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Friday, February 12, 2010

Intragovernmental

Intragovernmental holdings are debt obligations of the US citizens, just like any other Treasury that is auctioned.

The bonds held in the Social Security trust fund have no present value. They can only be redeemed if taxes are collected to redeem them. They represent a commitment made by future wage earners to future retirees. They exist as an accounting trick, a promise that the government has not yet had to fulfill. A bond is either an asset or a liability, it cannot be both, and those IOU's in the SS trust fund are most assuredly liabilities, and they belong in the total debt figures.

The US Treasury's own site includes them in the debt figures:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

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