SHILLER’S FAVORITE FINANCIAL IDEA

The following article is from the July Forbes magazine. I thought you may be interested in what Robert J. Shiller, an economist at Yale University, view is on the American government. He predicted both the Internet and housing bubbles.

The American government should go public- literally. Here’s how it could work: The federal government would issue a trillion shares against our $15 trillion GDP and sell them to the public in an IPO. These so-called Trills would pay dividends in perpetuity or until the government decided to buy them back. Trill investors probably would accept relatively low dividends in expectation of future GDP growth, meaning America could refinance its debt at better rates. “Governments need to end their historic reliance on debt financing. Issuing shares in GDP is analogous to corporations issuing equity.” Shiller says. “Substituting Trills for conventional debt helps deleverage the government, something whose importance has become clear with the European debt crisis. Had European countries financed themselves with Trills in the past, there would be no crisis today.”