Which is a Worse Ponzi Scheme, Groupon or The US Government?

Not about real estate, please feel free to ignore …

Both may be ponzi schemes, but which one affects us more?

Groupon:

I would love to be wrong about this. Especially given the fallout in the tech economy if Groupon blows up. But isn’t it really pretty obvious that Groupon is a massive Ponzi scheme?

The United States government:

No wonder Bill Gross, Nouriel Roubini, Laurence Kotlikoff, Steve Keen, Michel Chossudovsky, the Wall Street Journal and Bernie Madoff all say that the U.S. economy is a giant Ponzi scheme.

As I noted last year:

The governments of the world have spent trillions trying to paper over the fraud and prop up the big, insolvent banks, instead of forcing them to restructure and forcing bondholders and shareholders to take a haircut.

At least with Groupon, we can choose to buy or sell.

In other words … is this about the government or Groupon?

There are all kinds of questions about the business. How can they possibly sustain this kind of revenue growth? Can they get costs under control? What about merchant and customer fatigue? How about deep-pocketed and savvy competition,

How can you possible build a sustainable business by going from 0 to 8,000 employees in two years? Why did the COO and CTO both leave the company in late March, barely two months ago? How do you value a business that could do $3 billion in revenue this year but might not be able to keep the lights on in 12 months?

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