Medicare - It's Sooner, Not Later

"I think we are derelict in our responsibilities to ignore the realities of entitlements. It is impossible to say we are defenders of Medicare & ignore the looming deadline of 11 or 12 years when it is going to be insolvent. We're not defenders. We're basically standing by & watching its demise."  - Illinois Senator Dick Durbin - February, 2013

Senator Durbin has been the Democrat Party's Senate Whip (second-highest ranking senator in the party leadership) since 2005 making him  the longest-serving Senate party whip in U.S. history.  As such he is well aware of the Medicare cash-flow insolvency that is the topic of this post.  Proof of his awareness - On April 23, 2025, twelve years after his above statement warning about Medicare's insolvency in twelve years, Durbin announced he will not seek reelection in 2026, ending his tenure in the Senate. 

Social Security, Medicare, & Medicaid form the cornerstone of the American welfare state.  All three programs are largely transfer programs where current workers' taxes fund current benefits.  Medicare Part B (doctors) was designed by Congress in 1965 to be funded by monthly premiums, adjusted each year, paid by the beneficiary that equaled 50% of the total cost with the other 50% coming from the general treasury.  This 50-50 split held only until 1972 when legislation limited premium increases thereby dropping the beneficiaries share significantly.  Starting in the early 1980s the 25 - 75 split took hold but was not formally & permanently established until the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 set premiums paid by the beneficiaries @ 25% of total Part B costs which is where it has remained ever since.

The last post reported that the Social Security trustees have determined that under current law retirement benefits will be reduced 23% starting in 2033.  The Medicare Trustees' Report for 2025 indicated that the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund would also be depleted by 2033 @ which time Hospital Insurance revenues are projected to cover 89% of incurred program costs.  Dick Durbin anticipated these projections figuring they were too close for comfort so he is getting out of Washington while the getting is good.

The graphic below shows by interpolation that most retirees received lifetime Medicare benefits as of 2025 that exceed the combination of their payroll taxes, employer's matching contribution, & premiums by over $200,000.  An individual would have to earn over $220,000 per year over their entire working career to pay as much into the system as they receive in benefits.  A two-earner household with average earnings retiring in 2020 was estimated to receive $353,000 more in lifetime benefits than they paid in taxes & premiums; this gap is projected to increase to $498,000 for those turning 65 in 2030.

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So what's not to like, except it's unsustainable because the projected growth of Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, & interest on the national debt will shortly exceed expected revenue thereby crowding out all other government programs such as education, infrastructure, & environmental protection - all Democrat party favorites.  Already, in fiscal year 2024 interest paid on the national debt surpassed total U.S. defense spending.  

The graphic below shows the cost distributions & their growth as a percentage of GDP.  Payroll taxes & (income) tax on OASDI (Social Security) benefits fund Medicare Part A Hospital Insurance Trust Fund.  Premiums, state payments & drug fees, & general fund transfers fund Medicare Part B, formal name Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI).  Medicare Part D drugs also are 25% - 75% funded by premiums & general fund transfers respectively.  

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Note - The Medicare Part A Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is partially funded by income tax payments on Social Security benefits (OASDI on the above graphic).  The provision of Trump's OBBBA known as "no Tax on Seniors' Social Security Benefits" accelerates the cash flow insolvency of the  trust fund from 2033 to late 2032.  The OBBBA was enacted after the trustee's report was issued so the report does not include this information which is a classic "pay now or pay later (when I'm out of office)" charade that shows that not only is Trump not working on solving Medicare's solvency problem, his policies are hastening the Trust Fund's demise.

The following excerpts are taken from the Trustees' report:

In 2024, Medicare covered 67.6 million people: 60.3 million aged 65 and older, and 7.3 million disabled. About 50 percent of these beneficiaries have chosen to enroll in Part C private health plans that contract with Medicare to provide Part A and Part B health services. 

The estimated depletion date for the HI trust fund is 2033, 3 years earlier than projected last year primarily due to the change in projected expenditures. 

In 2024, HI income exceeded expenditures by $28.7 billion. The Trustees project that surpluses will continue through 2027, followed by deficits until the trust fund becomes depleted in 2033.  

For HI, the primary financing source is the payroll tax on covered earnings. Employers and employees each pay 1.45 percent of a worker’s wages, while self-employed workers pay 2.9 percent of their net earnings. High-income workers pay an additional 0.9-percent tax on their earnings above an unindexed threshold ($200,000 for single taxpayers and $250,000 for married couples). 

Other HI revenue sources include a portion of the Federal income taxes that Social Security recipients with incomes above certain unindexed thresholds pay on their benefits, as well as interest earned on the securities held in the HI trust fund. For SMI, transfers from the general fund of the Treasury represent the largest source of income. The transfers covered about 71 percent of program costs in 2024. Also, beneficiaries pay monthly premiums for Parts B and D. Those premiums financed roughly 23 percent of the total cost in 2024. As with HI, the securities held in the SMI trust fund earn interest. 

Despite the significant differences in benefit provisions and financing, the two components of Medicare are closely related. HI and SMI operate in an interdependent health care system. Most Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in HI and SMI Parts B and D, and many receive services from all three. 

Figure II.D1 shows projected costs as a percentage of GDP. Medicare expenditures represented 3.8 percent of GDP in 2024 and will increase to 6.2 percent of GDP by 2049.

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Over the past 20 years, the HI trust fund experienced various periods of surpluses and deficits. Expenditures exceeded income each year from 2008 through 2015. However, in 2016 and 2017, there were fund surpluses amounting to $5.4 billion and $2.8 billion, respectively. In 2018, 2019, and 2020, expenditures again exceeded income, with trust fund deficits of $1.6 billion, $5.8 billion, and $60.4 billion, respectively. The large deficit in 2020 was mostly due to accelerated and advance payments to providers from the trust fund. In 2021, there was a small surplus of $8.5 billion as these payments began to be repaid to the trust fund, and this continued repayment resulted in a larger surplus in 2022 of $53.9 billion. In 2023 and 2024 there were surpluses of $12.2 billion and $28.7 billion, respectively. 

Fund surpluses will continue through 2027. Deficits are projected to return in 2028 and persist for the remainder of the projection period, requiring redemption of trust fund assets until the trust fund’s depletion in 2033. 

 Under the intermediate assumptions, after 2025 the assets of the HI trust fund would steadily decrease as a percentage of annual expenditures throughout the remainder of the short-range projection period, as illustrated in figure II.E1. The ratio declines until the fund is depleted in 2033, 3 years earlier than projected last year.

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There is substantial uncertainty in the economic, demographic, and health care projection factors for HI trust fund expenditures and revenues. Accordingly, the date of HI trust fund depletion could differ substantially in either direction from the 2033 intermediate estimate. As shown in greater detail in section III.B, trust fund assets would increase throughout the entire projection period under the low-cost assumptions. However, under the high-cost assumptions, asset depletion would occur in 2029.

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This post regarding Medicare & the last post regarding Social Security portrayed the fragility of both programs' financial conditions & in particular their impending cash flow insolvencies that should project the matter into the 2028 presidential race.  Imagine being responsible for 11% of a six figure hospital bill (or bills), or people, whose only income is Social Security monthly payments,​ trying to exist after double digit benefit cuts.  These conditions, for both programs, have been known by our temporary politicians for this entire century as Senator Durbin acknowledges above.

How unkind is it for our elected reps to continue​ building this house of cards until ​it is too late to not hurt anybody?  It is the elderly & people over 55 who are dependent on these programs who will be hurt the most when the programs ​give way.  Just what will these people do then?

But both many well-meaning people & duplicitous elected representatives say, without evidence, that the American people deserve better.

​Reference Post:  Premium Support Phase-In Leads To The Solution To America's Healthcare Cost Problems

Social Security - It's Sooner, Not Later

Long time readers of RTE will remember the graphic below that I have posted several times over the years.  Its far-seeing accuracy has been a guide to the few who recognized the danger & took appropriate steps in their own personal finances because sometime in the 2030s mandatory spending will exceed government revenues.

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Long term readers will also remember the graphic below that is updated every year in the Social Security Trustees Report with the latest being for 2025.  The Trustee's report presents the current & projected financial status of the Social Security retirement & survivors trust fund: "The OASI Trust Fund (i.e., - old-age & survivors insurance) reserves are projected to become depleted in 2033, at which time OASI income would be sufficient to pay 77 percent of OASI scheduled benefits."   DI stands for disability insurance on the graphic - a separate account from retirement & survivors benefits.  OASDI stands for the formal name of the U.S. Social Security program: Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance.

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This type of warning has been made available to eligible beneficiaries for decades either online with a reminder to review your "Social Security Statement" online three months before your birthday or mailed to people over 60 who do not have an online account.  Yet I have never met a TV or radio host on any program I have been on or any attendee @ one of my FairTax seminars who was aware of this. 

The nearness of the shortfall should project the matter into the 2028 presidential race.  But Trump, Congress, & Biden continued to not only not address the problem but in 2025 made it worse.

First, Congress passed & Biden signed the Social Security & Fairness Act of 2023 on January 5, 2025.  This law repeals the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset, which reduced or eliminated the Social Security benefits of individuals receiving a pension based on work that was not covered by Social Security.  Therefore, implementation of this law increases Social Security benefits for people who worked in jobs that were not covered by Social Security thereby contributing to the acceleration of the depletion of the OASI Trust Fund.  

Second & more recently Trump promoted & signed into law the OBBBA that included a new senior deduction meant to represent no tax on Social Security benefits for tax years 2025 through 2028 (Trump's current term).  Total revenue generated from income taxes on Social Security benefits totaled $54.4 billion in 2024.  Trump's no tax on Social Security pledge will take money away from this total thereby exacerbating the poor condition of Social Security's finances.   It was estimated by the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration's Office after the Trustee's report was issued & the OBBBA was signed into law that the "No Tax on Seniors' Social Security Benefits" provision of the OBBBA accelerates the cash flow insolvency of the Social Security Trust Fund from 2033 to late 2032.   This is a classic "pay now or pay later (when I'm out of office)" charade that shows that not only is Trump not working on solving Social Security's solvency problem, his policies are hastening the Trust Fund's demise.

Since Trump has made it clear that he will not touch Social Security (other than no tax on benefits) this means that the United States will sooner, not later, need Congress & the 2029 or 2033 new president to take appropriate action.  The following graphic shows the net present value of Social Security's unfunded obligations over the long range projection of the program with the zero line crossed in 2033. 

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The following graphic shows the urgency of the problem even clearer in that the minimum level for the test of short-range financial adequacy is breached in 2028 - the year before the next president takes office.  Notice the graphic is for the hypothetical  "OASI & DI Combined Trust Funds."  The OASI Trust Fund, taken by itself, declines to 89% by the beginning of 2029 & remains below100% for the remainder of the short-term period, until reserves become depleted in the first quarter of 2033.  Therefore, OASI fails the test of short-range financial adequacy.

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The graphic below shows the financial dynamics that will be encountered when the Trust Funds are depleted if no action is taken by Congress.

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The above graphics tell the story that you need to know for yourself if you are near or already participating in Social Security.  But also your adult children trying to raise a family or your young children & grandchildren all of whom will be affected by the facts in the Trustee's report starting in the very near future & then staying in play for the rest of their lives too.  We are all in the same boat regardless of current age.

In addition to the above graphics, I present the following narrative directly from the Trustee's report that further explains the information shown on the graphics:

The OASDI program was providing benefit payments to about 68 million people at the end of 2024:

- 54 million retired workers & dependents of retired workers

- 6 million survivors of deceased workers, & 

- 8 million disabled workers & dependents of disabled workers.

During the year, an estimated 184 million people had earnings covered by Social Security and paid payroll taxes on those earnings. Total program cost in 2024 was $1,485 billion. Total income was $1,418 billion, which consisted of $1,349 billion in non-interest income and $69 billion in interest earnings. Trust fund reserves held in special issue U.S. Treasury securities declined from $2,788 billion at the beginning of the year to $2,721 billion at the end of the year. 

Under the Trustees’ intermediate assumptions, Social Security’s total cost is projected to be higher than its total income in 2025 and all later years. Total cost began to be higher than total income in 2021. Social Security’s cost has exceeded its non-interest income since 2010. 

Considered separately, the OASI Trust Fund fails the test of short-range financial adequacy, but the DI Trust Fund satisfies the test. The OASI reserves are projected to become depleted during 2033 under the intermediate assumptions. The DI reserves along with projected program income are sufficient to cover projected program cost over the next 10 years.

Expressed in present-value dollars discounted to January 1, 2025, the open-group unfunded obligation for OASDI is $25.1 trillion over the 75-year projection period 2025-99. This is $2.5 trillion more than the measured level in last year’s report of $22.6 trillion over 2024-98, discounted to January 1, 2024. 

The actuarial deficit increased significantly in this year’s report primarily due to: (1) the implementation of the Social Security Fairness Act, (2) the extension in the assumed year the ultimate total fertility rate is reached, and (3) the reduction in the ultimate assumption for the ratio of total labor compensation to GDP. These changes are described in detail in section IV.B.6 of the report.

To illustrate the magnitude of the 75-year actuarial deficit, consider that for the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds to remain fully solvent throughout the 75-year projection period ending in 2099: 

• revenue would have to increase by an amount equivalent to an immediate and permanent payroll tax rate increase of 3.65 percentage points to 16.05 percent beginning in January 2025; 

• scheduled benefits would have to either be reduced by an amount equivalent to an immediate and permanent reduction of 22.4 percent applied to all current and future beneficiaries effective in January 2025, or by 26.8 percent if the reductions were applied only to those who become initially eligible for benefits in 2025 or later; or 

• some combination of these approaches would have to be adopted

If substantial actions are deferred for several years, the changes necessary to maintain solvency for the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds would be concentrated on fewer years and fewer generations. Significantly larger changes would be necessary if action is deferred until the combined trust fund reserves become depleted in 2034. For example, maintaining 75-year solvency through 2099 with changes that begin in 2034 would require: 

• an increase in revenue by an amount equivalent to a permanent 4.27 percentage point payroll tax rate increase to 16.67 percent starting in 2034, 

• a reduction in scheduled benefits by an amount equivalent to a permanent 25.8 percent reduction in all benefits starting in 2034, or 

• some combination of these approaches

* * *

The unfunded obligations described in the Trustee's report came about due to substantial demographic shifts that saw the number of workers per beneficiary fall from 16.5 in 1950 to 2.7 in 2024 with continuous declines projected as lower-birth-rate generations replace workers of the baby-boom generation.  The ratio of workers to beneficiaries reaches 2.3 in 2040, when the baby-boom generation will have largely retired, & will generally decline thereafter to about 2.0 due to increasing longevity.

The unfunded obligations came about because of the demographics detailed above - but these unfunded obligations were caused by an oblivious citizenry that let short term politicians tell them they would never let anyone touch their Social Security benefits.  The demographics are a natural phenomenon.  The politicians are master manipulators who just hope to be out of office when their constituents realize the imminence of one of the painful solutions detailed in the report falls on them either as an unsuspecting senior citizen ripe for benefit cuts or as a worker who will see their Social Security payroll tax rate increase over 34% applied to every dollar up to $184,500 in 2026, such sum increasing thereafter. 

In addition to increased payroll taxes the unfunded obligations will be paid by today's children in the form of a markedly decreased standard of living such as the inability to buy a house or inability to send their kids to college - we are off to a terrible start regarding both of them already.  There is no leadership in either party willing to solve our problems.  Democrats are more interested in funding boondoggles like the Green New Deal where sea levels might increase millimeters during the next 100 years rather than strengthen Social Security which will have the problems described above become more noticed during the next presidential election.  Republican Members of Congress are only too happy to take marching orders from Trump whose political career should end @ age 82 in three years leaving these poor fools holding more than one bag.

In answer to the charge that Congress needs to work together better, the late Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn said that Congress is working together way too well – that is why the country's financial problems are not being solved as described above.  In essence we have One Big Government party with Democrat & Republican wings whose jobs are so rosy Members have to be carried out of office on a stretcher.

Every politician knows that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, other entitlements, & interest on the national debt comprises @ least two thirds of the federal budget.  And yet every congressional charade @ financial responsibility focuses on cutting the remaining one third as if therein lies the problem.  And even this pretend effort never really cuts anything in the here & now but rather slows increases on future spending that still increases.

There are tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded entitlement obligations that never appear on the government's balance sheet but these are liabilities just like the national debt.  Although the national debt & unfunded obligations are distinct financial concepts, they are cumulative with each adding to the government's total liabilities.  The national debt represents money the government borrowed in the past & owes with interest to its creditors, while unfunded obligations are projections of future financial commitments for which there are insufficient assets or dedicated future revenue to cover the promised benefits.  According to Professor Alexander William Salter of Texas Tech University the present-value costs of these liabilities range between $100 & $200 trillion - equal to one to two times the world's GDP.

This bill will start to come due in 2033 when the unfunded obligations are accounted for by large payroll tax increases or real cuts in benefits.  The burden will not ease on all of us, one way or another, until it is paid off.

The Social Security problem has worsened from long term neglect by the politicians & indifference by We the People of the United States for decades, thereby showing it is getting harder by the day to find people who understand the issues they are fighting for or should be fighting against.

Reference Post - The Solution To Social Security's Funding Problem

Affordability Part B - The Underlying Forces & Sequence Of Events

In the last post I described how a significant portion of the population is plagued by an affordability crisis centered on grocery prices, housing costs, healthcare premiums, & cost of living participation rates that raise the poverty level above the median household income.  This post identifies the underlying forces that made the affordability crisis happen as well as the sequence of events that show how it happened.

Please look @ the green line on the graphic below, depicting the real median male earnings in 2024 dollars, from the September, 2025 U.S. Census Bureau report entitled Income & Poverty in the United States: 2024.

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You'll notice that the green line is on a steady upward trajectory from 1960 through 1973 when it flattens out for the next 51 years.  Annual inflation for the six years from 1960 through1965, under Eisenhower but mostly under the JFK presidency or its supply side economic influence, was well under control averaging 1.3%.  

But LBJ's Great Society got under way in 1965 with landmark government spending healthcare laws - Medicare for seniors & Medicaid for the poor - followed by Nixon's easy money policies so that for the period 1966 to 1972 inflation started to pick up averaging 4.1% annually.  In 1971 Nixon implemented a 90-day freeze on all wages, prices, rents (54 years before Mamdani), & salaries; announced a Keynesian type government spending plan to stimulate the economy; & worst of all on Sunday August 15, 1971 took America off the gold standard including refusing to exchange 35 paper dollar bills for a troy ounce of gold. The Federal Reserve increased the growth of the M2 money supply by 79% from 1970 to the period 1971 & 1972 (7.3% growth in 1970 to 13.2 average growth of 1971 & 1972).

Couple all of the above self inflicted selfish political Death Of Democracy government dependency moves, that are in direct opposition to our founding principles, with food shortages, government spending on the Vietnam War, two OPEC oil embargoes that led to lines of cars around the block to get gasoline, & the inept Jimmy Carter presidency, & it should be no surprise that CPI inflation went from 6.2% in 1973 to 11.1% in 1974 & 13.5% in 1980.  It was in the 1970s that America learned the term "stagflation" where the Phillips Curve was turned on its head when inflation & unemployment simultaneously moved higher & we suffered under the misery index. 

The deterioration in the dollar's purchasing power today compared to the early 1970s is displayed by the government exchanging one troy ounce of gold for $35 in 1970 to gold trading on the COMEX, LBMA, & SGE markets starting on October 7, 2025 @ over $4,000 for that same troy ounce of gold & less than four months later @ over $5,000.  The dollar's value over this period as defined by the price of gold has dropped by 99.3%.  Talk about affordability!

All of the above problems to our economy occurred under an income tax system & a Federal Reserve central banking system, both of which were created in 1913, as well as FDR's two New Deals from 1933 to 1938 from which the Cato Institute has identified the derivation, either directly or indirectly, of 126 welfare programs in effect today.  The Great Society & ObamaCare followed suit.

The income tax system has damaged America because it taxes work, savings, & investment & as such is the basis of so many ill-advised incentives that have nothing to do with our prosperity except for destroying it.

The dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power to inflation since 1913 when the Fed's two original goals were to be "a lender of last resort" for the nation's lending institutions & to preserve the value of the dollar.  Testimony of the Fed's failure - it takes $33.07 today to buy what $1.00 did in 1913. 

Since January, 2012 I have offered solutions to four of our intractable problems that are unsustainable.  Namely, 1) replace the Medicare plan with one of premium support to buy private insurance using a nominal dollar demogrant, unadjusted for inflation, for people younger than 55, 2) change the basis for the initial Social Security benefit to the CPI instead of the national average wage index to ensure that benefits do not grow faster than the cost of living, 3) cut, cap & balance federal spending @ 18% of GDP, & 4) replace the federal income tax & IRS with the FairTax Plan.    Implementing any one of these four would do wonders for changing the government dependent mindset that effectively is a bureaucratic anchor that separates us from our founding principles of limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise.  These four are long term solutions needed to reset America's sail before we completely go adrift.

We can see the importance of having a stable currency from the above history of what set up our latest chapter of economic trouble - affordability.    Alexander Hamilton laid a solid foundation for the gold standard & the following graphic summarizes the main sound dollar points of this post.  Notice the flat line for low CPI growth from 1800 into the 1960s that starts to dramatically increase in the early 1970s as described above. 

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Inflation averaged 0.2% a year from 1790 to 1913 when the Fed was created.  From 1914 to 1971, under the Fed managed gold standard, inflation averaged 2.7% per year, & from 1972 to 2025 it averaged 3.9%.  At 0.2% annual inflation it would take 348 years for prices to double.  Now that's stability! 

In 1913 the United States was the wealthiest country in the world.  Since then the government has become much more involved in everything we do & I'm only talking economically in this post.  I leave personal pronoun selections & the like to others.

Almost unbelievably, the Fed has the conceit to think it can manage & control the monetary system of the $30 trillion United States economy, let alone do this still using the discredited Keynes' ideas that led to the Phillips curve inverse relationship between unemployment & inflation.  This despite the stagflation lesson of the 1970s that proved unemployment & inflation can both move in the same direction - in that case higher.  Shouldn't we have long ago questioned an inflation fighting model that deliberately slows growth & raises unemployment?  Reaganomics proved that growth is good & not inflationary.  

The effective way to cure inflation is to stabilize the value of the dollar by linking it to gold.  Returning the dollar to a gold standard system can be started by the President placing a phone call to the Treasury Secretary to initiate discussions with central banks on stabilizing the price of gold, even around broad bands much like Fed Chairmen Volcker & Greenspan did from early in Volcker's term to 2006 in what was essentially a de facto gold standard.  These men focused on the value of the currency & not just the quantity of money alone.  To stabilize & support the value of our money from sliding lower, the government should publicly state their intention to do so followed by the affirmative action of shrinking the monetary base - the most liquid component of the money supply consisting of the total amount of currency in circulation plus the reserves held by commercial banks in their accounts at the central bank.  This is done by selling government bonds in exchange for domestic currency through open market operations & letting these markets determine the level of interest rates after dollar stabilization.  The Fed will no longer set interest rates.  This type of gold standard would assure investors who lend money to other people that they will get sound money back 10, 20, 30 years later with the same purchasing power as the money they originally lent.  Sources - Inflation by Steve Forbes, Nathan Lewis, & Elizabeth Ames pages 79 to 85 & Wall Street Week transcript Hey Jude (Wanniski) - November 13, 1981.

The above information & information from the last post shows the events (including current events concerning the Fed's operations) that cumulatively produced the affordability issue distressing the American consumer today as well as the reasons the American worker, especially those with limited education, should be petrified of AI.  AI is directly aimed @ replacing these people in the workforce.

 

All inflation is made in Washington & the current manmade unaffordability humiliating blunder came right out of the pandemic era government programs that flooded the nation's money supply with direct deposits & personal checks to 175 million Americans. 

But the most bitter pill to swallow comes when we find out we were once on track to completely avoid this affordability mishap - Using Table A-7 of the above referenced Census Bureau's income & poverty report, the growth in real median annual earnings for men for the 13 years from 1960 through 1973 was $19,550 in 2024 constant dollars.  The growth for the next 51 years was only $4,960 in constant 2024 dollars.  Had the growth in income continued @ the same rate as the period 1960 to 1973 to the present I calculate that the typical male worker would today be making $275,569 per year thereby not only precluding the affordability crisis from ever happening but bringing about a prosperity far greater than we have ever realized.

Does this calculation of enhanced prosperity quantify how much we have been cheated out of?  I used to feel that way, but have come to realize it is just another shameful example of what we have let happen to ourselves.