If the United States were a company, what financial shape would it be in? And what would it make sense to do to put the company on a sounder footing? These are the intriguing questions that a group of investment analysts from Kleiner Perkins, headed by Mary Meeker, set out to answer. The resulting report, which includes 460 Power Point slides, is here. It is titled "USA Inc."
The USA is a company.
Since when are the middle class and poor considered? According to conservatives, the poor should be left as is, the middle class should be taxed and the rich should be left alone in order to create jobs.
Well, for the past 30 years - the rich haven't been creating jobs. They have been outsourcing them.
So, USA Inc would be a company where the executive partners do whatever they want, just for their own benefit. Everyone below them be damned.
If the US Gov't were a company, it would have declared bankruptcy a long time ago, and the CEO's and accountants would be hauled off to jail.
Really ?
1. extremely high inventory of valuable assets.
2. very high income
3. very high outflow.
4. manageable debt.
The only difficulty is matching the income and outflow better. We could raise some taxes without hurting anything, it just isn't popular.
We could cut spending but again, it isn't really popular.
So it's pretty easy to solve, we the people have to get realistic about taxes and spending and stop being taken in by political lies like we don't have to pay for the government we want.
There was no jobs here in the USA? The unemployment rate was about 5% in 2007. So it looks like everyone had jobs to me.
And what about the jobs that other countries businesses started in the US?
Guess we should outlaw that, how dare those countries bring any jobs here right?
Oh yeah, the top 1% pays about 1/3 of all income taxes and the bottom 50% pays no income taxes. So the rich pay no taxes right?
It is pretty interesting, and damned scary, to look at the financial shape of the US. This should be a big wake up call to all Americans to demand that the US Federal Government become fiscally responsible.
If the US Gov't were a company, it would have declared bankruptcy a long time ago, and the CEO's and accountants would be hauled off to jail.
That has since been marked down significantly, if you are referring to real estate.
Generally speaking though, the assets possessed is not inventory, it is working capital. Residual value of most government property is significantly less than the purchase price. These assets are not sold for profit. A measure to use would be return on assets. How much in tax dollars are collected each year compared to the total value of all government held assets?
Which hasn't exceeded expenses for the majority of the last century. Even during the Clinton "surplus" years, the surplus was never realized, it was on paper.
Got that right.
Very arguable.
If you saw a business with $130 billion worth of long-term debt, with income of $15 billion and expenses of $30 billion annually, and the board of directors kept insisting that revenues will double in a few years when the economy improves, would you call that sound?
And would contribute an insignificant amount compared to the overall budget.
It's popular with a lot of people. I'd say more popular than raising taxes.
That's how it's been for decades. The government will give you what you want, will solve your problems, and will take care of you for your life, and you won't have to pay for it... somebody else will.
Same thing with public unions. Keep raising their salaries, because you won't have to deal with the problems, the next guy will.
Oh yeah, the top 1% pays about 1/3 of all income taxes and the bottom 50% pays no income taxes. So the rich pay no taxes right?
When you own 90% of the money available, paying most of the income tax is inevitable. Remember that dollar amounts and percents are totally different measurements, so if someone making a billion dollars a year pays even just 10% total tax - that 100 million is far more than the 30% total tax the person making 50k per year pays. But who feels it more? Who is able to jet set around the world on a whim for whatever reason? Who gets the best healthcare?
This is a misleading statistic that needs to stop being repeated on this forum.
If the US Gov't were a company, it would have declared bankruptcy a long time ago, and the CEO's and accountants would be hauled off to jail.
When a company has a $3.69T annual budget and a 14.3T debt (~100% of GDP) that's skyrocketing...it's in trouble.