This is an interesting piece, but not because of the root numbers in it.

In 1940, entitlement payments, which include everything from disability payments to Social Security to Medicare, amounted to just over 20% of annual government spending in the United States.

Today, entitlement spending has swelled to nearly 70% of the annual federal budget.

Things are about to get a whole lot more complicated. The 20-year baby boom that took place after World War II is now beginning to result in a retiree boom.

For context, Druckenmiller points out that in 2030, the average age of an American citizen will be older than the average age of a resident of Florida today.

This demographic trend is going to create an entitlement spending catastrophe.

It doesn't have to, and the root of it isn't "entitlement spending", in the main.

Let's think this one through.

Social Security is funded by a "one in 8" tax, basically.  That is, about one dollar of every $8 you earn up to a given cap is confiscated before you ever see it.  You think it's half that, but it's not because the other half is paid "by your employer" and this fiction is maintained so you don't revolt.

However, your offered wage is reduced by that amount -- guaranteed.

So let's assume that we have a 2.5:1 ratio as is put forward.  That sounds horrifying, except that it's a temporary problem (it lasts 20 years, roughly), and then everyone involved in "causing" it is dead.  Further, there will be some that will "file late" for Social Security in an attempt to get more -- a strategy that only works if you live a very long time in terms of total funds, and lose their bet because they will die before the break-even is reached.  In fact, actuaries don't care if you make this bet because they know that on balance while some will win, some will also lose and it will all even out.

No, the problem here is not the "one in 7.5" tax for Social Security.  It is the one in 34 rate assessed for Medicare.

To put not too fine a point on it, Medicare and Medicaid (combined) are roughly double the outlay of Social Security and yet they are funded at a rate of less than 1/4 that of Social Security via taxation.

Further, Social Security outlays are indexed to alleged inflation, which is intentionally machined to show smaller than real figures, and thus there is a built in depression of Social Security obligations in real terms, especially over long (20, 30, 40+ year) timeframes.

Social Security itself is unlikely to go broke.  If it does "run out of money" 30 years hence there will be some reduction in benefits, but remember that even a 1% inflation "miss" against reality over 30 years turns into a 35% reduction in real expense.  In other words the "you'll only get 70% of your promised amounts" out of Social Security claims are probably dead wrong; you'll get the entire amount but it will be short in purchasing power by 30%.

The disability fund is another matter; that's bankrupt now and politicians have been stealing from the retirement fund for a while to cover it up.

On the other hand Medicare and Medicaid spending is going up at a radical rate compared to inflation, government-stated or not.  How bad is this?

Fiscal Year 2005, for example, spent a total of $652 billion.

Fiscal Year 2015 spent a total of $1,297 billion, or close to a clean double in 10 years.

This was not mostly-centered in Medicare -- that is, retirees.  Medicaid went from $182 billion to $349 billion, damn close to a double standing alone.  In other words it was across-the-board in all age groups served.

That's a 7.2% growth rate which far exceeds alleged inflation -- inflation allegedly was up 20% over the same 10 years, or an annual rate of about 1.8%.

In other words that segment of the economy as spent by the government went up at a rate four times that of general prices.

Need I remind you what happens any time two exponential growth curves have a different growth rate?  Go look at Leverage; there's a damn good reason that this is covered in the front of the book because if you don't understand and deal with it nothing else matters.

This, and only this, is the cause of all of the federal debt expansion, pension fund problems both private and public and the detonation that will occur in the federal budget and forward liabilities unless it is stopped and reversed.

Note carefully that we spend as a nation roughly double as a percentage of GDP what other developed, G20 nations spend on health care -- and virtually all of those other nations have socialized medical systems.

Socialism is always less-efficient than capitalism because there is no reward for innovation in a socialist system; you cannot take market share from someone else since market share is not a function of market success or failure.

This, in turn, means we're definitely overpaying by more than twice for medical care; we are in fact probably overpaying by as much as 80% across-the-board.

It is not hard at all to find examples of people being billed 10 or even 100x a price in another nation for a given thing.  It is cheaper for me to fly to Narita, Japan, round-trip, and have an MRI done there by more than 50% than the average amount charged for the same scan here in the United States.

While you can in some cases get that scan done for a few hundred bucks here they're all $200 or so in Japan, and most people grossly overpay here in the US.  Why?  Because of various practices that all amount to consumer deception, extortion, price-fixing or all of the above -- all acts that are supposed to be crimes.

Let's say you go to the ER "in-network" on your alleged health insurance.  While there some doctor sees you.  He isn't in your network and you get a bill for hundreds or thousands from him.  The hospital administrator should be imprisoned for allowing this along with the doctor who did it; you neither consented to such a bill nor in many cases had any ability to refuse, but the administrator could have required that said doctor be "in network" to be there or if not that he take the same reimbursement rate as if he was.  He didn't and thus they both took advantage of your "in extremis" situation to bilk you.  That's supposed to be illegal as a matter of general consumer protection yet not one person has gone to prison for it -- ever -- that I can find a record of.

Drug companies set prices by nation based on various things, including GDP and what they think their drug is "worth" in terms of your life or health.  It's illegal to restrain trade (15 USC, Sherman, Clayton and Robinson-Patman) yet that's exactly what they do, with the help of the Federal Government, in that if you get on a plane and buy a suitcase full of some drug at a much cheaper price to try to bring it back and both make a profit while dropping the cost here in the United States it is you rather than they who will go to prison.

It is virtually impossible to get a binding quote on a procedure from nearly all medical facilities in advance.  The notable exception are places like The Surgery Center of Oklahoma, which posts "all-in" prices.  I note that said prices are typically one third to one fifth of what is charged in hospitals that don't post prices, including hospitals in the same general area of the country.  Gee, I wonder why, and then one wonders why there haven't been thousands of criminal indictments and lawsuits alleging racketeering and extortion filed against the administrators and doctors in all the other hospitals.

Here's the reality folks, and it's a matter of arithmetic, not politics:

If we stop this right now the Federal Government would immediately and permanently run a roughly $400 billion a year surplus.  In other words your purchasing power would go up rather than down every year and the federal debt would slowly be retired at a rate of about a trillion dollars every three years.

In addition the "entitlement bomb" being discussed in the linked article would instantly and permanently disappear.  It simply would not exist; the short-term stress on Social Security would be manageable without material changes to the program due to the inherent understatement of inflation in the CPI used to link benefits and over the longer, indefinite time horizon the program remains stable.

Finally, were we to stop this keeping the Medicare impact on Seniors as it is today would allow Medicare to almost entirely disappear.  The reason is that Medicare is an 80/20 program; if the base cost of medical care decreases by 80% (and if we only equal the socialist nations it would fall by 50%; we can do better than that with capitalism) then exactly zero needs to be spent for the cost to an actual Senior to remain the same.  However, since we did promise such an 80/20 program keeping that promise is not an irrational act and thus some spending (about 1/8th to 1/5th of what it is now) would remain.  Likewise, Medicaid is currently basically-zero cost for beneficiaries; if the cost of care drops by the expected amount we might well be able to get rid of many of the beneficiaries entirely since they would be able to afford to pay cash.

FISCALLY SPEAKING THE ENTIRE PROBLEM RESTS HERE -- AND NOWHERE ELSE.  IF WE FIX THIS WE NOT ONLY ARE OK AS A NATION FROM A FISCAL PERSPECTIVE WE PROSPER.  IF WE DO NOT FIX THIS AS A NATION WE FISCALLY (AND PROBABLY POLITICALLY) DIE.

THIS IS NOT POLITICS, IT IS ARITHMETIC.  ARGUING OVER OTHER MATTERS WHEN IT COMES TO OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM, UNTIL THIS IS ADDRESSED, IS STUPID AND SERVES ONLY TO PROTECT THOSE WHO ARE CURRENTLY ROBBING YOU BLIND -- LITERALLY.

INSTEAD WE SHOULD BE DRAWING UP LISTS OF PEOPLE AND FIRMS TO BE INDICTED AND IMPRISONED.  AFTER JUST THE FIRST FEW WERE SERVED THIS ENTIRE EDIFICE OF FRAUD WOULD COLLAPSE IN UPON ITSELF AND PRICES WOULD FALL LIKE A STONE.

WE EITHER DEMAND AND ENFORCE THIS NOW OR NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.