Collateral Damage: The Venture Capital Outlook and Potential

Joseph Schumpeter, in a celebrated phrase, noted that capitalism depends, for its foundation and longevity, on the "animal spirits" of the entrepreneurial class in a given region. Absent the turbo charge which the entrepreneurial culture has in the past projected into the U.S. economy, we in this country are in for an indefinite slide to economic stagnation. The national balance sheet is alarming, in the vicinity of insolvency; our manufactures are increasingly non-competitive; our labor force is displacing itself in favor of, eg, China, our currency is depreciating. I often use hypothetical benchmarks called (by me) the Fidelity Index ' an assumed list of factors professional investors are wont to use when rating and distinguishing between the debt of a AAA national credit and a Third World obligor state. Absent robust growth, look at our score card on the Index ' increasing debt as a percentage of GDP and GNP; balance sheet insolvency (in legal terms, insolvency 'in the bankruptcy sense'); extraordinary spending in the military sector growing rich/poor disparity; continuing barriers to women's rights; environmental indifference; wide spread tax evasion; attempts by both the Left and Right to politicize the judiciary; elections for sale; tainted election procedures; a state highly dependent on imported capital to recycle its debt.

31 minute read November 01, 2003 at 11:36 AM

By

Joseph Bartlett