USA Inc.: Red, White, and Very Blue
Bloomberg/BusinessWeek
Mary Meeker says that if the U.S. were a corporation, it would be sick—but fixable. Ideas for solving the U.S.'s long-term fiscal mess
Dear Shareholder,
You probably don't think of yourself that way. Citizenship isn't an investment, it's a state of being. But by birth or naturalization, every American has more than just an emotional stake in the United States. We have a financial one, too. And by any measure, that stake is at risk.
Two months ago the federal government issued a 268-page Financial Report of the United States Government. It doesn't have a glossy cover with photos of smiling employees, and a lot of the numbers are in trillions. Except for that, it looks a lot like the corporate annual reports of the companies I have followed. You can see how the various lines of business are doing—Social Security, Medicare, etc. There's even a mission statement: "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
The United States isn't a corporation, of course. It can't exit from underperforming territories (pick your state) or auction off lines of business (the Army, Medicare). And its "customers" can reward themselves with unaffordable services because they're also the shareholders.
(More here.)
Mary Meeker says that if the U.S. were a corporation, it would be sick—but fixable. Ideas for solving the U.S.'s long-term fiscal mess
Dear Shareholder,
You probably don't think of yourself that way. Citizenship isn't an investment, it's a state of being. But by birth or naturalization, every American has more than just an emotional stake in the United States. We have a financial one, too. And by any measure, that stake is at risk.
Two months ago the federal government issued a 268-page Financial Report of the United States Government. It doesn't have a glossy cover with photos of smiling employees, and a lot of the numbers are in trillions. Except for that, it looks a lot like the corporate annual reports of the companies I have followed. You can see how the various lines of business are doing—Social Security, Medicare, etc. There's even a mission statement: "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
The United States isn't a corporation, of course. It can't exit from underperforming territories (pick your state) or auction off lines of business (the Army, Medicare). And its "customers" can reward themselves with unaffordable services because they're also the shareholders.
(More here.)
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