http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21593453-governments-should-launch-new-wave-privatisations-time-centred-property-9
The idea behind this privatization is that the US has many assets, such as the Yellowstone National Park, which are worth billions of dollars. In fact, if you put all of the land, buildings and subsoil resources together, it is worth approximately $35 trillion. The reason for noting this is because if you were in extreme debt, you would naturally want to sell some of your assets in order to pay off that debt. The US, however, should not necessarily sell all assets, especially big ones like the Yellowstone National Park, but they should consider removing some of these "assets" since there is a large amount of debt currently. Also, underneath some of these assets, there are oil reserves, which could profit up to $9 trillion dollars.
These leads to the question, should some of these areas, which we leave essentially off limits for private companies, be thought about in terms of how it will profit the US economy? Economists need to think about how much revenue would be lost by privatizing these assets. It could be very profitable and a great idea, but it also could harm the US economy much more than aiding it. It needs to be done during a time when markets are booming.
By looking at the past times of privatization, specifically during times of Thatcher and Reagan. It may be time to consider looking into what assets the US has waiting for us with buildings, land and potential resources.
Think of the backlash however if the US government did put some of its' assets up for sale and they were in turn bought by a foreign company; especially a Chinese one. The American public would most likely be against this. Even if the assets where sold to an American company there could be backlash. Big corporations (The likely buyers of these assets) aren't trusted much either. At the end of the day whatever the US government does regarding this situation they will be criticized by some faction of Americans.
ReplyDeleteI agree with James, the idea of selling national parks to any sort of buyer whether it be in the US or foreign would be a nightmare scenario for many Americans. Although it would help push us out of the debt we find ourselves in, would the backlash from the American people really be worth it?
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