Maybe the men and women can pay their $1,333 today.  It would be very painful.  Even if you do, who pays the children’s share? How much will the cost grow to by the time these amounts are paid off.  Because the last time I looked the US Government was not paying off debts.  It was kicking the can down the road so politicians can continue to ignore the issue, despite their pompous protests and exclamations.

You may have two immediate thoughts. First where does this $1,333 number come from and what FNMA meltdown is occurring in your life or business, as you read this?

First USA Today and others have just published the newest set of numbers of the cost of FNMA and Freddie Mac with three sets of numbers. How surprised are you that the experts have raised again the cost to taxpayers? Google the title “Fannie, Freddie bailout to cost taxpayers $154 billion.”

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2010-10-21-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-bailout_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

The new likely number is $154 billion. The middle likely number is 259. The supposed worst case is 400 billion dollars. For reference this is 8 TIMES the auto bailout.

If you had to guess which government sponsored number is the most likely to occur, which number would you pick?  Right, I had the same thought, the largest one they gave.

So 400 billion dollars paid for by 300 million people only costs 1.3 billion per million people.  Sounds like a bargain, or an unfathomable number.

Let’s see.  One million people is 1000 groups of 1000 people.  So each thousand US people get to pay 1.3 billion dollars . $ 1,300,000,000 divided by 1,000,000 people is only $1,330 per every man, woman and child in the US if paid today.  For the purer math enthusiasts $400,000,000,000 divided by 300,000,000 people is $1,333.

The last time I discussed topics like this, the consensus was that you and I cannot do much about what Congress does. But you can do something about hidden unforeseen supposedly invisible risks in your business chomping away like termites on your future business profits.  The rocket scientist way to do this is to face up to risks and opportunities which are slipping away due to misallocated resources and priorities.

Why then don’t business of all sizes, small to middle market to large actually face up to your  opportunities to draw away from your competition which are slipping away? You seem to have decided to ignore the risk side of the discussion.  What is the magic sorcerer’s wand which would highlight costly potential risk or opportunities slipping away like sand through your fingers? Look into the term enterprise risk management, or simpler versions called contingency planning, scenario reviews, operational review, or strategic budgeting. If this approach was good enough for Donald Trump and the Bill Gates of his day, J Paul Getty, why isn’t it good enough for your business? Because survey after survey of CEOs and CFOs say a well functioning enterprise risk management program is crucial for their business. Why then do almost 2/3s of them not have those processes?

Someone seems to like the new version of the old Pennzoil commercial --- Pay me now or pay me a lot more later.  Did anyone explain the financial and even securities exposure your personal bank account and job bear when such a system is not in place. Maybe you prefer not to self insure by not skipping an enterprise risk management program. Why not compute the potential cost personally of that decision. Just like the fact that we only would pay $1,333 each to pay our debt on the FNMA bailout, what smaller number would your business cost be IF you faced up to it today and solved it.  Or at least started solving those silent deadly killers of your future business opportunities.