Stealing Flowers (32 page)

“An economy in depression will stay there a
long time unless government investments are made,” Hiro said. “I
believe we are quickly becoming that type of economy. If spending
for capital equipment falls, the contraction will continue,
moreover private investment has an antagonist, that is, satiety,
and as we all know, it spells shrinkage. This is why the deliberate
undertaking of rapid government spending to stimulate the economy
is so important.”

Graham looked angry and was about to respond
when Sally cut in. “Let’s say that your liberal views on paper
money were implemented around the world,” she said. “What would
happen to the current expansion?”

“The Reagan administration’s recent decision
to reduce the national capital gains tax looks good for business at
first sight,” he replied. “Capital accumulation in the democracies,
is essentially national hoarding by conservative policy. Risky
investment in offshore or in third world countries, equals out the
effect of keeping your money here and moving your factories
offshore or to third-world countries to save on other state costs.
A country like America is going to have state costs, you just can’t
get around it, and the neo-conservatives can’t have it both
ways.”

“I think Germany and Japan have better
production figures for reasons other than liberal fiscal policy,”
Sally said in a confident voice. “For instance, for production
reasons. Not all the better market performances in these two
countries are for reasons that we could call entirely positive.
They are recent democracies, even if they were ancient regimes, of
course, if Japan’s a democracy at all yet.”

I could see that this remark had a shocking
effect, and that she’d tried to personally affront Hiro. I saw Mary
had joined us; her and Una, I was sure in my heart, would be
cheering for Sally. As for me, I was torn between Hiro and Sally.
Her gown fit perfectly and she radiated happiness, or so I thought;
this assessment, would later prove wrong, but she stood there so
confident, beautiful, and magnetizing, that she seemed to become
the center of the hall. “Some working habits of the past were
better than the things which have replaced them,” Sally added. “If
Germans are harder working people compared to us in America, should
we necessarily follow their statist socialist policies or rather
follow their work ethic, an ethic that they, as Lutherans, along
with the Presbyterians, first created?”

“I have a feeling that we are going to be
subjected to your rather colorful and unusual views on fiscal
policy,” Hiro said with a warm smile. His expression held an aura
of benevolence and his soft voice had a distinctive feature of
making every word appear to drop blessed from the skies. I was
learning to admire him on all fronts. Even her insult hadn’t
ruffled his feathers.

“Current paper money policy,” he said, “led
to an unbounded credit expansion in the sixties and seventies.
Subsidized health care, food for school children, public housing,
environment legislation, and many other valuable public services
came into being, which couldn’t have developed with direct income
tax alone. Now the Conservatives are floating their currencies and
following the tight-fisted paper policy like those suggested by
Milton Friedman, but if you’ve been watching, they haven’t stopped
spending.

“Our crisis, which before this expansion was
inflation, is now debt. They’ve just invested in arrears. Reagan’s
a perfect example of this, as is Thatcher. After all, even Friedman
calls himself a Liberal, not a Conservative. Who wants to be a
Conservative? Look at their tradition. They preach tolerance and
Human Rights, but if you are a member of Amnesty International or
some such organization, they brand you as a leftist. They talk tax
cuts and spend like bandits on arms and war. And they preach
against government expansion inside America, but mettle in
everyone’s affairs abroad. To top it all off, I think they’re all
hawks. We are aware of the growing death knells of communism around
the world. Russia is broke. China’s markets are beginning a rapid
deployment of capitalism. This is an admitted world-wide defeat to
Marxism. A harsh money standard, as you suggest, Sally, such as
gold, would serve to push all the communist countries out of the
western grip. The Cold War isn’t over, yet.” Again he eyed his
audience, this time as though he were a minority of one. “What?
We’d rather fight them outright. We can’t seduce them if they won’t
come to the party. We’d face increased tension everywhere. Indeed,
we’d have to spend even more money than the absurd amount we are
now spending on the military.”

“I can’t see how you’ll compromise with
dictatorships and keep your democracy?” Sally said in a voice, more
harsh, I’m sure, than she meant.

“You mean left wing dictatorships?” he asked
critically .

“I mean all dictatorships.”

“The young are purists,” he responded, “gold
is pure too. The young are optimistic as well, so they are the ones
who become angry when they see the corruption of an ideal. That’s
the reason why the Left cry, ‘The villainy of the Capitalist,’ ‘The
greed of the Industrialist,’ and ‘The selfishness of the
Financiers.’ This is natural and self-seeking in youth, don’t you
agree, Sally?” He looked at everyone except Sally. “On the Right
you cry, ‘The villainy of Lawyers, ‘The greed of the Socialist,’
and ‘The selfishness of Politicians.’”

The crowd around us now stood at nearly the
entire upper corporate structure of Tappets. “A gold standard would
prevent the government from setting the price of paper for its own
agenda,” Sally retorted hotly. “In effect, gold would be actual
money. There would be no Federal Reserve Bank. Banks would have the
actual gold and their paper money would represent the real actual
value of gold. It would buy goods with the actual amount
represented in gold, or even some other tangible standard.
Governments couldn’t use money itself to expand, but would have to
do so the hard, honest way, with going directly to the people with
a tax on goods or income.

“Printing money serves the interests of
Liberals, there is no argument with you there, Mr. Nakamura, and
furthermore, Milton Friedman calls himself a Classical Liberal, and
that’s a world of distance from where you stand. Paper money has
brought the free world to a crisis on several occasions. Many of
the governments, who are printing money and inflating their
economies, are Christian socialists. They’re diametrically opposed
to the economic freedom of individuals in a market economy. Gold
would at least prevent the Free World from being undermined by
these unsavory types and other religious groups trying to seize the
reigns of government, such as in the Arab countries. Today, the
politicians can promise their way into power on spending, labor, or
moral platforms, then once in power, they can covertly inflate
their economies or go into debt delivering that promise. They’re
like a pack of dogs, gold would be their muzzle.”

This metaphor brought about a smattering of
applause. Hiro sipped some red wine and knotted his features into a
more stern expression. “Socialists used to call the capitalists,
pigs,” he said softly, “now, here you are, one of the most famous
young capitalists in America, calling socialists, dogs. We would be
wise to change our approach. Harsh economic times are never
popular, and in the democracies, the governments, no matter how
good, are voted out of office by shortsighted unhappy citizens. In
hard times poor people are victimized.”

“In hard times,” she interrupted, “it
becomes impossible for the government not to either inflate the
money or to go into debt. Politicians are invariably only
interested in re-election. They’re of the unanimous opinion that we
can’t get along without them, but I say that the people of the
world would be much happier without government at all, if this ever
became feasible. At any rate, the ultimate happiness of the people,
both rich and poor, isn’t such a mystery as the liberals or
socialists indicate. We plan our lives according to available
information, from the poor to the rich. A movement toward a
conversion to a worldwide gold standard could make coin and
currency the one constant among the many caprices of life. An
individual’s economic plans could be counted on, at least with this
one large variable, being constant. The ultimate happiness of the
people over the whole world just happens to be a stable
currency.”

Hiro bowed. “Very clever, but I can assure
you, young Miss Sally Tappet, that it takes more than a stable
currency to bring about such a complicated thing as people’s
ultimate happiness.”

“I’ll tell you about happiness,” Una said in
a booming voice and stepped into the circle of executives, “a fine
dinner is now served.”

With a round of laughter, the debate ended,
and after the initial courses had finished and dinner was on its
way, I rose and moved to the podium. “I want to tell you a story
before my mother speaks to you on my father’s fifty-fifth
birthday,“ I said. “You’ve been told by my father on probably too
many occasions that he flew as a fighter pilot in Korea. On many
days of the conflict, he flew in the midst of battle; twice shot
down, he spent months in a POW camp, but his most serious injury
didn’t occur in the sky nor on enemy territory. Dad was in a bar
one night with some other pilots, when some GIs dropped in, and as
you may know, the army and the air force don’t always treat each
other with the love and respect they deserve. Bickering started
between the two groups. Almost from the beginning, this stocky
muscular private had been eyeing my father and he walked up to Dad,
and without warning, sucker-punched him in the mouth. The force of
the blow flattened Dad completely and he hit the floor with a
resounding thud. On kneeling up, he spit out his four front
teeth.

“Regretting what he had accomplished in so
brutally bushwhacking my father, the soldier rushed over and
apologized profusely. My father, showing little anger, took the
four teeth from the floor and one by one, as the GI held him
steady, put then tentatively back into his mouth. My dad turned to
this fellow and said, ‘Find me a two-by-four.’ Or something like
that. ‘I know what has to be done.’ By now, they’d destroyed the
bar, and this guy’s buddies knowing that the MPs were coming, urged
him to leave, but the man refused and continued looking for a flat
level piece of wood. My dad managed to find a bottle of whisky and
started some heavy-duty drinking.”

“Which hasn’t stopped to this day,” Ken
Roxton shouted from one of the front tables.

This brought laughter all the way to the
back of the hall. I saw that Una readied the birthday desserts, to
be served after the tables had been cleared and taken down. “The
soldier comes back with a level piece of wood,” I continued, “and
my dad, already having pushed back half the bottle, put the wood up
against his four loose teeth and said to the guy, ‘This will do.’
By now, the military police have arrived and the fighting had
completely stopped. Dad looks at this guy who has knocked out his
four front teeth and says, ‘Drive them back in, buddy.’ ‘My God,’
the soldier says, ‘you can’t do that.’ Taking the man by the arm,
my father mumbles, ‘I know I can’t. You’re going to!’ The soldier
looks at my dad and big bright tears flicker in his eyes. He goes
over to a couple of MPs and gets them to hold my father’s head
steady. He took that piece of wood and pushed it for all he was
worth against those four loose teeth as my father howled in pain
and he did so until they were all level with my dad’s other
teeth.”

I saw that I’d impressed them with this
enigmatic true story and could feel the emotion in the room. “My
father still has those four teeth in his mouth today, although as
he tells it, for years he couldn’t whistle without getting a
headache. Anybody who has heard him whistle knows it isn’t
conclusive where exactly the headache comes from.”

Polite laughter followed. “Una wants to let
you know that Dana Daniel Johnston has arrived. Coffee and desserts
will be brought forth in the chamber where my father will speak.
Tonight, Ms. Johnston will perform, Chopin’s, ‘Barcarole.’ It’s one
of my father’s favorite pieces. Please then, stand and raise your
glasses to my dear and wonderful dad, who we all love so much.”

The crowd stood and raised their glasses.
“To Dad,” I said full of emotion.

“To Stan,” the crowd shouted. Stan stood,
smiling and waving modestly from his table.

I turned from the podium as though to step
down, then I quickly doubled back. I’d rehearsed this move with
Una. “I forgot to tell you,” I said loudly. “The soldier who
knocked out my dad’s four teeth is our own Ken Roxton.”

I watched the smiles of disbelief, then Ken
rose and walked up to the podium. He weighed more than Stan now,
perhaps even by twenty-five pounds. “I confess I bopped the old
guy,” Ken said casually with a genuine smile. “It’s all true, but I
have to tell you, you can’t get to the top of Tappets that way
anymore, now you have to work for a living.”

The crowd clapped and Una came over to the
microphone. “The concert will begin soon. If we can get you to the
chamber, the bar in the other room is open, and then Mr. Stan will
say a few words.”

“Well done, Christian,” Una whispered, “and
I’m very proud of you, and so are your parents.”

“Imagine a world where all basic needs are
easily met,” Stan said from the dais, before the famous pianist
came out to perform, his voice reverberating into the hall. “I’ve
said many times, the key to paradise on earth is abundance. To
produce it, we must do a seemingly impossible task: We must be
fiscally responsible, yet not stifle the imagination of employees.
Recently, we’ve set out specific tasks for each of our divisions to
accommodate Tappets’ mandate. The goals are realistic. We’ve
achieved success by a deliberate strategy of relying on the choice
for better value by consumers. They are our only judges! Over the
years we’ve grown, not just survived. We’ve become a world leader,
not just a competitor. For this, I must thank all of you. Mary has
led us from summit to summit and we benefited greatly from it. This
is true of my personal life as well and is why I love and admire
her so much. She once told me, we did so well at Tappets because we
are always smart enough to follow Una’s advice. After all this
time, I think everyone can see that it’s true. Una is a business
genius. So, Sally, Christian, Una, Mary, and all of you, I thank
you for making me look smarter than I am.”