Sometimes a country get lots and lots of debt. It could be because they need weapons to fight wars, it could be because their treasurer is a compulsive gambler. But sometimes a country needs more money than they have for some reason. And that’s okay. Everybody has student loans or mortgages nowadays, there’s nothing wrong in borrowing a little money, even if you’re a big country.
But what if you can’t pay it back? What would happen if the country’s creditors decided to file a bankruptcy petition?
For example, let’s take the United States of America. The USA has a national debt of 13 billion dollars (in American numbers, that’s 13 trillion dollars). Imagine if USA’s creditors decided to say “Frak USA, we want our money back!”?
What if the managed to file for bankruptcy, and they won through, and the United States was declared bankrupt? I have no idea how that would work practically, but for humoristic effect, let’s assume that it works exactly like when a business goes bankrupt.
This would mean that some law firm would get the responsibility of selling off all of the US’s assets, so that the creditors could get their money back. The land areas of the country could probably be split up and divided among several countries, but I assume they would try selling the whole thing in one part first. This would practically mean that the seat of president of the United States of America would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
It would probably mean the end of democracy in that country: Let’s assume a millionaire trillionaire decided to buy the whole thing. He now owned the United States of America, and there would be no reason for him to let the inhabitants have a say in how he ran the country. The government would now be his private property, and technically he could also decide to evict everybody living in the country (though I assume he would let them stay there for a high rent). What would happen after that…
I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure one could make a pretty awesome comic about it.
93 down, 7 to go.