Plausible projections of this effect from the Clinton plan are small, adding a cumulative total of less than 0.7 percentage points to GDP by 2015, an amount too trivial even to affect the Social Security projections, except by rounding. According to economic theory, the increase in productivity should also lead to some increase in jobs, but the number of additional jobs, and any resulting tax revenue, would be so trivial there is no point in even trying to factor them into the Social Security projections. In its comparison, at several points the article also focuses on the cost of paying for the retirement of the baby boomers. In fact, the vast majority of the projected shortfall in the Social Security funds occurs in years long after the baby boom will have passed into history. The bulk of the projected shortfall is attributable to the fact that the generations that follow the baby boomers are projected to live far longer than people do at present.
All bonds are, by definition, IOUs.
This characterization of the bonds held by the Social Security trust fund seems intended to question the value of these bonds. The article never provides any rationale for the belief that the federal government is likely to default on this portion of its debt. These articles discuss aspects of the current situation in Russia just before a scheduled visit by Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov to the United States. Russia governments had been following International Monetary Fund advice for seven years prior to Primakov taking power. During this period, its economy contracted by approximately 50 percent and its health care and education systems collapsed.