Opportunities

As I am writing these words, the Social Security trustees report that their two trust funds (for retirees and for disability benefit recipients) will be depleted in 21 years, 3 years earlier than previously estimated. 2 By the time this book hits actual and virtual bookstores many other events will have happened. The future takes no time off. Debt problems will likely have surfaced in new countries, or crises will have deepened in countries previously hit. Depending on the depth of these problems, the world economy will be plunging in recession again or will be riding some fragile or illusory recovery. Precise forecasts are impossible, but the main fault lines are easy to imagine. The earthquake will come in due time. The Damocles sword of the federal budget will still be hanging over America. The CBO will have published new long-term forecasts, marginally different from the previous ones, but still predicting an unsustainable growth of the public debt and implying a crash sometime in the future. As usual, the CBO’s optimistic forecast (as opposed to their more realistic “alternative” one) will involve humongous tax increases in order to cover forecasted growth in primary expenditures.