America, Inc: The Debt Clock, the Middle Class, and What Really Happens When America Finally Goes Bust

by Philip Loyd…

They say if you stack the current national debt in one-dollar bills, it will go all the way to the moon and back, twice. Me, I’m not so sure. Besides, who’s got $30 trillion in cash to test the theory out anyway? Not the United States, that’s for sure.

Ever see the debt clock? You know, that 14-digit ticker just off Times Square that keeps rolling-over numbers like some kind of malfunctioning slot machine? If you’ve been by the Durst Building at 1133 Sixth Ave. in Midtown lately hoping to see the clock, only to find that it’s gone, don’t panic. The national debt is alive and well and still ticking away, only the clock itself has been moved to One Bryant Park, the Bank of America Tower. There’s still plenty of time for you to witness America’s demise.

While I work on Wall Street, at one of the large investment banks there, my office is actually over on 6^th Ave., in Midtown near where the debt clock used to be. Nowadays at lunchtime, I stroll on over to its new location on 43^rd Street, just east of Broadway, have my liverwurst on rye, and just watch it tick away. It’s something I’ve been doing for almost twenty years now; and if you must know, I find it quite comforting.

Looking at the clock the other day, it got me to wondering: what is going to happen when the national debt exceeds the total number of digits on the clock and all the light bulbs start exploding? What happens to America when it finally goes bust? It’s not as bad as you think. In fact, it’s quite liberating.

But what is going to happen, really, when the federal government inevitably defaults on its debt? Mass panic? Collective suicide? Dogs and cats getting along? It’s something that’s been gnawing at me for quite some time. And then, quite unexpectedly, the other night I had a vision. I think you’re going to be quite pleased with what I saw. Here’s how it all goes down.

The year is 2075 and the federal government has finally gone bust. Stretched to the limit and unable to borrow money any longer, the government turns to the only place that still has capital: Corporate America. While America has been busy working its way into debtors’ prison, American corporations, on the other hand, are still flush with cash.

The New America. Your Federal Government, brought to you by the good people at Apple and ExxonMobil.

Once Corporate America steps in; well, let’s just say that a whole mess of financial problems are solved overnight. Once America gets down to running itself like a business again (which is what it really was in the first place) things start picking up literally overnight.

Truth is, America hadn’t been running itself like a business for a very long time; but for Corporate America, well, it just comes naturally.

The first thing Corporate America does is to take over the armed forces: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. Financially, the American military has been a losing proposition for a long time (the last time it saw a profit was after WWII), and Corporate America is going to put the cha-ching back into the sound of cannon fire.

What this means is going back to the days of soldiers of fortune. Mercenaries. Like the Persians, the Greeks, even the Flying Tigers. That’s right, the Flying Tigers were an elite squadron of American fighter pilots who were not only paid to fight Tojo during WWII, they even got bonuses for every Japanese Zero they shot down (as much as $10,000 in today’s dollars).

And did it work? You bet your ass it did. The Flying Tigers, all decked-out with shark teeth painted across the noses of their P-40 fighters, had a 5-1 kill ratio over the Japanese, sinking thousands of Jap riverboats at the same time. The Flying Tigers almost single-handedly turned the tide of the war in China in 1941.

So why not return to a proven formula? Everyone knows the way you get the best people is to offer competitive wages, attractive bonuses. If it works for CEOs, then why not for America’s fighting men and women? Besides, whoever heard of paying for winning a war?

The next thing Corporate America does is to secure the border, and not for reasons you might think.

To secure the border, immigration is taken over by none other than the Disney Corporation. Immigration will now be a for-profit venture. So, in the year 2075, Disney builds a wall around America and does exactly what it’s been doing at all its theme parks for more than a century now: it starts charging admission to get in.

The whole project is highly lucrative, and immigration policy is finally under control. How much is the price of admission? Hard to say. What I can say is that no matter how expensive it is, people pay it. With the whole world collapsing all around, no matter how much Mickey Mouse charges to get into America, people pay it.

Think about it: People are paying to come into America already. Yes, I’m talking about illegal immigrants. Let’s just say that, conservatively, one million people cross the border into the United States illegally every year. At the $5000 rate per person Mexican coyotes charge, that’s $5 billion in lost revenue for the United States. That’s a nice chunk of change, and that’s still just the price of admission. Imagine how much they spend once they get inside the amusement park?

Of course, no wall is impenetrable; so Disney does to gate crashers what it has been doing quietly for so many years: it employs a ruthless security force all dressed up like harmless cartoon characters. When the Disney Delta Force takes you down, you never know what hit you. Imagine being dragged around back and stomped within an inch of your life by Donald Duck, Winnie the Pooh, and Tigger too. Devious, yet very effective.

Last, but not least, Corporate America sets to wiping out every entitlement ever created. Yes, that includes eliminating programs like food stamps, Section-8 housing, Medicaid, even Medicare and Social Security. It means hard times for granny, but when young workers suddenly stop seeing money being taken out their paychecks (whatever that FICA thingy was anyway), they go all-in for the New America. After all, the future of America rests in the young, not the old and wrinkly. It just makes good economic sense.

There are no more taxes, either. Everything will be run on a for-profit basis.

Public roads: for profit. Public parks: for profit. Public restrooms: for profit. Especially public restrooms; because everybody knows: when you gotta go, you gotta go—and you’ll pay whatever it costs to do so.

In the New America, the capital of the United States gets moved to—you guessed it—Wall Street. Wall Street becomes a beacon of light not just for America, but the whole world.

And this is the new order of things, just like it should be. So what does this all have to do with the middle class, you might ask? The middle class, decimated over the past hundred years from jobs being shipped overseas, will be the biggest beneficiary of all. Not CEOS, as you might presume.

The best part of this new America is that no one has to have a job anymore; at least, no one in the middle class. No more 9-5, Main Street jobs. Oh sure, there are still people out there manning their stations, flipping burgers and delivering pizzas, but what I’m talking about are real jobs, the kind you can support a family on.

By the year 2075, the looting of American manufacturing jobs will be complete. There’s no turning back. And besides, in the year 2075, if you ask any American to connect a simple garden hose, he wouldn’t know how.

The shrinking middle class is a real problem for the US government, but not for Corporate America. Corporate America knows just how to bring the middle class back, and it isn’t by squeezing them all into some dumbass box factory either.

The answer: take profits from the departments of immigration and war, public works too, and reinvest them in America. That’s right, invest, not dole out. There’s a difference.

The investment is in the nature of online, stock-trading account credits that can be turned into cash. That’s right, every American in the US who can read and write is given his or her own stock-trading account with $100,000 worth of credits in it. In essence, the middle class becomes a bunch of day traders, swapping out its dungarees for sweat pants, comfy at home pounding away on their laptop computers.

It’s a wonderful life, a utopian world where every day the streets are as peaceful as Easter Sunday: no crowds, no cars, no rush-hour traffic. And then at 4:30 EST, just like right out of a Hollywood musical, all of a sudden doors open and people pour out into the streets. America comes to life again. It’s going to be like Christmas Day, every day of the year. Now tell me: who wouldn’t want it to be Christmas every day of the year?

Every day after the stock market closes, people crowd into coffee shops in California, bars in New York, and guess what they talk about? That’s right: the stock market. What else is there to talk about?

But the best part is that all life in America is now in orbit around Wall Street. No matter where you are, Miami Beach or the Mojave Desert, your whole life now centers around the Wall Street. All clocks are now set by Wall Street time. It’s paradise. And the president of the United States is, of course, none other than the CEO of Goldman Sachs. It’s founding father: JP Morgan.

For Wall Street in the New America, there’s nowhere to go but up. The sky is the limit. Meaning, the Masters of the Universe now build a monument to themselves. They construct a tower to the sky ten thousand feet high, a beacon so tall that the whole country can see it. They build a one-thousand-story skyscraper that can not only be seen from as far away as San Francisco, but from outer space as well. As long as that light is shining, all Americans know there is still a heartbeat at the center of their universe.

“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto Heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

With most Americans now busy playing the market, sending the price of stocks upward and upward, there’s no telling how high the markets can fly. It’s the dawn of a new age, and in this new order, this New America, well, how can anything ever go wrong? After all, nothing has ever gone wrong by investing everything you own in the stock market. Right?

And if you think this sounds too crazy to be true, you should know that more than half of all Americans today are invested in stocks. Average American wealth among the middle class keeps rising with the markets, this as the average paycheck for the American worker continues to decline.

But this is nothing new. America is not the first country to go down this road. Believe it or not, the buying and selling of stocks goes all the way back to the days of the Roman Empire; and we all know how well that turned out.

So if you’re part of the fretting American middle class and you find yourself on holiday in Midtown Manhattan, be sure to make a trip on over to 43^rd Street, just east of Broadway. Take a few moments to watch the debt clock. And don’t be troubled, those numbers ticking away are not a symbol of America’s demise, but its great rebirth. I should know; I work on Wall Street, and I saw it all in a vision one night.

Long live the new laptop, stretch-pants, margin-call, middle class.

END

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