ENRON WAS FOR PIKERS (CONT'D):

The federal government's long-term financial obligations grew by $2.5 trillion last year, a reflection of the mushrooming cost of Medicare and Social Security benefits as more baby boomers reach retirement.

That's double the red ink of a year earlier.

Taxpayers are on the hook for a record $57.3 trillion in federal liabilities to cover the lifetime benefits of everyone eligible for Medicare, Social Security and other government programs, a USA TODAY analysis found. That's nearly $500,000 per household. . . . The reason for the discrepancy: Accounting standards require corporations and state governments to count new financial obligations, even if the payments will be made later. The federal government doesn't follow that rule.

If it did, it would be harder to promise voters a free lunch! Plus, the actuarial assumptions on which many government pension systems are based are likely bogus. You'd better be saving for your own retirement, because Social Security, etc., isn't likely to deliver. And that's just the beginning of the bad news, I'm afraid. Meanwhile, a reader who probably doesn't want me to use his name emails:

I am GC for a private company with a legacy UK pension plan. Since I joined the company in December 2001 the pension plan has been the number one non-operational issue for the company. This experience has left me absolutely frightened of what is going to happen to municipalities in the US. The most basic concepts relating to pension funding assumptions are likely beyond the grasp of most city council members. Some of these issues:

- Since 2000, the S&P 500 has been essentially flat. If your pension scheme has 50% of its assets in equities (fairly typical) and presumed equities would earn a 10% return (unrealistic, but probably not uncommon for these pension funds) your scheme likely has less than 75% of the assets that were projected in 2000.

- These pension funds likely are using early 1980s mortality tables. If updated to current mortality rates, the liabilities will increase anywhere from 10-20% (recognizing that a 2 year increase in life expectancy is at least a 10% increase in the length of time a person earns a pension).

These two items alone could mean that a pension plan that was thought to be fully funded in 2000 is, at best, 60%-70% funded today. Investments alone will never recover these type of funding deficits. These deficits will disappear only if (i) the municipalities file for bankruptcy, or (ii) there are massive tax increases.

Realistically, I think we'll see drastic benefit cuts, one way or another.

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: Is Obama Jimmy Carter?

Ezra Klein: No, he's Bill Clinton.

MEN IN HIGHER EDUCATION:

Thomas Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, didn’t question the specific numbers in the report or the idea that both male and female students can succeed at the same time. “Women have made huge progress in education over the last six decades,” he said. “The success of women is a great story — it shows what we can do when we set our minds to task.”

But he said that in 1970, when he started his career in higher education policy analysis, there were 1.5 million more men than women in higher education and “I recall vividly that women complained that this was a crisis. Now there are 2.7 million more women than men in higher education and the feminists assert that this is not a crisis. What am I missing here?”

He noted the hugely disproportionate rates of suicide among men who are 25 to 34, and of incarceration, and asked how this could be anything but a crisis.

“The hypocrisy of the feminists — AAUW being a major part of this — astounds me,” Mortenson said. “The fact is male lives are falling apart at the growing margins of male welfare, and the utter failure of the education system to address male needs on male terms is indeed a crisis. We have shown what the education system can do for women when we set our minds to it.

Meanwhile, Tom Maguire drills down. And I touched on the subject at some length a while back.

HAVE FUN STORMING THE CASTLE:

THE STRANGER: Way To Not Look Like Crazy Cult Members, Guys.

SMART, SAVVY supernatural thrillers. Just in time for the beach. It's like they planned it this way.

IT'S NOT OVER: Clinton may take delegate fight to convention.

Plus, this: Clinton compares the Florida and Michigan fight to civil rights movement.

ANN ALTHOUSE ON "The absolutely insane talk of Obama promising Hillary Clinton the next seat on the Supreme Court."

CJR: Press Declares Victory, Even if Obama Won't.

JOURNALISTIC ETHICS: "Does the New York Times leverage access to campaign events through threats of negative news articles? According to one source at the McCain campaign, the answer is yes ."

RICH LOWRY:

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