Scott Burns – författare

How to avoid a fiscal crisis in the next generation— and how to protect yourself if the government acts too late: policy recommendations and individual strategies to protect against skyrocketing tax rates, drastically reduced health and retirement benefits, high inflation, and a ruined currency.

In 2030, as 77 million baby boomers hobble into old age, walkers will outnumber strollers; there will be twice as many retirees as there are today but only 18 percent more workers. How will America handle this demographic overload? How will Social Security and Medicare function with fewer working taxpayers to support these programs? According to Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, if our government continues on the course it has set, we''ll see skyrocketing tax rates, drastically lower retirement and health benefits, high inflation, a rapidly depreciating dollar, unemployment, and political instability. The government has lost its compass, say Kotlikoff and Burns, and the current administration is heading straight into the coming generational storm.

But don''t panic. To solve a problem you must first understand it. Kotlikoff and Burns take us on a guided tour of our generational imbalance, first introducing us to the baby boomers—their long retirement years and "the protracted delay in their departure to the next world." Then there''s the "fiscal child abuse" that will double the taxes paid by the next generation. There''s also the "deficit delusion" of the under-reported national debt. And none of this, they say, will be solved by any of the popularly touted remedies: cutting taxes, technological progress, immigration, foreign investment, or the elimination of wasteful government spending.

So how can the United States avoid this demographic/fiscal collision? Kotlikoff and Burns propose bold new policies, including meaningful reforms of Social Security, and Medicare. Their proposals are simple, straightforward, and geared to attract support from both political parties. But just in case politicians won''t take the political risk to chart a new direction, Kotlikoff and Burns also offer a "life jacket"—guidelines for individuals to protect their financial health and retirement.

This paperback edition of The Coming Generational Storm has been revised and updated and includes a new foreword by the authors.

How America went bankrupt and how we can save ourselves—as a country and as individuals—from economic disaster.

The United States is bankrupt, flat broke. Thanks to accounting that would make Enron blush, America''s insolvency goes far beyond what our leaders are disclosing. The United States is a fiscal basket case, in worse shape than the notoriously bailed-out countries of Greece, Ireland, and others. How did this happen? InThe Clash of Generations, experts Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns document our six-decade, off-balance-sheet, unsustainable financing scheme. They explain how we have balanced our longer lives on the backs of our (relatively few) children. At the same time, we''ve been on a consumption spree, saving and investing less than nothing. And that''s not to mention the evisceration of the middle class and a financial system that has proven it can''t be trusted. Kotlikoff and Burns outline grassroots strategies for saving ourselves—and especially our children—from what could be a truly catastrophic financial collapse.

Kotlikoff and Burns sounded the alarm in their widely acclaimedThe Coming Generational Storm, but politicians didn''t listen. Now the need for action is even more urgent. It''s up to us to demand radical reform of our tax system, our healthcare system, and our Social Security system, and to insist on better paths to investment return than those provided by Wall Street (mis)managers. Kotlikoff and Burns''s "Purple Plans" (so called because they will appeal to both Republicans and Democrats) have been endorsed by a who''s who of economists and offer a new way forward; and their revolutionary investment strategy for individuals replaces the idea of financial capital with "life decision capital."

Of course, we won''t be doing all this just for ourselves. We need to fix America''s fiscal mess before our kids inherit it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMKw76lBn0k&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Cataclysms on the Columbia tells two stories. One follows geological research that challenged the scientific paradigm of the early 20th century, and the other chronicles the result of that research: the discovery of powerful prehistoric floods that shaped the Pacific Northwest. The cataclysms at the end of the last Ice Age left a scabland of buttes, dry falls, and rocky gorges, but it took the detective work of geologist J Harlen Bretz to prove it to the world. His lifetime of research and unshakeable belief changed geology forever.