http://www.melissaclouthier.com/2008/12/17/the-sky-isnt-falling-quite-yet/ Information Pollination Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:05:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 http://www.melissaclouthier.com/2008/12/17/the-sky-isnt-falling-quite-yet/comment-page-1/#comment-12146 david foster Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:47:31 +0000 http://www.melissaclouthier.com/?p=11963#comment-12146 "They palmed a card, actually two cards: the first one is they’re using household net worth … but that leaves out corporate net worth, so they’re ignoring, eg, Exxon. The second is that they’re comparing future obligations to pay with current assets, so it’s like saying you’re “bankrupt” because the total of your expected future living expenses exceeds your net worth"...Martin is correct about the second point: future obligations should have been discounted to present value, and the Examiner's failure to do this is pretty simplistic. His first point, though, is more problematic. All of Exxon-Mobil's assets are the property of somebody: either stockholders or bondholders, and, to the extent that these securities holders are Americans, the value of XOM is already included in household net worth. “They palmed a card, actually two cards: the first one is they’re using household net worth … but that leaves out corporate net worth, so they’re ignoring, eg, Exxon. The second is that they’re comparing future obligations to pay with current assets, so it’s like saying you’re “bankrupt” because the total of your expected future living expenses exceeds your net worth”…Martin is correct about the second point: future obligations should have been discounted to present value, and the Examiner’s failure to do this is pretty simplistic. His first point, though, is more problematic. All of Exxon-Mobil’s assets are the property of somebody: either stockholders or bondholders, and, to the extent that these securities holders are Americans, the value of XOM is already included in household net worth.

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