Tag: GLOBAL DEBT

  • The Great Unveiling – Awakening to the Real World

    The Great Unveiling – Awakening to the Real World

    What would actually happen if the world erased all debt overnight?

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    1. The Starting Point

    Let’s start with a fact, not an opinion.

    As of 2025, total global debt is about $340 trillion — every mortgage, every student loan, every government bond, every corporate IOU combined.

    It is, quite literally, the sum of what humanity owes to itself.

    Let that sink in.

    To itself.

    How can a species owe itself money?

    How can the left hand be in debt to the right?

    The numbers are real enough on paper — but the logic behind them is absurd.

    We’ve built a global system in which humanity as a whole is perpetually indebted to… humanity as a whole.

    Meanwhile, the world’s annual GGP, Gross Global Product— the total value of everything we actually create and produce — is about $110 trillion.

    So globally we owe more than three times what we make in a year.

    We are, in effect, trying to pay ourselves with our own promises, and calling the shortfall “growth.”

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    2. The Paradox of Debt-Money

    Here’s the strange truth of modern economics:

    Money isn’t printed first and then lent — it’s created by lending.

    When a bank issues a loan, it simply types numbers into an account.

    Those digits are new money, but they exist only because someone has agreed to owe them back.

    For every dollar of money, there’s a dollar of debt somewhere else. So of course, since we are constantly creating new money mostly by loans that needs to be repaid with interest which is not created, we constantly need to create new debt perpetually. If everyone repaid their loans tomorrow, almost every dollar in existence would vanish.

    The economy wouldn’t just slow down — it would cease to exist. Because money = debt.

    Debt isn’t a flaw in the system.

    Debt is the system.

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    3. The Absurd Scale

    Three hundred and forty trillion dollars.

    A number so large it almost loses meaning.

    To “repay” it, we’d need about three more Earth-sized economies operating at today’s output — three planets producing, mining, farming, shipping, and consuming at full speed just to settle our existing balance sheet.

    But we have only one planet, and it’s already showing the strain: melting ice caps, depleting soils, rising seas.

    We’ve mortgaged the future to pay for the present, and even the collateral — the planet itself — is running out.

    The debt can never be repaid, because repayment would destroy the very money supply that makes repayment possible. The paradox is profound

    It’s a snake eating its own tail.

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    4. The Thought Experiment

    So what if, instead of running faster on the treadmill, we simply stopped?

    What if: every government, bank, and individual agreed to wipe the slate clean — erase all debt at once?

    Technically, it would be easy.

    After all, when a bank issues a loan, it simply types numbers into an account.

    Those digits appear from nowhere, authorized by nothing more than confidence in the story.

    And just as easily as they’re created, they can be erased.

    The same keyboard that made them has another key — 

    backspace.

    Press it once for a typo.

    Press it a few more times, and the world is debt-free.

    Thus: the so-called global “debt crisis” is nothing more than a collection of keystrokes. 

    The difficulty isn’t technical. 

    It’s psychological.

    The moment those numbers disappear, the story humanity believes about itself — the story of credit, ownership, and fake obligation — vanishes with them.

    For a few hours, maybe days, the world would panic.

    Markets would freeze. Banks would have no assets. Governments would have no bonds.

    It would look like collapse.

    But collapse of what, exactly?

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    5. What Would Still Exist

    Would the roads disappear?

    Would the houses crumble?

    Would the hospitals and schools evaporate?

    Would the oceans stop moving or the sun fail to shine?

    No.

    Every physical thing humanity has built and nature has created would still be there:

    every bridge, every farm, every power plant, every tool, every ship.

    The forests, the animals, the wind and rain — all still exactly as before.

    The real world would remain completely intact.

    The only thing missing would be the numbers we used to measure it.

    That’s the realization: the “economy” we thought sustained us was only a layer of code floating above what was real.

    When the code is erased, the world itself doesn’t vanish

    — it appears.

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    6. The Great Unveiling

    That’s the unveiling — the moment when the illusion drops and we see what was always there.

    The money world was never the world.

    It was a veil — a story of ownership drawn over nature, over work, over life itself.

    When that story ends, nothing real is lost.

    In fact, reality becomes visible again.

    The forests keep breathing.

    The clouds still drift and drop rain.

    Birds still fly, insects still hum, whales still cross the oceans.

    People still wake up, stretch, laugh, argue, cook, and create.

    All of it continues as if nothing happened — because to the real world, nothing did.

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    7. Seeing the Illusion for What It Was

    Imagine standing in a field the morning after the Great Erasure.

    The banks are silent, the stock tickers blank, but the sun still warms your skin.

    You realize how strange it was to think that this — sunlight, air, grass, breath — could ever be “priced.”

    The absurdity becomes obvious: we built a system that claims ownership over everything that already belongs to life.

    We invented scarcity in the middle of abundance. Saying only those with enough numbers in their accounts would have an abundance of time to really enjoy life.

    We called debt wealth and competition progress.

    We covered the real world with a mirage of money — and then forgot it was a mirage.

    And yet, beneath that mirage, everything real has been patiently waiting.

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    8. What Happens Next

    At first, confusion.

    If no one owns anything, who decides?

    But slowly, reason returns.

    People realize they don’t need permission to use what already exists. 

    Food still grows. Tools still work. Knowledge still lives in every mind. We can peacefully agree to create abundance for all.

    Communities reorganize — not around money, but around contribution, skill, and trust.

    Value shifts from possession to participation.

    Humanity begins to live again as nature does — through exchange without debt, through cycles of giving and renewal.

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    9. The Realization

    The true catastrophe isn’t the collapse of the money world — it’s that we mistook it for the real one.

    The true awakening is realizing the world doesn’t need to be rebuilt — only remembered.

    Everything that matters survives the erasure:

    the land, the oceans, the people, the animals, the insects, the sky, the sun.

    When the numbers vanish, what remains is life — unpriced, unowned, unending.

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    10. The Invitation

    This is the Great Unveiling: not the end of civilization, but the end of its disguise.

    A collective seeing — that the wealth of the world was never in banks, but in being.

    Step outside.

    Feel the ground.

    Everything real is still here.

    The world is Waking Up.

    Are you?

    Follow the former billionaire Benjamin Michaels as he wakes up in a world where this has already happened. Shaken and shocked he staggers out of the hospital where he has been sleeping for a century, only to find his old world of money and numbers completely vanished… Only the real world remains.

    order the book here

  • The Planet of debt

    The Planet of debt

    What’s All This Talk About National Debt?

    If you’ve been following the news or political debates, you’ve probably heard a lot about national debt. But what does it really mean, and why should we care?

    Many people do not seem to know how extreme it actually is.

    Even Elon Musk recently expressed surprise over the U.S. government’s $2 trillion deficit—but this kind of deficit isn’t an exception, it’s the rule. The entire global monetary system runs on deficit. As of now, the world’s total debt is more than 330% of the global GDP—meaning we globally owe over three times what we actually produce in a year. It’s not just one country; it’s the entire planet operating in the red. Meanwhile, nations are caught in absurd tax wars—Trump raises tariffs, other countries retaliate, and the whole circus continues, further distorting the economy and punishing ordinary people as it is the taxpayer that takes the burden in the end. But the system isn’t just broken—it’s built this way. And that’s the real problem.

    National Debt

    National debt refers to the total amount of money a country owes, accumulated through borrowing to fund government spending. Countries borrow money by issuing bonds, and in turn, they must pay interest on that debt. They borrow this money from their own central bank and other countries. But here’s the real question: How much debt is too much? And more importantly, what happens when countries’ debt reaches levels that are beyond sustainable?

    Staggering Debt-to-GDP Ratios

    The Gross Domestic Product is the value of everything the country produces in one year.

    Take a look at a few examples of countries drowning in debt:

    • Japan: Over 230% of its GDP. That means Japan owes more than twice its total annual economic output.
    • United States: Around 133% of its GDP. The U.S. owes 33% more than the value of everything it produces in a year. Hence the $2 trillion deficit. No wonder DOGE had little effect… It’s obvious that austerity measures will never help this situation.
    • Italy: 135% of GDP. High debt burdens relative to a country’s economic size make it hard to invest in the future or respond to crises.

    While these figures are staggering, they represent just a small portion of the global debt picture. Because this is only the public debt. When adding the private debt(consumers and corporations) to the picture we will see that the global debt situation is much worse.

    The Global Debt: More Than 3 Times the World’s GDP

    Let’s put this into perspective: Even if we had 8 billion people on each of three planets, we still wouldn’t have enough economic output to match the global debt we are currently carrying.  Think about that. We’re literally in debt beyond the planet’s capacity.

    how did we get here?

    The situation we’re in—a global debt ratio of 330% of Gross Global Product (GGP)—has been building over decades through a combination of historical events, systemic decisions, and economic policies. Here’s a simplified breakdown of how we arrived at this point:

    1. The Rise of Fiat Money and Central Banking

    • Fiat money refers to currency that is not backed by a physical commodity (like gold) but by the trust and authority of governments. This shift started with the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944 and fully took effect in the early 1970s when the U.S. moved off the gold standard. Since then, money could be created(as loans) without any real limit, fueling economic activity but also making it much easier to accumulate debt. And today, all these loans function as the money that are in circulation, that we use to pay for goods and services.
    • Central banks, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve, were established to manage monetary systems. They could print money, and they often did so to stimulate growth during economic slowdowns, thus increasing national debt over time.

    2. The Expansion of Credit

    • Over time, banks and lenders became more willing to lend money to both individuals, corporations and governments, and credit became easier to access. Individuals took out loans for homes, cars, and education, while governments borrowed more to fund social services, wars, and infrastructure.
    • In the private sector, businesses increasingly relied on corporate debt to expand. In the public sector, governments borrowed to fund military spending, social welfare programs, and more.
    • The monetizing of economies—where finance becomes a driving force of the economy—led to more complex financial products like mortgages, corporate bonds, and government bonds. These products fueled massive debt creation, which eventually outpaced the actual productive capacity of the economy. 

    3. The Push for Economic Growth

    • The prevailing economic ideology for most of the 20th century was to prioritize growth, especially in industrialized nations. Consumerism and endless growth became the central tenets of capitalism. This push for growth was funded through borrowing.
    • Since debt could be seen as a tool for stimulating growth (through investments, loans, and borrowing), the economy became increasingly dependent on debt to maintain and increase GDP.

    4. The 2008 Financial Crisis

    The This crisis exposed how the debt-based system had grown out of control. Financial institutions took on enormous risks, and subprime mortgages (loans given to people who couldn’t repay them) led to a massive collapse.

    • Governments and central banks responded with more debt, bailing out large institutions and corporations, and borrowing even more money to stimulate recovery. This worsened the global debt burden.
    • Since the crisis, economic recovery has largely been driven by low interest rates and more borrowing, pushing the global debt levels even higher.

    5. The Globalization of Debt

    As economies became more interconnected, global borrowing accelerated. Emerging markets, developed countries, and corporations all borrowed money from international lenders. This allowed the global debt to expand across the world, not just within individual nations.

    • The rise of global supply chains and access to cheap capital meant countries could borrow more than ever before, using debt to fuel infrastructure projects, technological advances, and social welfare programs.

    6. Interest and the Debt Spiral

    A key feature of our current system is the interest on debt. When countries, people or businesses borrow, they are required to pay back the money they owe, plus interest. However, interest is never created when the loan is made. This means that, to repay loans, more loans must be issued, leading to an ever-increasing cycle of debt accumulation.

    • This interest paradox means that there’s always more money owed than money in circulation, creating a situation where it’s impossible to pay back all debts without continually borrowing more, which shall also be paid back with interest.

    Musical chairs

    The debt system is like a game of musical chairs where the chairs (money) are constantly being removed (through interest payments), and there’s not enough money to pay back all the debt (interest and principal). So the system(like the musical chairs) is deigned to create lots of losers: All those who are left without a chair or enough money.

    7. Government Spending and Austerity

    • Governments began increasing their spending to maintain social systems and infrastructure, and because it was easy to borrow, it became an attractive option. However, as debt grew, some governments reached the point where they couldn’t afford to service the debt without borrowing even more.
    • Austerity measures were introduced by some countries to balance the books. But these measures often involved cutting public services, raising taxes, and cutting benefits for the most vulnerable populations—furthering social inequality.

    8. The Consequences of Debt

    • As the global debt grew larger, the system became more fragile. Banks and financial institutions continued to profit from lending, while ordinary people were saddled with more debt and fewer opportunities for wealth accumulation.
    • Governments used financial bailouts and continued borrowing to maintain the system’s stability, but this only served to postpone the inevitable collapse.
    • The interest-based system has forced countries and individuals to keep borrowing just to pay off interest, creating a debt trap that continues to spiral.
    • Meanwhile, global inequality has grown as wealth has become concentrated in the hands of a few, while the majority of people struggle with stagnant wages and increasing living costs. But not only this. The huge hole we have dug ourselves into is the planet that we live on. It is the planet that provide the resources corporations and countries need to produce something of actual value to justify all the debt.
    • Rising Interest Payments: Countries are dedicating an increasing portion of their budgets just to paying interest on their debt, leaving less money for essential services like education, healthcare, and public infrastructure.
    • The Debt Trap: To pay off existing debt, countries often need to borrow even more money. It’s a vicious cycle. The more we borrow, the more we have to borrow again just to keep up with interest payments.
    • Wealth Inequality: The current system disproportionately benefits the wealthy. Banks and financial institutions that hold the debt profit from interest payments, while ordinary people suffer from stagnant wages, rising living costs, and shrinking services.
    • Environmental Devastation: The debt-based economy requires endless growth. To fuel that growth, we continue to exploit the planet’s resources, often at the expense of sustainability and ecological health.
    • The Fragility of the System
    • The current debt system is incredibly fragile. If a few major countries or corporations default on their debt, it could set off a domino effect, crashing the entire global economy. We saw the early signs of this during the 2008 financial crisis, where the bursting of debt bubbles led to global instability. And yet, the global debt has only grown since then, making the system even more vulnerable.

    Where Do We Go From Here?

    We must reimagine our system if we are to avoid economic and environmental collapse, social unrest and extinction of humanity.

    The Only Sane Solution

    A global moneyless, Resource-Based World

    Given how unsustainable the current financial system is, the only sane solution is a complete rethinking of how we manage resources and how we conduct our lives on this planet. The current model of debt-driven growth is pushing us to the brink. If we don’t change course, we risk further financial collapse, economic inequality, and environmental destruction. Not to speak of the extinction of humanity itself.

    The only way forward is to move toward a resource-based economy, where the world’s resources are considered the shared inheritance of humanity. And the resources are optimized and shared based on need rather than profit. In a system like this, money is abolished, and the focus shifts to sustainable living and equitable distribution of resources. People contribute based on their skills and abilities, and society works together to meet everyone’s needs. A high tech world where technology serves the people and the planet. Not profit. A global relative abundance for all people is possible within a system like this.

    In such a world, there would be no money, no debt, and no need to borrow or trade in a system that doesn’t work. It’s a world of cooperation, where human well-being and the health of the planet come first.

    The question now is: Can we make this shift in time? The global debt crisis has reached critical levels, and the time to act is now. We have the tools, the technology, and the potential to create a system that works for everyone—a system that doesn’t rely on debt, but on resources, sharing, collaboration, and sustainability.

    The choice is ours

    The world as we know it is facing a reckoning, but that doesn’t mean we can’t build a better future. The choice is ours to make.

    A Vision of What Could Be: How Waking Up Imagines a New World

    But what does this new world look like in practice? How would it feel to live in a moneyless, debt-free society where resources are shared based on need, not profit? How can we navigate such a radical transformation?

    In my book, Waking Up: A Journey Towards a New Dawn for Humanity, I invite you to imagine just that.

    Waking Up is a glimpse into a future where humanity has shed its old systems and embraced a new way of living. It’s a story of transformation—both personal and collective—and an exploration of what happens when we begin to awaken to the possibility of a world that works for everyone, not just the privileged few.

    Join the Journey

    If you’re ready to step into that new world, Waking Up will take you there. The story will challenge you to reimagine what’s possible and inspire you to see that, despite the current chaos, we are not powerless. The change we seek is within our reach—and it starts with us.

    Take the first step today, and let’s begin this journey together. Order Waking Up now and join Benjamin in his quest to understand a world where everyone is truly free.

    ORDER HERE