A good way to look at the political situation today is that the federal government has become the largest corporation in the world, where Americans are both consumers of their products and stockholders at the same time.  Think of it as Federal Government, Inc., or FGI for short.  FGI has two groups running the company.  One is called the Democrats, and the other is called the Republicans. 

Although they communicate with the public in different ways, and while both want to run the company and serve their customers in the best possible way, they are really only looking out to protect their own jobs, the jobs of the millions of people who work for the company and those organized entities that give them money helping them keep their jobs.  Over the years, they've created the impression that these two internal groups are adversaries but in reality they are essentially one and the same, working toward the same self-serving ends.

Some of the great things about working for FGI, especially if you're a mid- or low-level employee, whom some call a bureaucrat, are that you can never get fired, and you have a six-figure salary, the best benefits around, and a lifetime pension second to none.  Many even get annual bonuses in a business where accountability means nothing.

If you're a spokesman for FGI – i.e., an elected congressman or congresswoman – although you run the risk of losing your job every two or six years, the job market for your position has evolved to a point where your job security is almost 100% guaranteed.  It's why these corporate executives have come to be called "career politicians" or "professional politicians."

It's practically a job for life except for the CEO.  Despite a maximum possible tenure of eight years, there are some really nice perks that come with the job as chief executive officer besides the salary, benefits, and pension.  He gets to live in rent-free housing and fly around the world in a custom Boeing 747, and when his time as CEO is over, there are millions of dollars waiting for him by giving speeches to his corporate cronies he served so well while in office.

The problem for the American consumer/stockholder of Federal Government, Inc., is that he no longer has any say on how the company is run, although that dusty old charter that created it nearly 230 years go (it sometimes goes by the name of the Constitution) gives only the stockholder that right.  Their products are lousy, their advertising is deceitful, their mandates are dictatorial, and their finances are so bad that they would put any other company out of business in a nanosecond. 

It's all enough to make one want to go out and start a whole new company that abides by the laws and bylaws of its founding document.  There's a quaint concept called a revolution, an overturning of the existing way business is done, that could actually help FGI get back to the basics of how it was originally intended to be managed and operated.  And not the phony kind, where the new CEO has been promoted from within after being with the company over 25 years, pretending that more of the same is actually going to make it happen.

Maybe it can happen with someone who has come from a competitor, the private sector, who knows what it takes to be successful in running a company as the chief executive officer.  This November, there will be a big proxy vote by the shareholders of Federal Government, Inc.  Perhaps they will choose the real outsider to take over as CEO.