The cover feature of this week's Bloomberg Businessweek is entitled, "Would you invest in a company that lost $2 trillion last year and has a net worth of negative $44 trillion?
The feature is a summary of a large scale study/project conducted by high profile securities analyst Mary Meeker. Meeker and her colleagues analyzed USA, Inc., as she would a company. The current situation of the US is pretty much what Apple found itself in back in 1997 (on fatal collision course) before Steve Jobs came back and took over again (Apple is now the second most valuable company in the world).
In essence, the problem is that, with the best of intentions, "For the last 40 years, management (the government) has committed more long-term benefits through entitlement programs like Medicaid / Medicare / Social Security... without developing a sound plan to pay for them."
Regardless of what side of the political spectrum one is on, things are unsustainable and need to be fixed. And that will require sacrifice from all sides. Else, we're pretty much screwed and the decisions will be made for us, and not by us.
The entire detailed report is available for download as a PDF: USA, Inc. -- A Basic Summary of America's Financial Statements
The feature is a summary of a large scale study/project conducted by high profile securities analyst Mary Meeker. Meeker and her colleagues analyzed USA, Inc., as she would a company. The current situation of the US is pretty much what Apple found itself in back in 1997 (on fatal collision course) before Steve Jobs came back and took over again (Apple is now the second most valuable company in the world).
In essence, the problem is that, with the best of intentions, "For the last 40 years, management (the government) has committed more long-term benefits through entitlement programs like Medicaid / Medicare / Social Security... without developing a sound plan to pay for them."
Regardless of what side of the political spectrum one is on, things are unsustainable and need to be fixed. And that will require sacrifice from all sides. Else, we're pretty much screwed and the decisions will be made for us, and not by us.
The entire detailed report is available for download as a PDF: USA, Inc. -- A Basic Summary of America's Financial Statements
