Does anyone remember when Al Gore talked about the social security lock box?  The lock box got opened recently.  Well, it isn't really a lock box, but a set of filing cabinets.  And while it was projected that social security would be bringing in more than it paid out for several years to come, the economy has fast forwarded us to the time when more is going out in social security payments than is coming in.

So what was inside?  Loads of cash to help social security?  Nope!  The lock box held nothing but binders full of IOUs.  $2.5 Trillion worth.  For decades our Presidents and Congress have been borrowing the surplus money in social security to minimize the amount which the government has to borrow from other countries.  Now it is time to start paying it all back.  So at a time at which our Federal Government is running record setting deficits, it now needs to borrow even more from abroad to pay back social security.  Even with the government paying back the IOUs - which may be iffy if it cannot contain spending - social security is now projected to run out of money in 2037.  (27 years may sound like a lot, but that is before anyone 40 or under will be able to require with full social security benefits).

This is a financial train wreck that is happening in slow motion.  One only need to look around at our own neighborhoods to see the consequences of reckless spending.   While we are in a deep mess, the first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to quit digging.  If we start making hard decisions today, we have a chance of escaping a complete meltdown that will make Fall of 2008 look like an economic boom.  If we keep trying to fix our economy by borrowing from our children and adding mounds of government regulations on businesses - we will be getting a foreclosure notice signed by Japan and China.