Happy Holidays from Your Friends at U.S.A.

Posted by George Packer, The New Yorker

To our customers, shareholders, and employees:

As the world’s oldest democracy, the United States of America enjoys a tradition of excellence that’s second to none. It all started with the outside-the-box thinking of U.S.A.’s co-founders and our paradigm-shifting Constitution, with its revolutionary platform based on the fundamental principle of Siloed Government. Then and now, we rely on three core values: Horizontality, Empowerment, and Scalability. And, after two hundred and twenty-six unbroken years of representative government, we still sweat the details.

As we approach the holiday season, all of us here at U.S.A. are extremely proud of what we’ve achieved in 2013—once again realizing value for all our stakeholders—and we’re looking forward to an even more productive and successful 2014. Here are just a few of the accomplishments that made us smile:

• U.S.A.’s Senate Division excelled at deliberation-maximizing and legislation-minimizing, spending just ninety-nine days casting votes in 2013, the lowest number in a non-election year since 1991. 

• U.S.A.’s House Division achieved even greater efficiencies, reducing session hours to just nine hundred and forty-two, or twenty-eight hours a week, by far the lowest number on record in a non-election year.

(More here.)