Ah... What's $700 Billion

...on top of $99.2 Trillion?!? According to the President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, that's the amount of unfunded liabilities associated with Social Security and MediCare. It's laughable. And frightening. Want it in numbers you can (almost) digest:

Let’s say you and I... and every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household’s income.

Heh. We're toast.