“And, when you examine the real numbers, the reality is beyond dire. There is a $56 trillion hole, and counting, in our nation’s finances, not the $11 trillion national debt that is widely publicized and reported on the federal government’s balance sheet. Lost in all the outrage over the fast-rising federal deficits and national debt is something that every certified public accountant knows and virtually all politicians do not like to acknowledge — that the financial management failures of U.S. corporations cannot come close to rivaling the budget and bookkeeping shambles of the U.S. government. At the federal level, there are myriad off-budget gimmicks, unrecorded liabilities, and financial manipulations on a scale that would put many executives of publicly traded companies in prison for securities fraud.”
