PIMCO guru: The bad news is that the bad news is worse

Bill Gross, head of the influential investment firm PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company), yesterday (Monday, June 13) rattled world financial analysts, as he reached a new level of gloom in his look at total U.S. debt. 

He has now projected U.S. taxpayer unfunded liabilities at $100 trillion. Such international estimates are echoed in several quarters, including among Oklahoma analysts who put unfunded state debt at billions more than recent estimates. 


Gross gave his $100 trillion estimate in an interview with CNBC, and in an online story by Jeff Cox. While the official U.S. debt is $14.3 trillion, guarantees for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security drive the sum closer to $50 trillion, Cox reported. 

But, Gross says, when you blend in all other unfunded debts, including those associated with the financial bailouts of 2008-09, the total is “nearly $100 trillion.” 

Gross told CNBC, “”To think that we can reduce that within the space of a year or two is not a realistic assumption. That’s much more than Greece, that’s much more than almost any other developed country. We’ve got a problem and we have to get after it quickly.”

Last week, USA Today provoked nationwide discussion when reporter Dennis Cauchon placed unfunded national debt at $62 trillion.
 
Sheila Weinberg of the Institute for Truth in Accounting, put the total debt at $75.4 trillion at about 8 p.m. Central Standard Time on Monday, June 13. 

Scattered analysts, such as those at the New America Foundation chide the increasingly gloomy debt projections.