By Earl Bousquet
CASTRIES, St Lucia – A friend who COVID-19 has given enough time to follow every TV News bulletin all day – and still follow Facebook every night – called yesterday and asked: ‘Have we borrowed a trillion dollars yet?’
Never having had to write-down a trillion-dollar figure, I turned to my ever-faithful wise old nanny, Alexa, who knows virtually everything.
More hard-of-hearing than me and her mind always wider in scope than the central issue, she replied: ‘There are 840 billion, 120 billion Euros in one trillion US dollars.’
Alexa obviously misheard my question, so I asked again, slower and louder.
Her earwax penetrated this time, she replied: ‘There are six zeros in a million, nine in a billion and 12 in a trillion.’
If sarcasm was money, my friend would have been a trillionaire.
But there being hardly any fertile ground here for his distinct brand of rich imagination, dreamers like us continue to sow seeds of hope (simmen gwen espewance) – that one day in our lives, most people will see the same things our eyes show us.
He would daily cry about things like, ‘a big figure being paid-out to one pocket only’ and figuring-out ‘how many houses for poor people’ or ‘how many tablets for poor-people children’ or ‘how much electricity and gas and water’ that should be ‘given to people who don’t have … ’
In response to his trillion-dollar question, I asked: ‘What would you do with a trillion dollars if you were the prime minister?’
He quickly replied: ‘Well, that’s a lotta money…
‘But, first of all, if it was mine; I would give everybody a raise and I would fix-up everything that mash-up, finish St Jude hospital, finish the airport, pay children school fees, fix-up single-parent mothers and fathers, give all vagrants a meal and a place to stay, pay farmers to plant what we eat, give fishermen free gas, give minibuses tax-free parts, give all unemployed nurses a job, fix-up all my children’s mothers – and open a special things account … ’
I didn’t dare ask what the ‘special’ account would be for, him having repeatedly reminded me that ‘if I win-back all the money I spend already on Lotto, I can open a nice and clean little Bom Account.’ (Translation: A ‘Bom’ is a bucket that doesn’t carry water…)
I told him if he had a trillion dollars and we were in a trillion dollars’ debt, ‘we would still have a trillion-dollar debt’ because he ‘would have spent all the revenue on expenditure without a cent towards debt.’
His reply: ‘If I earn a million dollars, why should I pay tax and debt with it before I make sure we all have a good time?’
I reminded him my question was about if he was prime minister – and explained that ‘we cannot afford that kind of thinking because we don’t print money … ’
His reply: ‘So, if America can print money, why are we closing-down the government printery?
‘Why can’t we print out own money too?
‘Wha’ wrong wid dat?’
Ignoring the plethora of questions, I asked: ‘You know how many zeros in a trillion dollars?’
He replied: ‘I don’t even know how many dots in a billion, you expect me to know how much in a trillion?
‘Not even the Rocker Feller [Rockefeller] had a trillion dollars …
‘So how is me, uh?’
I informed him, ‘one trillion has twelve zeros … ’
His gasped and said, ‘Mama! I never see a number dat-long … ’
I replied, ‘so you can imagine if you leave-out a zero?
His couldn’t-care-less rejoinder: ‘Well, at least we will still have eleven … ’
I explained why I no longer spend a whole week glued to my TV watching annual throne speeches, budget, appropriations bills and debates on estimates of revenue and expenditure in real-time – and why I turned-down at least three requests from colleagues this week for my ‘comments on the budget’ and what I ‘think’ the budget should contain ‘in an election year’.
Like I told my requesting colleagues, ‘it doesn’t matter what I think, it’s what the government does that matters.
‘It decides what its estimates it should spend and how much it intends to earn in the next year and tells us in largely unreal but believable terms – and then faces the real world to find the money that nobody owes us. […]
‘And when our income cannot pay our expenditure, the easiest way out is to borrow – and borrow, borrow, borrow until we make-back the money to pay back, all of which only keeps us back … ’
But brother friend didn’t see it that way.
As far as he’s concerned, ‘we put the government there to pay our bills and if it cannot, then we need one that will be able to – and that’s my bottom line.
‘All I want to know is what and how I will benefit from the billion-dollar budget.
‘It isn’t a trillion-dollar one, but I think one billion has three less zeros to spend – which is nothing – leaving us with less millions to pay back.
‘So, maybe it’s okay we settle for a billion-dollar budget than a trillion-dollars. And maybe, by this time next year, we will have a page big enough to take all twelve zeros you say they have in one trillion!’
Like most, my friend imagined first what he would have done with a trillion dollars – and then everything else.
I asked him to estimate ‘how much’ he would have in his ‘floating Bom Account’. He simply smiled.
Then a new item caught our attention … ‘The COVAX scheme to vaccinate developing countries has secured 3.5 billion doses, but only 30.5 million – or just one percent – has been delivered.’
My friend remarked: ‘If they had catered for a trillion doses, maybe they would have distributed more.’
Why was he hooked on that 13-figure number?
Our chat ended without me being able to answer that trillion-dollar question.
