Competing Economic Theories
Raphael Mirabaud
Ayn Rand v. Wulfram von Hannover
Raphael sat in a deep, wingback chair, sipping brandy and savoring the warm smoke from a cigar. His father was doing the same on the other side of a low, glass table.
This room was called the library because it used to house books in the past. His father had wanted a room where his Russianfriends could smoke after supper, so the antique volumes had been removed to parlors and sitting rooms around the house. The shelves had been filled with tasteful but not valuable knickknacks that could be exposed to smoke without damaging them, mostly souvenirs from his mother’s shopping safaris around the world. A ventilation system and glass doors protected the rest of the house from the fumesand their influence.
During the day, light from the setting sun streamed in the tall windows and glared from the blue lake waters outside. The dark woods and deep blue velvets of the room seemed designed to mitigate the blast of sunlight that filled the room during the evening.
At night, the library became cavelike, a place for criminals to crouch as they discussed their plans. The lake becamefathomless and black, though the city lights of Geneva lined the other shore with yellow sparkles that danced on the dark water.
“The Savona operation was a success,” Valerian said.
Raphael said, “The customs officials are corrupt. The woman who rubber-stamped our shipment was only interested in the amount of cash we handed her.”
“Yes, this was an easy job, logistically. However, it marks thereturn of Geneva Trust to personally handling these matters for our clients.”
Raphael sipped his brandy. The warm fluid slid into his mouth, numbing his tongue. “Plausible deniability with the Swiss banking authorities still seems like a better option.”
“Our accounts have suffered in recent years due to a hands-off approach.”
“You can’t mean that a teenager, a sixteen-year-old for most of it,was significant in Geneva Trust’s operations. I only did a few jobs a month. I had school work and soccer matches.”
“It is more the perception that we are willing to get our hands dirty that attracts and holds the clients.”
“Just the ones who want bankers with dirty hands.”
“The larger the account, the dirtier the client, it seems to me, and many of these clients are connected to each other.Just a few alternative transactions per month increase returns by several-fold.”
Alternative transactions.“So, it is just money,” Raphael said.
Valerian shifted his shoulders and tapped the glowing end off of his cigar. “It’s neverjustmoney, Raphael. Money is merely a measure of power, a way of keeping score. We have far more money on deposit than any government knows, and we like to keepit that way. Enterprises like yours lend our institution a dangerous and edgy cachet that mere interest rates or access to hedge funds can’t.”
Valerian puffed on his cigar, musing.
When Raphael was a child, his father had never smoked, not even a rare cigar with clients. Now, he lit a cigar almost every night, and he was drinking more, too.
“A cachet,” Raphael said. “I don’t think it is sobenign. It taints the bank’s reputation.”
“No one else views it as such. You’ll see, Raphael. You’ve just been a bodyguard all these years, protecting Wulfram von Hannover. He seems like a nice enough fellow, but he’s a bit of a recluse and not involved in the world. He’s merely deposed royalty from several generations ago, living off the interest of royal trust funds. I’m sure you’re very goodat stiff-arming admirers who want to get too close to him. How much could you have seen with him to understand how the world works?”
Raphael could not mention his military service as Dieter Schwarz, where he saw military force used as power.
He could not mention Rogue Security, which was raw power incarnate.
He could not mention Carl von Clausewitz’sVom Kriegeor military strategy or businesstheories that one learned while earning a Master of Business Administration degree.
He could not mention honor nor honesty nor sacrifice nor valor.
He could not mention Wulfram’s doctoral thesis on the power of money and his theory of choking off conflict by betting against warfare on the financial markets. Eventually, people who were buying the stocks of ammunition and weapons manufacturerscouldn’t stand the pain and sold their stocks at a loss, which choked those companies. Raphael was one of a few people in the world who had read the thesis because Wulfram worked a practical version of his theories from his stock-market command center deep in his house, shorting war like the God of Peace was silently and invisibly working in the world.
Valerian tipped brandy into his mouth androlled it around on his tongue before he spoke. “The world is a dog-eat-dog place, Raphael. Geneva Trust allows us to wield an uncommon amount of power. People talk about morals this and ethics that, but no one believes what they say. It’s all a ploy to weed out competitors. The weak believe in fair play and public good. They fritter their time and talents away making sure they have their moralrectitude firmly in place, while we, the strong ones, consolidate power and money. No, they won’t dip their fingers in the sordid worlds of drugs and smuggling, but we will, and thus we are stronger than they are. We will have our money and theirs, in the end. We will control it all.”
“How very Ayn-Randian,” Raphael said.
“Absolutely.”
