David Walker and the US $56 Trillion financial burden

[Mickey1992]

I am glad to see that David Walker is getting more attention from the press.  I think he is our best chance in convincing the populous of the impending budget fiasco.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/06/walker.bailout/index.html

The ultimate cost of the [bailout]act should ring up at less than $500 billion, less than the advertised $700 billion because of anticipated proceeds from the government's sale of the assets it will acquire with the appropriated funds.

The nation's real tab, on the other hand, amounted to $53 trillion as of the end of the last fiscal year. That was the sum of our public debt; accrued civilian and military retirement benefits; unfunded, promised Social Security and Medicare benefits; and other financial obligations -- all according to the government's most recent financial statement of September 30, 2007.

[Fangio]

Walker has been doing a fantastic job, going back to his tenure as Comptroller General of the United States.  He told Congress.... over and over and as loudly as possible.... that it was committing National Suicide with our fiscal policies.  Congress nodded and gravely agreed and then continues to do the same crap regardless.

To put the $56 Trillion in perspective,  in 2006 the Govt. evaluated the entire specie of the nation at less than $45 Trillion.  All stocks, currency, real estate, autos... the value of EVERYTHING in the entire nation....  FAR less than the unfunded Govt. obligations.

The really funny part is how Congress likes to have public hearings where they haul in the CEO's of various public companies and grill them over accounting issues and such. I remember watching the Enron hearings when Congress just ripped the executives apart for all the accounting fraud that had been committed.... meanwhile these EXACT same members of Congress are committed the same kind of fraud year after year on a scale 1000 times worse than anything any executive in the private sector has ever done and nobody bats an eye.



Fang

[Curval]

Well there is all kinds of pressure now for accountants and auditors to abandon mark-to-market accounting.

Oh, it was all fine and dandy when real estate etc. was going up.....mark everything to market (but classify as available for sale) and put the gain through the income statement.

The result?  Lots and lots of profits (for the wall steet types to take a share).

Except now, in falling markets where you cannot even determine a market value (because nobody is buying) the mark to market principles dictate that you value those assets at...well....zero.

Losses galore.

So, now everyone wakes up and seems to think that changing accounting principles will help solve the problem.

GAAP stands for generally accepted accounting principles.  A totally valueless concept if the rules (or principles) keep changing, particularly when such changes are forced upon the profession as a quick fix.

[Toad]

Probably will have to switch to GAAPDUS.

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles Depending Upon Situation.

Aw... heck.... let them printing presses  ROLL!