflows - in the case of Medicare parts B and D which are funded on a PAYG basis, the "unfunded liability" is just a projected NPV of gross spending. A private sector GAAP analysis would only count a liability for accrued benefits - i.e. benefits that were "earned" through taxes paid in the past that will be paid in the future. An NPV analysis includes pensions that will be paid to people who haven't started working yet. In particular, the SS projections assume that people who are now under 15 or not yet born will get more out of SS than they pay in to the tune of $17 trillion, and include that as a "liability".
If I am correct about the debt clock methodology, the two numbers are similar because the largest component of both is infinite-horizon projections of SS and Medicare spending, where they both use the same official Treasury estimates.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link