[basseq]

The answer, as I see it, is big dollars and moral focus. A VC investing a couple million bucks in a long-shot startup? You expect risk. Ditto, say, a $300k mortgage to a family of four, but that's more portfolio statistics.

Multi-billion dollar governments go bankrupt because of mis-management. Less "Uber For Dogs" and more "Enron", minus the intentional criminality. Governments go bankrupt because its citizen "shareholders" vote for continued debt accrual and negative EBITA. But citizens don't care. It's OPM: Other People's Money. Since they're also "customers", their goal is to get as much possible out.

[pure_ambition]

Eh, that's cheap. A citizen has far less control over their government than a corporation's managers over their treasury or an individual over their own finances. So your argument applies far less to a government than in the other cases. In any case, politicians actions do not equal the will of the people, as anyone acquainted with a Republican form of government should know.

[basseq]

Majorly cheap, but you're also highlighting a massive bystander effect. "What hope do I, one citizen, have of changing anything?"

The other point is (arguably) that government should not be risking bankruptcy for the sake of innovation. Which in the cases of government bankruptcy, was not the reason for insolvency anyway. So then it comes back to mismanagement, where maybe the better analog is personal bankruptcy. If an individual came to you and said they were declaring bankruptcy because they had spent more than they made for the last 20 years, you probably wouldn't have much sympathy.