History
Invented and sponsored by New York real estate developer Seymour Durst, the National Debt Clock was installed in 1989. After Seymour's death in 1995, his son Douglas Durst became president of the Durst Organization which owns and maintains the clock.
Douglas Durst has been quoted as saying that the clock represents a non-partisan effort; he has further explained the motivation behind the project in terms of intergenerational equity: "We're a family business. We think generationally, and we don't want to see the next generation crippled by this burden."
According to Douglas Durst, his father had been toying with the basic idea of drawing attention to the growing national debt since at least 1980, when during the holiday season he sent cards that said "Happy New Year. Your share of the national debt is $35,000" to senators and congressmen. In the early eighties, when Durst first developed the idea of a constantly updated clock, the technology required to implement the project was not yet available.
Read more about this topic: National Debt Clock
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“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)