Joanna
At 17:01 08-07-00 -0400, you wrote:
>[Now that the U.S. government is paying down its debt, and the debt
>clock in mid-Manhattan is being taken down, it's funnier than ever to
>read this essay by Jean Baudrillard
><http://www.ctheory.com/e31-global_debt.html>.]
>
>Global Debt and Parallel Universe
>
>Jean Baudrillard
>
>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.
>
>The disappearance of the referential universe is a brand new
>phenomenon. When one looks at the billboard on Broadway, with its
>flying figures, one has the impression that the debt takes off to
>reach the stratosphere. This is simply the figure in light years of a
>galaxy that vanishes in the cosmos. The speed of liberation of the
>debt is just like one of earth's satellites. That's exactly what it
>is: the debt circulates on its own orbit, with its own trajectory
>made up of capital, which, from now on, is free of any economic
>contingency and moves about in a parallel universe (the acceleration
>of capital has exonerated money of its involvements with the everyday
>universe of production, value and utility). It is not even an orbital
>universe: it is rather ex-orbital, ex-centered, ex-centric, with only
>a very faint probability that, one day, it might rejoin ours. That's
>why no debt will ever be paid. At most, it can be bought over at a
>bargain price to later be placed back on a debt market (public debt,
>national debt, global debt) where it will have become a currency of
>exchange. Since there is no likely settlement date, the debt has an
>incalculable [inestimable] value. As long as it hangs like that over
>our heads with no reference whatsoever, it also serves as our only
>guarantee against time. Unlike the countdown which signifies the end
>of time, an indefinitely deferred debt is the guarantee that even
>time is inexhaustible...
>
www.overlookhouse.com