Debt clock
A debt clock is a public counter that estimates the current national debt of a local authority (usually a state) and visualizes its progress by updating it every second. Because of the mirror-image relationship between liabilities and claims, there are now also wealth clocks that visualize private and state wealth . Clocks for displaying the interest burden of the state resulting from the national debt are called interest clocks .
purpose
The debt clock boldly shows the dynamics of government debt growth. Private debt and the growth of financial wealth of creditors are not considered here. In addition to the actual new indebtedness of the state through investment loans from government bonds , the debt clock also shows the effect of interest and compound interest and the increase in the state's debt due to the interest to be paid.
Well-known debt clocks
The first debt clock was installed in New York City in 1989 at the intersection of 42nd Street and Avenue of the Americas on the initiative of real estate agent Seymour Durst. When the US national debt reached 14 digits in September 2008, the number of digits foreseen was insufficient and the dollar sign in the first position had to be replaced by the number 1.
A German debt clock has been at the entrance to the headquarters of the Bund der Steuerpayers in Berlin since June 16, 2004 . In addition to Germany's national debt forecast by the association, the increase per second is also displayed. These values are estimated by the association by adding an estimated probable borrowing for the current year to the national debt of the previous year. Even in the mid-2010s, the debt clock gives the impression that Germany's national debt is rising, although it has been falling both in relative and absolute terms since 2012. For example, in 2013 the German national debt amounted to 77.5 percent of the gross domestic product, compared to only 66 percent in 2017. On December 22, 2017, the debt clock ran backwards for the first time in its existence - by 78 euros per second.
At the former seat of the Association of Taxpayers in Wiesbaden (Adolfsallee) there has also been a debt clock since June 12, 1995, which shows the total national debt, the debt per capita and the debt increase per second. There is also a debt clock in the CDU parliamentary group in the Lower Saxony state parliament . Another debt clock has been in Munich since February 29, 2008 . In the House of History in Bonn there is also a debt clock. This shows total debt, debt per second and debt per German citizen.
Another clock can be found in the town hall of the city of Düsseldorf , which has been debt-free since September 12, 2007 after the sale of a block of RWE shares . The time since Düsseldorf has no more debts is displayed there. There was also a debt clock at the town hall in Langenfeld (Rhineland) . After Langenfeld became debt-free in 2008, the clock was dismantled.
criticism
The lack of a comparison of the growing wealth to the increasing debt is u. a. criticized from the union side. In this context, a wealth clock of increasing wealth is also suggested. In February 2007, UNCTAD's chief economist , Heiner Flassbeck , criticized the one-sidedness and striking effect of the debt clock. He suggested placing a clock with the display of private assets and their growth next to it, so that the debts can be assessed against the background of the existing assets. In the meantime, fortune or wealth watches have been published in different versions, such as B. at the trade union building in Frankfurt.
Web links
- Debt clocks from the 28 EU member states and interest clocks from Germany and Austria on haushaltssteuerung.de
- Steuerzahler.de , website of the Association of Taxpayers with a running debt clock in the page header
- USdebtclock.org , United States detailed debt clock
- Canada's debt clock
- Debt clock of France
- Debt clock of the Republic of Austria
- UK debt clock
Individual evidence
- ^ Spiegel Online
- ^ New York Post
- ↑ Association of Taxpayers Germany (as of April 19, 2011)
- ↑ Spiegel: "They made themselves unbelievable" , October 28, 2010
- ↑ Hannes Koch: Strange time announcement - debt clock of the taxpayers' association. In: TAZ. taz.de, March 17, 2017, accessed on March 17, 2017 .
- ↑ Press release Bund der Steuerpayers
- ^ Association of Taxpayers Bavaria
- ↑ Manager-Magazin: Düsseldorf Debt Free , 2007
- ^ WDR ( memento from October 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The Hamburg Fortune Watch ( Memento from January 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Article from the Frankfurter Rundschau, February 28, 2007 (PDF; 45 kB)
- ↑ Vermögensuhr Hamburg on radiohamburg.de, accessed on May 2, 2011
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 52 ″ N , 13 ° 23 ′ 14 ″ E