The question really much more difficult than it appears at first glance.
Let’s start with “your share.” I can see several definitions for that;
1: Your share is whatever the government says it is.
2: Your share is the net between the “services” the government renders on your behalf minus your payments over the course of your lifetime.
3: Your share is the cost of the services you actually consume minus your payments.
4: Your share is the cost of the services you would actually consume given a choice minus what you are forced to pay. After all, you would not ask me what “your share” of the purple pig that I put on your lawn is if you didn’t — you know — actually want a purple pig. Whether all of your neighbors agreed that you needed one or not would be irrelevant.
5: Does your share take into account the debt run up by previous generations that you had absolutely no part in and were never given the chance to vote upon when they were incurred? Or is your share the unfunded obligations the government commits to in your lifetime even if you don’t survive long enough to see them paid?
6: Is your share the current debt divided by the number of citizens? Or by the number of heads of household? Or by the number of people employed? Are the number of citizens counted when the debt is incurred or when it is paid? Do you count illegal aliens? The indigent? Handicapped? Do you do your accounting honestly or by the current method? Do your dependents count on your bill or someone else’s?
I am sure there are many more definitions that you can come up with but it is fair to say it is far from a simple issue.
But aside from all of that, the OP seems to ask a second question in that he states he wants something to store up against “the future reckoning” as if there is some safe haven where the government cannot reach — some chit that he can wave and say, “See, I did my part” and they will then pat him on the back and leave him alone. Or perhaps he is implying that he is concerned about protecting his personal wealth which is entirely different than worrying about the government’s ability to pay its debts.
I could see that being the case since one of the chief ways government pays for its debts is to devalue the currency — normally through inflation — and this would seem to underpin the rationale behind the word “reckoning.” With the treasury currently printing money to buy the government’s own notes this may be what the OP is driving at. The effect of inflation is that it makes each dollar of debt worth less. Unfortunately, it also does the same for savings so that the effect is that saving is punished and indebtedness is rewarded. It is a way the government can sneak in the backdoor and confiscate huge amounts of wealth without actually having to bother sending anyone out to collect it. All they need is a printing press and a monopoly on force.
Typically what happens is that the government then has to pay a higher interest rate on any future debt it issues to make up for the fact that everyone catches on to what they are doing. That is, no one will lend them money at 5% when inflation is running at 10%. The value of previous 5% bonds falls until the interest they are paying in fixed dollars is equal to 10% or better on the open market.
That is one of the reasons the Treasury is buying bonds now — to artificially keep the interest rates low because there aren’t enough private or foreign buyers — and to pump up the debt bubble that is our economy. Eventually it will pop again because it is all artificial… just like all of those mortgages the government guaranteed were artificial They only existed because the government was willing to underwrite people who could not pay for an actual mortgage that a bank would issue sans the guarantee. It is not a situation that could have existed to any extent in an actual marketplace. Inevitably the bill came due.
So if this is what the OP meant then how does he protect himself? Usually people convert their assets to things that are tangible and will have value in the widest array of circumstances. Gold is traditional but there are other commodities and precious metals. The government also issues what are called TIPS, which are inflation protected securities. The interest rate on these is tied to the CPI so it rises with inflation and even if we experience deflation there is a minimum rate that they will pay so theoretically your investment will not be worth less short of a default (another alternative to the government paying its debt). The downside to these is that after taxes and inflation you are guaranteed a loss. This doesn’t account for the undercounting of inflation that the government arguably engages in.
So in short, there is no sure place to hide. The game is rigged — and you can’t refuse to play.
On the bright side, you did very well if you invested in bullet manufacturers after the crash. Which is hard to understand since we are each only going to need — one.:smack:
(Assuming that you’re not being taxed a higher amount than ‘the average citizen’, but that’s another story…)
