WASHINGTON, D.C. (SatireWire.com) – In a surprisingly lofty compromise to the debt crisis, the U.S. today announced it will replace its antiquated, single-ceiling debt structure with a modern, 108-story debt tower, allowing the government to “stack debt to heaven” for generations.
“America has long lived in fear of a debt ceiling collapse, but not anymore,” said President Barack Obama. “Instead our debt will live in a soaring, eco-friendly, state-of-the-art skyscraper, with 24-hour security, redundant generators, high-speed elevators, and my God, the views!”
According to project developers, the new Infinity Tower will transform the current debt ceiling problem into a multi-floor solution as each ceiling becomes a floor for the story above it. Individual floors will not only have high ceilings – including a marble-lined, three-story atrium — but the footprint of each floor will be larger, allowing them to accommodate more debt than the current single ceiling.
Based on square-footage estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, each floor will accommodate $20 trillion in debt, meaning the tower can house $2.16 quadrillion ($2,160,000,000,000,000) in liabilities.
Not all of it, however, will be government debt. To appease Wall Street and gain bipartisan support, the tower will be zoned for government, commercial, and residential debt.
Initial plans call for the bottom two floors to be consumer-facing debt – primarily banks and retailers. Above that will be five floors of high-end residential debt. The remaining 101 floors will be split between government and business debt, the latter leased to corporations on what Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called “win-win” terms.
“The best thing is, non-governmental tenants don’t pay up front,” said Geithner. “Instead they owe us. In other words, they pay us with debt to house their debt, so we’re guaranteeing full occupancy. It’s a totally self-sustaining business model.”
In fact, he added, the Infinity Tower is reverse-financially engineered, a process that makes it uniquely deficit dependent.
“Each floor is supported by debt,” Geithner explained. “If you take away one of the stories, you take away the support of the stories above it. In short, reducing the debt would cause a collapse, while increasing the debt actually stabilizes the building. This thing can last for generations.”
The government will issue bonds to fund the project. Thanks to reverse financial engineering, the construction will therefore be self-financing.
“With our new debt tower, we’re not just restructuring our debt, we’re building an entirely new structure for our debt,” Geithner proclaimed.
As for its design, the Infinity Tower will purposefully resemble Chicago’s John Hancock Center, said White House economic advisor Gene Sperling.
“Like any debt, we really don’t want to draw attention to it, so we’re making it resemble a building most people have already seen,” Sperling said. “To those who know about it, this structure will say ‘Wow,’ but to the average person, it will say, ‘Move along. There’s nothing to see here.’ Which is what you want.”
For those whose debt occupies the tower, meanwhile, the view will be breathtaking.
“Standing on the (104th floor) observation deck will be sensationally reassuring,” said Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. “Looking down, the people you owe money to will look small and insignificant.”
Copyright © 2011, SatireWire
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