Decline As a Business Model
A Prospectus for the American Patch Economy
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For over three decades, American governance has perfected a revolutionary business model: converting systemic failure into sustainable revenue streams. Rather than the costly and disruptive work of replacing failing infrastructure, we have created entire industries dedicated to managing, monitoring, and monetizing decline.
Welcome to Rust Monster, Inc.—where crisis is not a bug, but our core competency.
THE MARKET OPPORTUNITY
Total Addressable Market: Every piece of American infrastructure built between 1930-1980 (i.e., most of it)
Market Segments:
- Physical Infrastructure (bridges, pipes, electrical grid)
- Social Infrastructure (housing, healthcare, education)
- Civic Infrastructure (libraries, public safety, democratic institutions)
Growth Drivers:
- Decades of deferred maintenance
- Political incentives favoring patches over replacement
- Professional classes invested in perpetual crisis management
OUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES
1. Bipartisan Appeal
Unlike traditional political solutions, decline management offers something for everyone:
- Democrats: Job creation through social service expansion
- Republicans: Evidence that government doesn't work
- Consultants: Permanent employment managing the managed decline
2. Scalable Crisis Response
Every failing system creates new revenue opportunities:
- Bridge structurally deficient? → Inspection contracts
- Homeless population growing? → Outreach programs
- Libraries unsafe? → Security services
- Democracy failing? → Civic engagement workshops
3. Self-Perpetuating Business Model
Our patches are designed to relieve just enough pressure to prevent total collapse while ensuring continued deterioration and thus continued need for our services.
CASE STUDY: OREGON DIVISION
Our Oregon operation demonstrates the business model at scale:
Problem: Transportation infrastructure underfunded
Traditional Solution: Progressive taxation, public investment
Rust Monster Solution: Regressive gas tax + extended emergency sessions
Result: Problem persists, crisis management jobs created, political class maintains power
Problem: ICE enforcement despite sanctuary laws
Traditional Solution: Close legal loopholes, build defense infrastructure
Rust Monster Solution: More security guards at libraries
Result: Problem persists, security contracts issued, symbolic victory claimed
Problem: Mental health and addiction crises
Traditional Solution: Universal healthcare, housing-first policy
Rust Monster Solution: Portland Street Response (with carefully limited scope)
Result: Problem persists, professional crisis responders employed, innovation narrative maintained
REVENUE STREAMS
Primary Revenue
- Crisis Response Services: Emergency repairs, temporary solutions, disaster management
- Monitoring & Compliance: Inspections, reporting, regulatory theater
- Professional Development: Training programs for managing perpetual emergencies
Secondary Revenue
- Consulting: Helping other jurisdictions implement managed decline
- Technology: Apps and platforms for tracking, not solving, problems
- Events: Conferences, galas, and summits about addressing issues we have no intention of fixing
Tertiary Revenue
- Political Campaigns: Both parties can fundraise off the crisis we maintain
- Media: Content creation around dysfunction we help perpetuate
- Academic: Research grants to study problems we're paid not to solve
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Traditional Metrics (Avoided):
- Problems solved
- Infrastructure replaced
- Systems functioning
Rust Monster Metrics (Optimized):
- Crisis response time
- Stakeholder meetings held
- Media coverage generated
- Grant applications submitted
- Jobs created in decline management sector
RISK FACTORS
Primary Risk: Someone might actually fix something
- Mitigation: Ensure all solutions are temporary, under-resourced, or politically vulnerable
Secondary Risk: Public might notice the business model
- Mitigation: Frame all decline management as "progress" and "innovation"
Tertiary Risk: Catastrophic failure might demand actual solutions
- Mitigation: Always have emergency patches ready; never build replacement capacity
FIVE-YEAR PROJECTION
Year 1: Establish baseline decline in target markets
Year 2: Deploy monitoring systems and response teams
Year 3: Scale patch deployment across multiple crisis vectors
Year 4: Begin franchising model to other jurisdictions
Year 5: IPO on promise of perpetual growth through managed collapse
CONCLUSION
Rust Monster, Inc. represents the future of American governance: profitable, sustainable, and completely disconnected from actually solving problems.
Our business model is so elegant, so bipartisan, and so entrenched that even when our clients have supermajorities and mandates for change, they choose our services instead.
The rust monster doesn't just eat infrastructure—it feeds entire economies.
Investment opportunities available. Contact your local political consultant for details.
DISCLAIMER: Rust Monster, Inc. makes no warranties about the continued habitability of systems under our management. Side effects may include: democratic decay, social fragmentation, and the persistent feeling that nothing works anymore. Not suitable for societies that actually want things to function.