The Durst Clock

Many people have seen the Durst National Debt Clock. It is iconic. It shows passer’s by in New York City what the rolling national debt is as well as the amount of that debt that is “Your Family’s Share.” The clock is mounted at 43rd street and the Avenue of America’s. This clock was the idea of real estate developer Seymour Durst in the 1980’s. It is a calculator of America’s success or failure.
Now our National debt has reached an all time high, over 10 trillion dollars. This is a number that wasn’t even conceived of in the 80’s when the clock was being built. As a result there is no longer room on the debt clock for our debt. There are plans, enacted by Durst’s children and grandchildren, to have the clock revamped.
In other locations similar clocks have taken away the dollar sign to make room for the extra digit. We owe a lot of countries a lot of fake money right now and no one seems to be bating any eyelashes.
The presidential debate last night never even glanced over this subject. Not that there weren’t questions in the audience that were related, they were just never addressed because of the candidates disregard for the rules. The discussion last night was all about whose platform was more consistent with his record. The answer was neither. The truth is that Congressmen vote with the interest of the moment. They are every bit as impulsive as the average American citizen. On Election Day how many people are still undecided and go in there and pick randomly? I’ll bet more than we care to think about.
The point is there is a real issue that keeps getting pushed back into the background. Debt. Not just the mortgage crisis or bail out but the National Debt. How much of this country is owned by ‘Not US’. We have mortgaged our country’s future wealth so far into the trillions that soon the Durst clock will have to come up with yet another new clock. We are talking about $15,000 in 25 seconds. Who is going to bail us out of that? Are we going to throw more fake money at it?
Last night Tom Brokaw asked the candidates to order these three issues: Healthcare and Social Security, Education, and Energy. All that McCain could talk about was the mortgage bail out and how he was going to expand upon that bail out. This is the only time I will say this, yay for him for thinking about the economy. But come on! How did this question even make it into the line up? These two have said what they are going to do, we know their platform. The question opened it up for them to simply blather on for another two minutes about their proposals.
Look, this is an opportunity to see these men think on their feet, to see them how as our future presidents. This is a real time issue. Instead of looking like FDR they ended up looking like Barney the Dinosaur. Before they are able to think about saving healthcare they are going to have to deal with that debt clock. They both failed us miserably. I would not vote for either of them based on last night’s debate.


More about the Durst Clock: http://www.observer.com/2008/arts-culture/debt-clock