Do erased mistakes replicate faster?

If…the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus
and in reality the result was grossly less,
Winston’s job was to change previous versions,
so the old version would agree with the new one.

George Orwell

Sobering Thoughts on the Demographics of the Baby Boom, Savings, Entitlement Benefits and Monetary Policy

If workers earn, pay taxes, spend, save and invest,
while retirees divest, downsize, budget
and draw income and healthcare benefits,
what’s going to happen when more retirees want
what fewer workers may not be able to deliver?

It is incumbent on government to convey to future retirees
that the real resources currently promised to be available on retirement,
will not be fully forthcoming.

Alan Greenspan

…the models are suggesting that the shrinkage in the high savings population cohorts and an expansion in the retired population will alter supply demand dynamics…in a profoundly negative manner.

The unfavorable shift in dependency ratios, combined with sharply increased spending on pensions and healthcare is likely to cause a sustained deterioration in primary fiscal balances and a continuous increase in government debt to GDP ratios.

The common assumption that future savings flows from the large developing economies will be a ready source of finance for the ageing advanced economies is most probably flawed

…It is highly implausible to believe that Africa, the Middle East and India will be capable of funding the rest of the world’s growing population of retirees.

Because the rise in old age dependency ratios is common to virtually all significant economies, the idea that a redistribution of global savings flows from surplus to deficit nations might mitigate the impact of ageing on bond markets is a false comfort.

…Over the next two decades, the boomer generation will age into retirement and run down their accumulated savings. An era of capital abundance will gradually turn into an era of capital scarcity. Government debt burdens will rise sharply…

Given the broad international context for these trends, with similar developments afflicting almost all the world’s major economies, the means by which the government debt burdens are eventually curtailed is unclear.

…yields are likely to require a significant rise in risk premia to cover the eventuality of default, either outright or through inflation.

Tim Bond
Via Alphaville

Pension and Retirement Statistics

...America's 100 largest corporate pension plans
were underfunded by $217 billion at the end of 2008.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
says that the number of pensions at risk inside failing companies
more than tripled during the recession.

...state and local government bodies in the state of California
have $325 billion in combined unfunded pension liabilities

...it comes to $22,000 for every single working adult in California.

...California's three biggest pension funds
are as much as $500 billion short of meeting future retiree benefit obligations.

...the $33.7 billion Illinois Teachers Retirement System
is 61% underfunded and is on the verge of total collapse.

...the 50 states are collectively facing $5.17 trillion in pension obligations,
but they only have $1.94 trillion set aside in state pension funds.

That is a difference of 3.2 trillion dollars.

...the Social Security system will pay out more in benefits
than it receives in payroll taxes in 2010.

That was not supposed to happen until at least 2016.

...Approximately 57 percent of Barack Obama's 3.8 trillion dollar budget for 2011
consists of direct payments to individual Americans
or is money that is spent on their behalf.

...interest costs on the U.S. national debt
plus rapidly escalating spending on entitlement programs
...will absorb approximately 92 cents of every single dollar of federal revenue by the year 2019.

Approximately half of all workers in the United States
have less than $2000 saved up for retirement.

...36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything at all
to retirement savings.

35% of Americans over the age of 65
rely almost entirely on Social Security payments alone.

Michael Snyder
theeconomiccollapseblog.com

How loud can if you yell if no one hears you?

Power in America…

is control of the means of communication

 

Theodore White

Political Journalist

 

Did the founding fathers want the communications industry

to keep an eye on the government for the people

or an eye on the people for the government?

Does time exist independently of human consciousness?

Were you to board a spaceship,

 head out from earth at 99.999999 percent of light speed,

 travel for six months and then head back home at the same speed,

 your motion would slow your clock

 relative to those that remain stationary on Earth,

 so that you’d be one year older upon your return,

 while everyone on Earth would have aged about 7,000 years.

 

Brian Greene

Can reality not be

or be more than you think?

 

If just under the speed of light travel slows time

and an hour can be experienced in a minute

can a minute be lived in an hour?

 

Here we are and it is now

 

Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine

 

H L Mencken

Is everything just right?

If every rule has an exception, including the rule that there’s an exception to every rule, are there rules without exceptions?

Always and never,

are two words you should always remember never to use.

 

Wendell Johnson

Are chances betterfor players who more accurately calculate probabilitiesthe farthest into the future?

The chess board is the world

the pieces are the phenomena of the universe

the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature

the player on the other side is hidden from us

 

Thomas Huxley

 

Known and unknown

you were, are and will be pieces of varying value

in an infinite number of games

 

You may or may not be playing the games you think

 

If opponents don’t begin with pieces of the same number and value

and players can think they’re winning when losing

can influencing others’ thoughts enhance results

and vice versa?

Is everything just right?

If Earth spins ~1,043 mph at the equator, revolves at about 66,660 mph around the sun, and around the Milky Way at about 489,600 mph, towards Andromeda at ~180,000 mph, and the Local Super Cluster at about 540,000 mph, how fast are we surfing space?

When what lives dies and/or matter disintegratesdoes what was become part of something else?

If something started everything and everything’s the same only different

is everything everything?

 

If there was, is, and will be only so much stuff

how old are you?

It’s a good thought

 

Karly Hartzman

On Reincarnation

If what is, is until it’s not

is non-sentiency more probable than sentiency?

 

Could there be other universes with sentient life

inside this one?

 

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement

 

The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth

 

Niels Bohr

 

 

Can some believe they experiencesomething like a gravitational pull or push from fast moving objects like airplaneswhile traveling in a different direction?

Deep

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement

 

The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth

 

Niels Bohr

Who knew Earth wasn’t in the center of the universe

before 1514?

Who knew of dinosaurs

before 1855?

 

Did anyone know of other galaxies

before 1923?

Who knew there were trillions

of more than 2,000 species of microorganisms living in the human body before 2008?

 

When what lives dies and/or matter disintegrates

does what was become part of something else?

 

Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars

and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you

 

Bill Bryson

 

If something started everything and everything’s the same only different

is everything everything?

 

If there was, is, and will be only so much stuff

how old are you?

If what is, is until it’s not

is non-sentiency more probable than sentiency?

 

Could there be other universes with sentient life

inside this one?

If another knew you were a robotand you didn’twould you want them to tell you?

If another knew you were a robotand you didn’twould you want them to tell you?