>"In 2022, a Pulitzer-winning Wall Street Journal investigation analyzed over 31,000 financial disclosures from 12,000 senior government employees, revealing that nearly a quarter of federal officials traded stock in industries their agencies regulated."

Ya know, on the one hand, I wonder how many federal officials own nVidia stock and stock of other AI companies...

But then again, on the other, I wonder how many nVidia employees (and those of other AI companies!) own government T-bills (and other government backed securities!) in their 401K or other investment accounts!

You know, everybody in large corporations and governments owning shares in other large corporations and governments -- adds a whole new level of meaning to "stakeholder capitalism"... :-)

(In the far future, there'll probably be small foreign governments which become their own ticker symbol -- and get publicly traded on various stock exchanges! :-) You know, like: "Would you like to buy a share in Denmark (DNMK) or perhaps Norway (NRWY)? I hear they're very competitive with Apple (AAPL) right now! Great price to earnings (PE) ratio!" :-) )

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AndrewStephens 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You can already buy shares in a nations economy - it is called owning currency. The big difference from stocks is that most countries issue new shares (dollars, etc) to keep the price stable (indirectly via careful control of interest rates).

I am simplifying terribly but just as shares represent a fraction of a company, cash represents a share of a nation’s economy.

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peter_d_sherman 3 hours ago | parent [-]

>You can already buy shares in a nations economy - it is called owning currency.

An interesting point! Yes, that is definitely one way that currency could be looked at...

>The big difference from stocks is that most countries issue new shares (dollars, etc) to keep the price stable (indirectly via careful control of interest rates).

Agreed -- but if we were really to analyze things, scrutinize the way things really work at the highest degree of resolution, then we would have to observe that:

a) There are multiple countries/currencies in the world.

b) That each country's/currency's inflation rate is different than all of the other countries/currencies.

c) If each country's/currency's inflation rate is different, this means that each countries's issuance of new shares (and control of interest rates) -- their financial policies, are, by comparison, either more effective, on par, or less effective than those of other countries used for comparison...

Phrased another way:

All countries do not control the rate of inflation of their currencies equally.

Phrased another way:

Some nations are better at controlling their currency's rate of inflation than other nations.

True or not true?

>I am simplifying terribly

As am I! :-)

>but just as shares represent a fraction of a company, cash represents a share of a nation’s economy.

Again, an interesting point!

And yes, I could agree with that!

	▲	AndrewStephens 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Some nations are better at controlling their currency's rate of inflation than other nations. Manifestly true, for lots of reasons. The analogy only goes so far because currency is traded for goods, services, and debt all the time whereas shares are usually just traded for currency.

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Vaushite 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Corporations and governments have swapped places.