Generational warfare coming soon to a country near you?

The more is given the less the people will work for themselves,
and the less they work the more their poverty will increase.

Leo Tolstoy

Patchwork Pension Plan Adds to Greek Debt Woes

…bringing Greece’s pension obligations onto its balance sheet would show that the government’s debt is in reality equal to 875 percent of its gross domestic product, which is the broadest measure of a nation’s economic output. That would be the highest debt level among the 16 nations that use the euro, and far above Greece’s official debt level of 113 percent.

Other countries have obscured their total obligations as well.

In France, where the official debt level is 76 percent of economic output, total debt rises to 549 percent once all of its current pension promises are taken into account.

And in Germany, the current debt level of 69 percent would soar to 418 percent.

…this is a more appropriate way to assess a country’s debt level because it underscores the extent to which the cost of providing for rapidly aging populations, if left unchanged, will add to already troubling debt burdens.

… to fully finance future pension obligations, the average European country would need to set aside 8 percent of its economic output each year, a practical impossibility given that raising already high taxes so much would impose a crushing economic burden.

…similar calculation[s] for the United States…estimates that the truest measure of federal government debt, incorporating Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other obligations, is $79 trillion, or about 500 percent of the nation’s output.

Currently, its public debt is equal to about 60 percent of its domestic output.

…as most developed countries experience having fewer workers to cover pensions and health care bills for the elderly, their ability to borrow more is rapidly approaching its limits.

…Greece has proposed raising its average retirement age to 63, and that may be just a beginning.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has met with union leaders and broached the prospect of raising the normal retirement age from 60. Spain has gone further, proposing to raise the retirement age to 67, from 65.

…the amount Greece spends on pensions and health care for its aging population, if left unchecked, would soar to about 37 percent of its economic output by 2060 from just over 20 percent today, making it the highest level in Europe…

LANDON THOMAS Jr.
New York Times, March 11, 2010