An electronic billboard in Times Square displays the American public debt, an astronomic figure of some thousands of billions of dollars which increases at a rate of $20,000 a second. Another electronic billboard at the Beaubourg Center in Paris displays the thousands of seconds until the year 2000. The latter figure is that of time, which gradually diminishes. The former figure is that of money, which increases at a sky-rocketing speed. The latter is a countdown to second zero. The former, on the contrary, extends to infinity. Yet, at least in the imaginary, both of them evoke a catastrophe: the vanishing of time at Beaubourg; the passing of the debt into an exponential mode and the possibility of a financial crash in Times Square.
In fact, the debt will never be paid. No debt will ever be paid. The final counts will never take place. If time is counted [si le temps nous est compte], the missing money is beyond counting [au-dela de toute comptabilite]. The United States is already virtually unable to pay, but this will have no consequence whatsoever. There will be no judgment day for this virtual bankruptcy. It is simple enough to enter an exponential or virtual mode to become free of any responsibility, since there is no reference anymore, no referential world to serve as a measuring norm.
Baudrillard, Jean. “Global Debt and Parallel Universe.” in: François Debrix (Translator). Ctheory. October 16, 1996. (English).
Baudrillard makes a great point about the infinite nature of debt. As of the time of this post I am writing now, October, 13, 2010, the in the United States is $ $ 13,645,897,421,3931. [1] Thirteen Trillion Plus. And Baudrillard was right: this debt has taken on metaphysical properties. The primary nature of debt it is an abstraction of infinity. And the world’s Global Debt is nearly 40 trillion dollars. It’s quite a problem, to say the least, and even conjuring “dollars” through the technological magic of computers won’t be a trick that can match sizeless black hole of infinite interest. Seemingly, the fisl pathology of the United States desires to drag the rest of the world into the Underverse with it. But the other countries are fighting back.
China, Russia, Brazil, Turkey are countries who don’t have the massive debt problem as America, adnd have begun to form financial alliances among themselves, freezing out the American Dollar,and the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve, as well. The other countries know that the US debt cannot be repaid. The other countries also know that projections of the US debt will be over 100% of the GNP by 2012. That means the debt with be larger than the sum total of the US economy. That’s probably gonna hurt some. It is the Divine Abstraction of Infinite Debt that will metaphysically unite us all in the oneness o fa shared destiny. That destiny could be “good” or “lousy.” It’s up to us. The inevitable collapse of an economy crushed under a debt so unimaginably titanic, is a good thing. We will have something in place to take over the charred, burnt carcass of Capitalism.
It will be called the Equal Money system. This is not some commie redistribution of the wealth, as some of our critics have crowed. This is the Creation of a New Kind of Money that will be created and given to all, equally. We can have Heaven on Earth, or Infinite Debt. And we can create either one. Well, we already have infinite debt.
I know what I want to create.
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[1] By the time you read this… it’ll be a LOT MORE.
