I agree more or less with everything you're saying. I didn't mean to lump government in with business except in that the US government has gained a monolithic c

I agree more or less with everything you're saying. I didn't mean to lump government in with business except in that the US government has gained a monolithic corporation's obsession with "quarterly profits" (the deficit) over investment in the future, and it's driving us into the ground just as surely. Like you, I see the government as a special case, which needs to follow different rules. Ideally, everyone would understand that our fortunes are all tied together and just be nice to each other. Unfortunately, short-sighted individuals will always (or have in the past, anyway) see that as an opportunity to sell out tomorrow for a dollar today, so someone needs to be forcing people to cooperate or the whole thing comes tumbling down. The only question, which is still open as of this writing, is how you keep an organization which is by definition empowered to break its own rules on a short enough leash that it can't hang itself.