Being in debt and living forever.
A man has trouble sleeping. He is heavily indebted and wonders whether he’ll be able to stay solvent, and he tosses and turns as his troubles refuse to leave him in peace. Finally he drifts off, and has what seems like a dream so vivid, he’s not sure whether he has actually died and gone to Heaven.
He finds himself in the most magnificent corporate foyer, with “Heaven Inc.” grandly displayed on walls. White light shines from everywhere, but is not harsh on the eyes. He feels a deep tranquility, a peace he has not felt for a long time, as beautiful people dressed in white walk as if floating around the foyer of the most beautiful building he has ever seen. One of the beautiful people approaches him, and takes him by the hand, leading him down a wide corridor. Not far down, they turn into a room behind large frosted doors, to face an imposing desk with an angel sitting behind it.
The angel looks up, smiling at the man, who asks with understandable puzzlement, “Am I dead?”
“No,” says the angel, warmly and firmly.
“Is this Heaven?” asks the man. “Am I here to see God?”
“Well, no,” replies the angel, “you’re not dead, although this is Heaven. If you were dead, you’d be sent to Admissions, which is in the opposite direction. You’re here because we’re piloting a trial program, and we’ve chosen you. You’re getting to see our Chief Financial Officer, face to face. It’s rather a big deal, to be honest.”
“Heaven has a CFO?” the man asks, baffled.
“Yes, and she’s quite a big deal. We understand you’re deep in debt and we want to trial a program to help out indebted humans on earth, which is why you’re here. Please follow me.”
The man follows the angel to an office where he is introduced to an elegant woman, who it must be admitted looks something like what you’d expect an accountant in Heaven to look like once it occurred to you to imagine such a thing. Heaven’s CFO moves forward and genially shakes the man’s hand.
“Hello, and welcome to Heaven Inc.” she says. “I’ll keep this brief, as we’re all busy. I assume you know we’re piloting a new program? It’s about managing personal debt.”
“Well,” the man says, “I gathered there was a program. Are you writing off all my debt for me? Truly, that would be a wonderful thing.”
“Oh no,” the CFO responds, “we’re not absolving you of your debt. We’re just helping you manage it, by making you immortal.”
“Pardon me?” he says in surprise.
“It’s quite simple,” says the CFO. “We’re going to make you immortal. You’re going to live forever. Technically, you may still die, but the probability of you dying in any given year is ridiculously low, and doesn’t increase through time. It’s just easier to describe this as being immortal. Congratulations.”
“How does this get me out of debt?” says the man, now entirely unsure on what is happening to him.
“Well, we’re not just making you immortal, we’re guaranteeing you an increase in your income (in real terms) of 2.5% per annum, so that each year you’ll be slightly richer than the previous year. You’ll have a perpetually growing base of income from which to pay back your debts, and you’ll have, in effect, until the end of time to pay them all back.”
He ponders this, and realises it makes an odd kind of sense. It is not about having his debts wiped out, it’s about having the threat of bankruptcy reduced virtually to zero. The CFO hands him a glowing tablet with the seal of Heaven Inc unmistakably marked at the top, and instructs him to take that to any meeting with banks and creditors. With the tablet under his arm, he is shown back out to the foyer and farewelled.
Back down on earth, he goes on to live out into the indefinite future. He is the only one in his family who is blessed with immortality, so he sees his beloved wife and their children grow old and die. But he is also able to live alongside their grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, seeing them grow and thrive and their offspring grow and thrive.
He never becomes debt-free. He realises that for an entity in his position, solvency has been completely redefined. His indebtedness is simply a thing to be managed sensibly, not a millstone around his neck nor a thing to be feared. He takes professional advice, makes sensible investments and keeps a close eye on interest rates and his debt-servicing obligations. He rolls over old debt with new debt which, with Heaven Inc’s effective role as guarantor, banks are happy to provide, on favourable terms because of the low risk. He balances, over time, his ability to generate wealth and a standard of living with his ability to manage the debt burden. He builds up a large portfolio of properties for his ever-growing family, as well as a number of profitable family businesses. Sometimes investments go wrong, and in response he winds back some of the family’s optional expenditures, but over time, the family never endures significant hardship. He never, at any point, feels that he needs to be debt-free, and no bank ever insists that he repay in full without borrowing again.
Eventually, he goes to sleep one night and wakes to find himself back in the foyer of Heaven Inc. An angel welcomes him and takes him back to the office of the CFO, who looks exactly the same as she did when he first visited. (He, although he’s aged very very slowly, looks considerably older.) She is skimming through a report, and looks up with a smile as he enters.
“Hello again. Things seem to have gone well for you. The provisional report on our pilot program is very positive!”
He smiles. “You have transformed my life and that of my family. I can always borrow, and I just need to get good financial advice on a regular basis, and I can see every generation of my family live better than the one before.”
“That’s great,” says the CFO. “You’re effectively like a state government in a federation, or a country that belongs to a monetary union, and you’ve turned that situation into a great success. We’re contemplating rolling out a Phase 2 of the program, but we may not need to given the success we’ve had with Phase 1.”
Puzzled, he asks “What was planned for the second phase?”
“We give you a printing press that prints currency, and your own bank to manage it. Make you like a fully independent country. But that might be an extra step we don’t need to take.”
