Endless Beach

You wake up to find yourself standing on the edge of a beach. It's dark out, but the moon illuminates the water. You look around the beach and realize that there is no-one around for miles. No buildings, no people, no birds, no cats, no dogs, you can't even see any bugs in the area. The coast is lined with palm trees leading into a dense forest.

You look back out towards the water and it hits you. There is more definition and color in the water than there should be. There are no waves crashing against the beach, but the water ripples with the wind. The water seems to be glowing light green almost blue near the surface and seems to fade towards purple the deeper the water goes. Given how dark the sky is, you shouldn't be able to see the horizon, but you can anyways.
It splits your vision like a slashing wound. Below all the colors of the water, above just the darkness of the night, surrounding the brightly glowing moon.

Alone as you are on this beach, you start to think to yourself where it is you have found yourself.
Is this a dream?
Is this heaven?
Did I die?
Where are all the people?

Why am I the only one alive here?


That notion strikes deep into your core. You are absolutely alone on this beach.

You begin walking along the beach hopeful that you might find someone else, someone to tell you where you are, someone to prove that you aren't alone.

You search and search. You lose track of the time. Have you been searching for minutes? No, it must be more than minutes.
Hours? Possibly, but why don't you feel tired or hungry?

Come to think of it, you don't remember any of the usual feelings that you should have had by now. You don't have any spots that itch, or ache. You don't need to use the restroom. Your teeth don't seem to have any residue or film on them from previous usage. Like they have never been used.

This whole time, however long it has been, you don't remember saying anything. For that matter, you don't remember hearing anything. Subconsciously your brain has been adding in the sounds of crashing waves and palm fronds blowing in the breeze, but there is no sound. You just thought there was because you think that a spot like this is supposed to have sounds like that.

Other things begin to strike your notice.
You've been walking all this time, but there are no foot prints in the sand. You seem to remember wearing shoes, but you don't remember ever seeing them.

You begin to question your own existence. You think about putting your hands up to your face to prove that you have substance, but you are too afraid to be proven wrong. You want to cry out, but are fearful that no sound will escape your lips.

Terror wracks your body, your mind, your self. Whatever it is here that can be identified as you. You are alone on this beach, but the only one who knows that you exist is you, and that is merely assumption.

What if you were to look down and see no body beneath you? What if you were to attempt to scream your own name and hear no voice calling for you?

These thoughts feel like they are devouring you. You fall down to the sand as sorrow engulfs you.

Despondent, you look out over the water. This moment, your moment, is beautiful.

Maybe you only exist here, maybe you don't exist at all, but be that as it may, it is such a beautiful place.

This is a place for postcards you think to yourself.

You decide to sit on the beach and watch the rippling of the water to pass the time. Whether no time or much time passes is unclear to you, but you've accepted your place in this world.

Once you have this memory thoroughly engraved in your mind, you close your eyes, and let yourself drift off to sleep.

The American notion of debt (and theories on what it might mean)

Ok, so money doesn't really have a specific value, it's a promise of value based on the total value of the country. That being said, although most countries have significant value, through intellectual property and such, you can't exactly liquidate intellectual property, so the countries need actual money to spend. So they issue dated IOU's to anyone who will buy them. There is a theoretical limit to how much they can issue, but the US and Denmark are the only countries with official limits.

So every country's economy exists in a sense of the value of their current currency and the debt that the owe. In the US the debt is largely held by social security (because social security operates at a surplus) but other parts are held by corporations, private individuals, and even other countries.

Now here is where things get more complicated:
These debts are on a timer, so at regular intervals they come due and must be paid in full. And we usually don't have the money on hand to pay them, so we create new debts to pay for the debts we have now.

Does your head hurt yet?


Continuing on,
The Tea Party Republicans and specifically the Congressional majority leader and his people are currently pushing us towards debt default.
The major problem with this is it doesn't all come from the same source and there is no precedent or even rules for what happens when a country defaults on a debt. The only historical example I can think of is post WW1 German where they became over-run with debt and we know where that went.

Certain debt holders may be willing to simply erase the debt. Social Security will likely just swallow the debt as they currently still have the finances to do so. Countries whom we hold debts against might be willing to let our debts cancel eachother out.

The major concern is corporations and private investors. These are people who could theoretically hold significant leverage over our government and might try to use this moment of weakness to profit off of us.


And here is where the other shoe drops.

There is no way for these private investors and corporations to force us to pay back the money. Normally if someone defaults on a debt, the government forces them to pay it. They re-possess their belongings and sell them off to settle the debt. But there is no higher court to force our government to pay back the money. It was loaned in good faith, but with absolutely no leverage or ability to force a collection. It's not like they can re-possess Florida and sell it to Cuba to settle our debt.

So depending on how the creditors behave, this could become a very economically volatile situation. If America defaults on it's own debt and doesn't pay it back, it sets a precedent for other countries to do the same. Because it's not just us, most countries follow this same business model. Nobody has tried to force a default because no-one knows how it will change the world's economy.

But now we have some idiots in the Congress who are hell-bent on causing a default, they claim so that the US can get out from under it's $16 trillion debt. But we have no idea how it would play out. Currently all major investors are throwing their money off-shores to try to shield it from any sort of collapse.

But we don't know if that would be enough, with a big enough crash, the dollar could be de-valued so vastly that their off-shore fortunes could become pocket change.

Ideally, this won't happen. Cooler heads will prevail, and the country won't default, but if the default does happen, there is potential for massive upheaval.

Keep your fingers crossed, and as always, everyone try to stay safe out there.