How to have your pie ...

A friend of mine lives in the US and he regularly updates me on all things American.

He recently communicated that under the watch of several presidents, the US economy is now more than $22 trillion in debt.

Converted to Australian currency, that is the equivalent of $30 trillion-plus.

Apparently they owe most of the money to themselves.

A large chunk of it is set aside to pay retirement funds and the like.

The US owes overseas countries, mainly China and Japan, in the vicinity of $5 trillion, but most of their debt is at home.

Now my friend is no fan of the man who would be king, aka Sir Donald of Trumpsylvania, but he claims that in the modern era — or the age of entitlement as he prefers to call it — everyone wants a piece of the pie but less and less people are prepared to help make the pie.

I think I understand the sentiment, but I was never that great at pie-making myself.

However, my friend indicated a solution may be at hand.

Someone in the Land of the Free, or to be more precise, a gentleman by the name of Ian Hammond, has started a petition calling for the US to sell the State of Montana to Canada for $1 trillion.

And some people apparently like it because the idea is attracting a lot of attention.

Last week the petition had nearly 15,000 signatures.

Unfortunately, my friend didn’t indicate whether those who lived in Montana wanted to become Canadians or whether Canada was prepared to purchase around one million economic refugees.

I suppose if the deal comes off, the US might consider selling California to Mexico.

There are 39 million Californians. If the transaction was successful, the remaining 48 United States would be around $18 trillion in surplus.

The idea of selling land and making a profit from it isn’t exactly new.

I must admit the prospect of disposing of a few hectares that aren’t needed does have some appeal.

When you consider that Australia’s debt right now is in the vicinity of $350 billion, a once-only offer to sell Tasmania to New Zealand might just give us enough spare change to pay for all our retirements.

Of course, it would be far better to sell Canberra, but then who would want it?