iSHARES® BARCLAYS AGGREGATE BOND FUND (AGG)

[frenchee]

However dire you think U.S. government’s fiscal condition has become… today we learn it’s even worse. For starters, would you invest in this business?

2008 fiscal year net operating cost: $1 trillion. Triple that of 2007. And those aren’t funky alternative accounting methods… today’s charts and numbers come directly from the 2008 Financial Report of the U.S. Government, issued yesterday.
What is “net cost”? It is “computed by subtracting earned revenue from gross cost,” the GAO explains on Page 29 of the government’s 194-page release. A layman might even call it a deficit. A layman who reads The 5 might notice it’s more than double the “official” 2008 federal deficit of $454.8 billion.

And how about this balance sheet?

God bless America!

And here… we saved the best for last … this chart, exactly as it appears in the Treasury’s report:

Our balance sheet shows a $10.7 trillion mountain of debt. In the same report, the Treasury suggested unfunded liabilities like Social Security and Medicare now exceed $43 billion. Put the two together, as we did for I.O.U.S.A., and the U.S. is in the hole for at least $53 trillion.
Late yesterday, John Williams estimated it was closer to $66 trillion. Still want to buy those 10-year notes?