This term most typically applies within the context of accounting for government, espcially for municipalities. It is a “piggy bank” for the government. The government has a lot of “piggy banks,” as these funds must be used for a specified purpose.
The government taxes our hard-earned income. It then socks the money away with plans to spend it on something that we supposedly need in the future.
On something we need? Yeah, something important...like a new government building, or a parking garage. Governments utilize a different type of accounting referred to as “fund accounting." Governmental accounting is used by the government because, like the government, it sometimes...makes no sense. It's kind of like your mother telling you she can’t pay you your allowance this week because the cash in her wallet is being “reserved." Mommy needs a new pair of shoes.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What Does "Capital Intensive" M...27 Views
Finance a la shmoop what does capital-intensive mean? lots and lots and
lots and lots of capital yeah that's what it means starting a website, two [Two young kids setting up a website in a garage]
kids a garage and a nice home computer not capital intensive, drilling for oil
in the North Sea highly capital intensive...
well capital needed for the two kids in a garage building a search engine about
two million bucks capital needed for the oil rig well like ten billion bucks and
why does the capital intensity matter well if you can create Google that
generates a few billion dollars of free cash flow a quarter for a total capital
input of maybe a hundred million dollars ie a few rounds after the garage round [Equity investment agreement documents appear]
then investors in it make an absolute killing like if you don't dilute
yourselves and the stock goes up a lot life's good yeah hundreds or thousands
of times their original investment if you create BP British Petroleum or Royal
Dutch Shell or Chevron which also have a few billion dollars of free cash flow a [Cash flowing into fuel tanks]
quarter but it takes you ten billion dollars in capital to generate those
returns then yes you get a nice investment return but it's nothing that
you know Vikings sing songs about and it's the allure of the capital [Man typing on laptop]
unintensive businesses like building a website in Yahoo or a search engine in Google or a video streaming
site in Netflix that takes relatively small amounts of capital to start and
then produces mounds of free cash profits that has made venture
capitalists fall all over themselves hoping to find that one little garage [Person looking through binoculars at garages]
with the next great white whale yeah that's intensive...
Up Next
What is capital expenditure (CAPEX)? Capital expenditure refers to the money that is used to buy or fix the physical parts of a business like land,...