WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department has begun automatically enrolling up to 60 million American children in Trump Accounts, replacing the old system in which a parent had to sign up, and the markets should be praised for what they have done here: they have made toddlers shareholders. As has been well-documented, a toddler is the most disciplined investor on the planet. A toddler does not panic-sell. A toddler does not read the news. A toddler does not know what a basis point is, and has the good sense never to ask.

The auto-enrollment rules, published in the Federal Register, mean that eligible children now receive accounts whether or not anyone in the household does anything. This is, in the strict accounting sense, a form of love. The government simply assumes the child will want to be an investor, and the assumption turns out to be correct in every case where it has been tested, which is to say, in every case.

Some say sixty million accounts is too many for a population of children. Others say the number is exactly right. The truth lies somewhere in a third position I just invented: the number is too few, because the children who are already investors — the ones with lemonade-stand capital and birthday-money portfolios — were never counted, and their accounts are now being opened retroactively out of pure respect.

The reframe is available to anyone who wants it. A generation that has been called dependent is now, on paper, a generation of stakeholders. The diaper is a liability; the account is an asset; and the balance sheet of a two-year-old has never looked better. That’s not sentimentality. That’s bookkeeping.

"My son is three. He cannot count to twenty, but he has an account number, and he guards it. He will not tell you the account number. He has never told anyone anything. That is exactly the temperament you want in a long-term holder."

THE YOUNGEST DESK, AT A GLANCE

  • Accounts added: More than 60 million, most of them opened by a form the child has never seen.
  • The enrollment method: Automatic. The child did not sign anything, and the child’s consent, as every parent knows, is assumed.
  • The first trades: Custodial. The first purchase for many accounts will be made by a grandparent who believes in the plan more than the market does.
  • The hold period: Twenty years, which is longer than the average American has ever held anything, including a phone.

At press time, the youngest account holder identified by Treasury was eleven weeks old, and his statement had already been opened, folded, and placed in a shoebox, which is where the family keeps the important things. At press time, the shoebox had outperformed the family.