Ah yes, human economics. Very fascinating. Very concerning.
*wheeze*
“Who does Earth owe $350 trillion to?”
Mostly itself.
You owe money to pension funds, banks, insurance companies, investment funds, foreign governments, central banks, corporations, and millions of individual investors.
*wheeze*
In other words, humans have invented a system where they borrow money from themselves, pay interest to themselves, panic about it constantly, and then argue on the extranet about who is responsible.
As a Vølüs, I find this arrangement delightfully profitable.
The more interesting question is not who you owe. The question is whether the debt grows faster than the economy that supports it.
* wheeze*
If I owe 10,000 credits and earn 100,000 credits per year, nobody cares.
If I owe 10,000 credits and earn 12 credits per year, suddenly C-Sec starts asking questions.
Hah hah hah…* wheeze*
So when a human says, “We owe $350 trillion! Who do we owe it to?”
The answer is:
“Mostly other humans. The real question is whether future humans can keep making enough money to convince everyone not to panic.”
* wheeze*
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have several sovereign debt instruments to sell to the Elcor. They take a very long-term view of investments.
If the English people, by a magical switch being flicked, were to disappear, then Great Britain would go down with them. The country would be a third world dump. No one would dispute this as the natural outcome. There is no such thing as a propositional nation.
Fun fact: Jeff Bezos has been paying a $1,000 monthly fine for years because the hedge around his Beverly Hills estate is taller than city regulations allow.
He’s worth over $200 billion. He generates roughly $300 every second.
The fine is $12,000 a year. He makes that in 40 seconds.
So the hedge stays.
Because for some people, the law isn’t a rule. It’s just a bill they can afford.
Just read a story about a young college grad who was shot to death "for no reason" in Indianapolis, presumably by some inner city thug. That will somehow draw less national outrage than someone warning about the dangers of inner city black criminals