The domino effect, as applied to takeovers, and what happens when the last one falls.
This was it. The pinnacle of success. Fortune Incorporated had made its last takeover. With this signing, with this handshake, with this cluster of flashes dazzling his eye… Fortune Inc owned every business in the world… and since he owned Fortune Inc, he owned the world.
For the entire press conference, the glamorous soiree, it was all he could do to maintain a restrained and confident facade. He had to wait until he had fashioned a dignified retreat before he turned whooping cartwheels down the halls. Before he hugged the manservants and kissed the maids. Before he did the little victory dance that he had not performed in public since he was five.
He’d won.
From this moment on, there would not be a venture, not be an invention, not be a lemonade stand on a street corner, that did not have his money involved. He, Launcillot Cranstonbury, had every last deal on this planet working in his favour.
Of course he owed a lot to his predecessors, making certain that Fortune Inc was the best and strongest business out there, and generations of Cranstonburies for not fixing what was never broken in the first place. And, of course, his father, for teaching him everything he knew.
And now he was the youngest and most successful business genius on record. The only question that remained was - how to best shape the world in his image?
What would get him the most profit?
“…and then there’s the Castor Island matter, sir.”
Undisputed Economic King of the World, Launcillot Cranstonbury raised a greying eyebrow. “What Castor Island matter?”
“The citizens of Castor Island have decided to shun the body corporate, sir. They’re not engaging in commerce as we know it. They’re… bartering.”
Launcillot laughed. “Barter. In a global economy? That’s not going to run for long, is it?”
“They have a unit of exchange that is not based on material wealth, sir. They’re minting this… fiat… and using it in lieu of genuine money.”
“Oh? What are they calling it?”
“Time, sir. It’s based on seconds, minutes and hours of genuine time.”
“Well how the hell can anything accrue value that way?” protested Launcillot. “There’s no opportunity for investment. No chance of returns.”
“Yes, sir.” Pevensy consulted her tablet. “Your interests in that area are now money sinks, sir. Nobody shops there. The locals prefer Time to Lupits.”
“That’s their problem,” Launcillot scoffed. “Withdraw my interests there. Let the whole damn island rot without import or export. They’ll suffer soon enough.”
“Er,” said Pevensy. “That’s the problem, sir. They’re prospering.”
“How?”
“Evidently… they’ve made a form of… black market. The people prefer craft and care to the cheaper, mass-produced fare that has dominated the market since your takeover. And their immediate neighbours are beginning to join in.”
“Tell the networks to run the usual smear campaigns. People risking their lives and the lives of their family on products that don’t comply with the researched industry standards. And make the industry standards impossible for these yokels to comply with. Standard business. And start a few lines with slightly higher quality for the rubes at twice the normal price. Keep them confused, Pevensy. It’s the only way.”
Launcillot Cranstonbury was a great-grandfather when Time took over the planet and rendered his economic empire moot. He never understood where he went wrong. All he had ever done was play by the rules, and give the people what they said they wanted.
He never understood why… they had no reason to help him in his old age and infirmity, but they did anyway. And they only charged their Time. If they charged at all.
And he never learned that the Galactic Alliance had had a hand in destroying his life’s work.
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