National Debt Clock

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The National Debt Clock is a continually updated display of billboard sizes to show the current gross national debt of the United States and every part of the American family of debt. Currently mounted on the west side of One Bryant Park, west of Sixth Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets in Manhattan, New York City. It was the first debt hour installed anywhere.

The idea for the clock came from New York real estate developer Seymour Durst, who wanted to highlight the growing national debt. In 1989, he sponsored the installation of the first hour, originally placed on Sixth Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets, one block away from Times Square. In 2004, the original clock was dismantled and replaced with a newer clock near 44th Street and Sixth Avenue. In 2008, when US national debt exceeded $ 10 trillion for the first time, it was reported that the value of debt may have exceeded the number of digits in hours. The dollar sign that is lit in the leftmost digit position of the hour is then converted into the "1" digit to represent the ten trillionth place. In 2017, the clock is moved again to One Bryant Park, near its original location.

Video National Debt Clock

Context

New York real estate developer Seymour Durst, who discovered and sponsored the hour, stated that it represents a non-partisan effort and explains the motivation behind the project in terms of intergenerational equity: "We are a family business We think generatively, and we do not want to see generations the next is paralyzed by this burden. "

According to Seymour's son, Douglas, his father has been playing a basic idea to draw attention to growing national debt at least since 1980, when during the holiday season he sent a card that says "Happy New Year Your share of national debt is $ 35,000" for senators and congressmen. In the early 1980s, when Seymour first developed the idea of â€‹â€‹an ever-updated clock, the technology needed to implement the project was not yet available. At that time, the debt was rapidly approaching $ 1 trillion.

Maps National Debt Clock

First hour

The first National Debt Clock was installed on February 20, 1989. State debt was at $ 2.7 trillion that year. The original 11-by-26-foot clock (3.4 mÃƒÆ'Ãƒ Â£, 7.9 m) was built at a cost of $ 100,000. It costs $ 500 per month to maintain the look of 305 light bulbs. It was installed in the now destroyed Durst building on Sixth Avenue near 42nd Street (a block from Times Square), facing the north side of 42nd Street and Bryant Park. Built by the New York sign company, Artkraft Strauss, the watch features a point-based segment display that mimics character resolutions typical of 5-by-7. Similar to the second clock, the renewal mechanism is such that the view is set to estimate the pace of debt growth (odometer style) and is adjusted weekly in accordance with the latest figures published by the US Treasury. Seymour Durst swears that the clock will "rise as long as the debt or city ends," and that "if it bothers people, then it works."

Until the week before his death in May 1995, Durst himself adjusted the count through a modem. After his death, his son, Douglas, became president of the Durst Organization, which owns and maintains the clock. Artkraft Strauss has kept the numbers since then. On November 15, 1995, the clock stopped counting for the first time in its six years of operation. As a result of the closure of the federal government, the hours were frozen with a value of $ 4,985,567,071,200. In 1998, clocks stopped shortly after the amount exceeded $ 5.5 trillion. The cause is associated with the "too high." In response, Artkraft installed a new computer within hours.

At the beginning of 2000, the clock began to retreat because the national debt actually decreased. This shows a national debt of $ 5.7 trillion and an individual family share of nearly $ 74,000. With the initial aim of this hour is to highlight the increasing debt, the reversal of those numbers gives mixed messages, added to the fact that the screen is not designed to run backwards correctly. In May 2000, it was reported that the clock was planned to be released on September 7, 2000, what would be the 87th anniversary of Seymour Durst. Douglas said that the decision to lift the clock was made because "it was prepared to focus on increasing the national debt, and that served its purpose." In September, the clock was lifted and closed with a red-and-white-blue blinds, with national debt standing at around 5.7 trillion dollars. However, less than two years later in July 2002, curtains were raised and the hour once again took on increased debt tracking, starting at 6.1 trillion dollars.

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Second hour

In 2004, the original hour was moved from its location near 42nd Street, and the building where the sign had been installed was destroyed so that One Bryant Park could be built. A new model is installed one block on the side of a Durst building at 1133 Avenue of the Americas, overlooking Sixth Avenue near the southeast corner of the intersection with West 44th Street. The new clock is located next to the Internal Revenue Service office. The new clock, which can run backwards, features a brighter seven segment display with many LEDs per segment, allowing the numbers to be read more easily.

Amid the widespread media attention during the financial crisis that began in 2007, the National Debt Watch view was running out of numbers as US federal gross debt rose above $ 10 trillion on September 30, 2008. In the far left room -hard, the hour of the debt is displayed digit "1" in place of dollar sign after the screen starts to overflow.

Complete replacement or complete replacement adds two digits to the clock display is being planned in 2008. The hour will be able to show up to $ 1 quadrillion debt.

In September 2009, Douglas Durst's cousin Jonathan "Jody" Durst, with whom he now shared the company co-presidency, is in the process of taking over the day-to-day operations as president. In an interview with The New York Times , Jonathan said that watch maintenance was planned "for years to come."

In June 2017, the Durst Organization announced that the National Debt Hour would be relocated again so that a new entrance for 1133 Avenue of the Americas could be built. The clock was moved to the west side of One Bryant Park, facing an alley in the middle of a block between Sixth Avenue and Broadway.

United States National Debt Clock(Real-Time) - YouTube

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Similar projects

The idea of â€‹â€‹delivering a message through a regularly updated clock finds the previous expression in the Hour of Hour. However, the innovation of the National Debt Hour is to show the ongoing counter; has since inspired similar projects elsewhere, both in the United States and beyond. In particular, it has become a national fixture showing that US debt is rising. In 1995, the New York Times reported that politicians cite hours to advocate for reductions to the national budget. Various national debt counting tracking is also stored online.

The National Debt Clock has also been credited as the inspiration behind running other totalizers, such as AMD campaigns using electronic billboards; instead of debt, it keeps track of the additional costs that should be using rival chips. In 2010, the "clock death" parodying the debt hour was set up in Times Square, calculating how many maternal deaths occur worldwide every 90 seconds.

Two displays related to national debt are shown during the 2012 Republican National Convention. One of the screens shows the same number as the original clock. The second screen shows some estimates of the amount of national debt has risen since the start of the convention. According to Republicans, the purpose of the RNC clock is to underscore the fact that national debt has grown rapidly under President Barack Obama, who then runs for re-election. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus stated that the hour represented "unprecedented fiscal faux pas from the Obama administration."