A Sketch by Jean-Pierre Martinez
Two characters, men or women, arrive. They start smoking.
Kim – What floor do you work on?
Sam – The fifth…
Kim – What company is on the fifth?
Sam – The same as on the fourth.
Kim – Ah, right. Import-export.
Sam – Lately, it’s mostly import.
Kim – Yes. What else could we possibly export?
Sam – I don’t know.
Kim – Maybe our senators and general councillors.
Sam – It’s true that unlike oil, we’re not short on those.
Kim – Senators are the only energy that’s both fossil and renewable… And what kind of products do you import?
Sam – A bit of everything. But we specialize in financial products.
Kim – Financial products?
Sam – We import capital.
Kim – For what purpose?
Sam – To pay for the other products we import.
Kim – Ah, I see… But what do we use to pay for the capital we import?
Sam – Nowadays, there are more sophisticated terms for these kinds of products in financial jargon, but basically, we can call them IOUs.
Kim – So, essentially, we import everything we consume, and the only thing we export is our debt.
Sam – Exactly.
Kim – But why do all those countries that support us buy our debt?
Sam – So we can have the means to pay them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to export. It would lead to the collapse of the system.
Kim – I see… But then why don’t all those poor countries consume what they produce instead of exporting it to rich countries that don’t have the money to pay them?
Sam – Because they are poor countries, precisely. The standard of living is very low and inequalities are very high. No middle class, so no domestic market. And, of course, the workers can’t afford to buy what they produce.
Kim – That’s a bit paradoxical, isn’t it?
Sam – That’s how it is… Any economist will tell you that.
Kim – I wonder how we haven’t yet thought of guillotining a few of them…
Sam – Oh wow… You’re an anti-globalist, aren’t you?
Kim – It’s my Che Guevara side…
Sam – And you, what floor do you work on?
Kim – Thirteenth. I work for an NGO.
Sam – I thought this building only had twelve floors.
Kim – Yes, it does. But I work for a fictitious NGO.
Sam – Ah, I see…
Kim – Actually, I need to get back.
An elderly woman who looks very much like Death arrives.
Sam – Who’s that?
Kim – The owner. You don’t often see her around here…
Sam – The owner of this tower?
Kim – Of the tower, yes. And of all the companies it houses.
Sam – Even the fictional ones…
Kim – She’s the majority shareholder in the holding company that owns it all. We used to be owned by pension funds, but now that they’ve abolished pensions…
Sam – So we’re all working for her?
Kim – Yeah.
Sam – I hope she’s worth it…
Sam leaves, followed by Kim.
Black.
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A sketch from the collection Nicotine
Link to the collection for free download (PDF)
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