Yes of course – last one alive gets to bury the rest of us!!

Good point, Barbara. There are various “child cost” calculators out there that put the average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 in the $170k to $200k range, though obviously the cost could go a lot higher depending on lifestyle/location (though a lot lower if you used the CK MacLeod-recommended closed barrel with two holes childrearing system).

Clearly if we stopped having children at all, that would solve most of our problems.

$540K “That represents home ownership, college for the kids, and all the vehicles they will own as adults, for most people.”

It represents children. Only people willing to live the life of very fertile third-worlders will have children. If you can’t afford children, doing without a home and cars is a lot easier and education is a moot point. Look at Europe.

Yeah, we’ve had this discussion before, haven’t we, RCAR?

I truly hope we do not try to solve our debt problem with conquest.
The FT article is good on private debt and transforming it into equity on a massive scale. But you can’t do that with public debt. What do you give the creditor equity in? Public debt is a national security issue, even if you owe it to your own private interests.

Bruce @1, I’m the guy who was telling people “we’re gonna need a bigger graph” a couple of months ago, so I’m very prepared, intellectually anyway!

J.E. Dyer wrote:
It’s increasingly clear that our way out of this hole will be political*, and involve repudiating debt instruments+.

*Wars of conquest to gain assets?

+
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4e02aeba-6fd8-11de-b835-00144feabdc0.html

It’s increasingly clear that our way out of this hole will be political, and involve repudiating debt instruments. How can the dollar not tank under these circumstances? Everyone abroad sees this. They have to be wondering what has happened with Americans, that we are letting Obama and the Congressional Democrats accelerate this situation so unwisely.

I’m not sure I see a way to actually amortize our national debt at this point. It grows at a terrifying rate even when predictive models use the positive assumptions about the economy, out through 2019.

Current-account debt plus unfunded entitlements has the average household owing more than $540K just in government obligations by 2019.

That represents home ownership, college for the kids, and all the vehicles they will own as adults, for most people.

Colin, prefer to look back fondly on this graph if the fantasy introduced in the “health reform” ever becomes law.
I’m absolutely flabbergasted that in this recession, with the unemployment rate certain to go to at least 10.5% that Pelosi, Waxman, et alia, would come up with this job-killing, nay, economy-destroying bill to “reform” health care. Surtaxes on the very people who create jobs? Taxes on companies that cannot afford to supply health plans to their employees? Taxes on the young and mobile, who make up the largest contingent of the “uninsured” in this country (I prefer to consider them the “self-insured)?
Where will the statist attack on capital and productivity end? We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world amongst developed countries. Now, we attack small business and professionals, not to mention entrepreneurship. What the Left Liberals need to know is that Capital is portable. If the U.S. continues to move more and more of an ever-increasing Federal budget onto the backs of a smaller proportion of the populace, then why should an entrepreneur elect to make his fortune here? Hell, a modern-day Michael Dell or Bill Gates would be much wiser to base his garage industry in Abu Dhabi, Grand Cayman or Singapore.
Sometimes it makes me happy that I’m an old crank with no kids…