It appears that the United States of America has a fairly large national debt. How large? Estimates place the figure somewhere in excess of eighteen trillion dollars. Since this debt is so large, we’ve been wondering, here in the central office of The Flying News, how we can get some of that money. At least, we were wondering until Phim reminded us that it was debt, which he says is like negative money. So we don’t want any of the national debt after all.
But apparently, someone in our nation’s capital has been thinking about money too, and has realized that a fairly quick and easy way for our—apologies to Jim Jocifero, who claims to be something called ‘English’—national government to make some money is to add advertising to the Declaration of Independence© (herafter known as TDOI).
From a financial point of view, this is a really good idea: Every year, millions of college students and tens of millions of high school students read this document, most of them ready and even eager to be distracted by advertisers. So the government ought to be able to sell advertising space on TDOI for quite a lot of money.
However, from a scientific point of view, this is very unsafe: Since debt is negative money, and money is positive money, when the two meet, they will annihilate each other, at the same time releasing significant energy. This is an example of the scientific law that “opposites explode,” typically illustrated by the production of high energy gamma rays when an electron and a positron (or negative electron) meet. In the case of money and debt annihilation, our simulations show that the energy released could be sufficient to cause the treasury to explode, which doubtless would have serious negative consequences. So, while we applaud the ingenuity of the nameless schemer who has come up with this plan, we urge that utmost caution be observed.
“Declaration of Independence. In Congress, July 4, 1776, a Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled,” Thomas Jefferson. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
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