WP Editorial: A Sharecropper's Society?

Sunday, August 7, 2005; Page B06

"THE ECONOMY of ours is strong," President Bush declared on Wednesday, and to some extent his boast was right. U.S. growth is outpacing that of rivals in the Group of Seven club of rich nations, and productivity is improving faster. But this progress is accompanied by a troubling phenomenon. Every year Americans sell or mortgage a slice of their productive assets to foreigners, with the result that income from those assets must flow abroad in the future. Warren E. Buffett, a legendary investor and a director of The Washington Post Co., has written that the United States is on its way to becoming a "sharecropper's society."