Showdown in the Economy of Good and Evil

by Jarl Jensen

  Her new pulpit didn’t project quite as much authority. It stood at the head of a windowless A-frame structure that had until recently served as the Farm’s primary chicken coop. Mr. Wolfe, in all his visionary glory, had recently decided to take the Farm’s chicken operations fully free range, so as to give the earthy folks who’d been among the first to frequent the Farm’s onsite market all the more reason to keep coming back. Sure, people loved fresh eggs, but the right kind of person loved fresh, outrageously upcharged eggs even more. If you let the chickens run around a bit and then tacked a premium onto their eggs, people just thought they tasted better. Or were healthier. Or something.

  This led to the construction of a giant chicken run and a much larger coop for the proper roosting of comparatively exhausted chickens, which in turn left the former chicken coop vacant and available for repurposing.

  When the news came down that Meryl would be moving her teaching operations from the back room of the machine shed into the newly converted chicken coop, she hadn’t quite known how to take the news. She had assumed that the place would be dark and dry and hot, that it would feature an earthen floor, and that the only real teaching equipment available to her would include a chalkboard, her Wall Street intellect, and a smile. As it turned out, she’d been correct in those assumptions. Also correct was her guess that the place would smell like chicken poop no matter how much scouring Bob-O claimed to have done.

  She grinned at the thought of Bob-O. She rather liked Bob-O.

  “Is something I’m saying funny, Mrs. Johnson?” asked one of the Vets, who had until that moment been doing some evangelizing of his own, preaching on about his ever-more-outsized role in the longest running war in American history.

  “No,” Meryl said, forcing away the smile. “I was just thinking about—”

  “Do we not all call this Farm home, Mrs. Johnson?” cut in one of the Immigrants. “Are we not all contributing to the same cause?”

  More than she wanted to answer the question, Meryl wanted to correct her students about the whole “Mrs.” thing. They’d been calling her a Mrs. since the first day of class some three weeks back. She hadn’t had the nerve to correct them back then. By now, the opportunity to right the wrong had probably sailed away. The sound of the word filled Meryl with an impotent sort of resentment. She hadn’t called herself a Mrs. in fifteen years. On the financial front, they had been the worst fifteen years of her life. On the personal front, she had never felt quite so free. But whenever one of these Vets or Immigrants or who knew who else called her “Mrs.,” it felt like they were taking a small sliver of that freedom away. No one had bothered to ask if she would rather be called a “Miss” or, the good Lord willing, maybe just “Meryl.”

  “Right now, buddy,” the Vet said, “we’re barely speaking the same language. You want to hoard all your money, and what I’m saying is that if everyone does that, there won’t be none left to go round. We only get three Farm Bucks a day. If we all stick two of ’em into savings, how are any of us more entrepreneurial types ever gonna make a better living?”

  Finally, Meryl saw her cue to break it up. “Saving money is not hoarding money, Mr. Cup.”

  “Mr. Cup” had earned his nickname because his given name was Stanley, and because Laz, the resident giver of nicknames and an avid hockey fan, had dubbed him “Cup.” Meryl had added the “Mr.” all on her own, a subtle clap back—and a pretty smart one, if she did say so herself—about having to be a Mrs. all the time.

  “But it is hoarding, Mrs. Johnson,” Cup insisted.

  Meryl assumed her most patient expression. “How do you figure?”

  “Because we all get the same amount of Farm Bucks in our account every day, right?”

  “Correct,” Meryl said, turning to the chalkboard and writing this down.

  “And we’re all trying to run businesses that will attract those Farm Bucks, right?”

  “Right again.” The chalk clacked and scrawled over the board.

  “So if My Mood over there is just socking away his daily Farm Bucks, then he’s taking all that money out of circulation. I have no chance to earn it because he’s hoarding it.”

  While Mahmoud corrected Cup for the fiftieth time about how his name was not pronounced “My Mood,” Meryl finished writing the words “out of circulation.” She then gave it a final flourish by crossing those words out with enough aggression that she broke the chalk. Everyone had given her their full attention by the time she turned around.

  “Saving is not hoarding,” she repeated, clicking her heels together. She was proud of these heels. In her final weeks of living on the streets, she’d been wearing a pair of discarded longshoremen’s boots that were about six sizes too big for her. That she’d been able to buy these simple, navy blue numbers from Abby, the resident shoemaker, with her own money? Well, that new reality had her clicking her heels together frequently, and with no small measure of vigor. “When Mahmoud socks away his money, as you put it, he isn’t merely taking it out of circulation. He’s making that money—and your money, by proxy—more valuable.”

  “And how the hell’s he doing that?”

  “Language please, Mr. Cup.”

  To his credit, Stanley Cup looked properly contrite. He flashed every square inch of his high, glistening forehead. “Sorry, Mrs. Johnson.”

  “He’s making the Farm Buck more valuable because when it’s in savings, he earns a higher interest rate. And because Mahmoud is so compelled by that higher interest rate, he keeps it in savings.”

  “I don’t follow. It sounds like you’re describing hoarding.”

  “Let me ask you something, Mr. Cup.” Meryl started pacing now, relishing every click-clack of her new heels. “Are you familiar with baseball cards?”

  “Sure. Collected them as a kid. Who didn’t?”

  Meryl smiled. “Well, I didn’t, but that’s beside the point. The point is this: what makes certain baseball cards more valuable than others?”

  Cup shrugged. “The player on the card, I guess. If he’s a good player, his card is worth more.”

  “No,” Meryl said.

  The air went out of Cup’s sails. Normally Meryl might have indulged in the sensation of power that came with telling an arrogant student he was wrong, but on this occasion, she found her attention drawn by movement at the door. She glanced over to see Mr. White entering the room with an adorable actuary type trailing in behind him. There were few things Meryl enjoyed on the Farm more than picking Evan’s brain, so she decided she would ask him to chime in. But then, before she could speak, two more people entered behind him. She tensed up at the sight of the cameraman. Her heart leapt when she accepted the identity of the man accompanying him.

  “Pete Smiley,” she said, failing to hide how instantly and embarrassingly seduced she was by the mere sight of him.

  “Sorry to barge in like this, Meryl,” Evan said. “Stephen and Pete here are from 60 Minutes.”

  “Pete Smiley,” Meryl repeated dreamily.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Pete Smiley said.

  “Pleasure’s all . . .” Meryl simply could not finish the sentence.

  “Yes, well, we’re going to try to keep out of your way,” Pete Smiley said.

  “They’re just trying to get some footage of the day-to-day on the Farm,” Evan explained. “And I told them, what better place than the classroom?”

  “Have I seen you somewhere before?” Pete Smiley asked.

  Meryl set her hand on the pulpit to steady herself. She didn’t bother answering. Instead, she choked down her nerves and tried to focus on the situation at hand. That had been the one thing she was unable to do the last time she’d appeared on 60 Minutes. And yes, it had probably cost her a career, a church, an income, all her holdings, and eventually her marriage and her various houses. So fuck letting that happen again. Just fuck it.

  “Mr. White,” she said, straightening up, camera ready. “Maybe you can help us. What makes some baseball cards worth more th
an others?”

  The momentary confusion on Evan’s face gave way to a smile. “Savings 101?” he asked.

  Meryl nodded proudly.

  “Scarcity,” Evan said.

  “Exactly!” Meryl agreed. She thought about how dynamic her heels would look on camera as she turned back to the board and wrote SCARCITY. “Certain cards are worth more than others because there aren’t as many of them in circulation. Supply is simply smaller than demand. So, Mr. Cup, if we apply the baseball card theory to our discussion, how is Mahmoud’s savings plan making your Farm Bucks more valuable?”

  “By reducing the supply.” Cup spoke firmly enough, but his answer sounded more like a question.

  “And by increasing the demand for Farm Bucks.”

  Cup gave a sidelong look at the camera as if confirming it was still rolling. Whatever Cup’s failings, anxiety in front of a video camera did not appear to be one of them. “But I still don’t get how saving fake money could be a better idea than spending it. Sure, interest is great, but if I’m guaranteed an income every day, why wouldn’t I just spend the money I receive? I mean, isn’t it better for the economy on this Farm if money changes hands constantly? Isn’t that how we create growth?”

  Meryl looked to the others in the class, all of whom seemed to be struggling from either a shortfall in knowledge or stage fright on account of actual 60 Minutes and, hoo-boy, Pete Smiley standing in the corner.

  “Mr. White?” Meryl called out to Evan. “We’re all a little deflated today, if you want the truth. Maybe you can take this one.”

  With a nod, Evan left his actuary friend behind and strolled along the perimeter of the class. Meryl stepped back from her weak pulpit to offer him the space, but he was kind enough not to take her place entirely—either that or he was doing what he could to remain outside the shot framed by the cameraman. He remained there on the perimeter, his hands held together behind his back as he rocked onto his heels.

  “Part of the reason savings is so much more effective here on the Farm is because we actually offer an attractive interest rate,” Evan said. “Out there in the real world, what’s the point of holding your money in savings when the bank gives you next to nothing in return? But why do those banks in the real world give you basically no reward for holding onto your money?”

  No one had a reply. Meryl thought for a moment that maybe she should chime in, but she didn’t want to disrupt Evan’s flow. She adored his flows.

  “Because it’s just so much more profitable to a bank to loan out that money,” Evan said. To Meryl, it appeared that he looked charmingly at the camera just then. “We have this economy where everything runs on loans, so demand for loans is incredibly high. In the real world, saving money doesn’t increase the value of the dollar because the banks turn around and lend or invest all those deposits. Banks out there are only required to have a minimum of 10 percent in their reserves. And they’re doing you a huge disservice as the customer because they’re just using and reusing your money, reducing its value. It’s like if you had a second car and you decided to put it into safe holding with Hertz. Sure, your car might be insured, but if they keep renting it out to their customers, all those miles wind up making your car worthless.”

  Meryl loved this analogy, but Evan appeared to have lost the class. She was just about to throw him a bone when he picked up on the same sense and shifted gears on his own.

  “Any of you guys on Facebook?” he asked.

  Everyone raised his hand, a fact that caused Meryl to marvel, as she knew that none of them would’ve had much access to social media prior to coming to the Farm.

  “I saw something posted on Facebook recently,” Evan continued, “and it’s had me thinking.”

  “What else is new?” one of the Vets asked, and everyone, Evan included, laughed.

  “The comment I read was from a friend. ‘Only God can save us,’ she wrote. I don’t even remember why she was invoking God, but that was the line.”

  Meryl hoped that Pete Smiley—and the camera, for that matter—didn’t see her wince. The heat had risen under her collar at the prospect of having her beliefs challenged in her own classroom. She’d already had them challenged on CBS in primetime once, after all.

  “Anyway,” Evan said, “I don’t want to get into a religious debate here, but that got me thinking about how so many people are willing to just place all their power in someone else’s hands. Think about our government. When something goes wrong, we expect our politicians to swoop in and save us. And the American economy is the same way. When we face a downturn, hopefully the Fed and the government can find a way out of it.” He turned to Meryl and raised a palm. “You used to be a minister, am I right?”

  Meryl nodded.

  “Then you can help me out. Wasn’t there something Jesus said about free will?”

  “‘The Lord helps those who help themselves,’” Meryl said, repeating the frequently quoted phrase often attributed to the Bible, even though she knew it wasn’t actually in there.

  “Exactly. I thought so. That’s perfect.” Evan started pacing along the perimeter, his hands still held behind his back. “‘Have faith,’ some people say. ‘God will show us the way.’ Or sometimes it’s, ‘The government will fix it’ or ‘The banks will get us out of this mess.’ But here’s the thing: God didn’t create the world to be our caretakers. According to that Jesus quote, he created this world and gave us freedom of choice. He isn’t going to save us; he’s going to let us live or die with our decisions.”

  “So . . . ,” Cup cut in, “you’re saying that deciding to save money is a religious thing?”

  Evan smiled. “Stanley, what happens if you step in front of a moving bus?”

  Cup scratched his head.

  “Does God or the government or the Fed swoop in to save you?”

  “No,” Cup said.

  “That’s right. If you step in front of a moving bus, you die. You made an individual choice, and it cost you your life. But collective choices are exactly the same. Our collective choices and actions have the same consequences as our individual ones. Producing too much CO2, for instance, is like a collective effort to step in front of a bus. And we can’t expect God or the government or the Fed to save us from that bus, either. We have to make our own, collective choices. We have to create natural, sustainable systems to fix these kinds of problems. And money is one of those systems that needs fixing.”

  “How so?” Meryl asked.

  “Let’s think about a natural, sustainable system,” Evan said. “Like the rain. Rain brings water to vegetation like all those crops we’re growing outside. When the system works, the vegetation gets enough water to green up and thrive, and then the sun evaporates what’s left back into the atmosphere, creating new rain clouds, more rain, and the perfect cycle continues.

  “But what happens if it doesn’t rain enough?”

  Mahmoud raised his hand. “We get a desert.”

  “Exactly,” Evan said. “What if it rains too much?”

  “There’s flooding,” Cup offered.

  “Right on,” Evan said. “The lesson here is that we need the right mix of sun and rain to produce the best and most fruitful vegetation. Have you figured out what my sun and rain analogy is comparing to yet?”

  Every man in the room flinched as if the answer was right on the edge of his brain, but no one replied. Meryl had it.

  “The rain is spending, and the sun is the work done to produce the goods and services,” she said. “And then savings is the water we divert to the pond that we can water the crops with later.”

  Evan beamed. “Precisely. So you see, Stanley? That savings pond is incredibly important. It’s intelligence at work, and understanding that we’re holding onto this water in case it doesn’t rain for a while.”

  “Well, obviously,” Cup said. “But you’re just describing stockpiling. Hoarding.”

  “You’re missing the other key point,” Evan corrected. “The pond also provides a buffe
r from when it rains too much. It prevents flooding as much as it prevents drought. Saving money isn’t only a means to overcome the lean times. It’s also a safety net that prevents the economy from flooding in money.”

  Cup looked for a moment like he wanted to resist, but eventually, he gave the slightest of nods.

  “We need spending and work and saving to keep our perfect system growing and thriving.” Evan gave a smirk to the camera. “The other nerds and I will be in the background, adjusting fee percentages, savings interest, direct deposit levels, and velocity of money that will help maximize work, control inflation, and raise the standard of living—but unless you guys are compelled to spend and work and save, the whole system gets out of balance.”

  “So you and the other nerds get to play God?” Meryl asked with a wink.

  The heartiness of his own laugh seemed to surprise Evan. It took him a moment to collect himself. “Absolutely not. No one is playing God in this scenario. We’re just trying to create a system that behaves more like those natural, predictable systems that God did create. Because our economy is based on more natural balances of supply and demand, there are plenty of levers we can pull behind the scenes to keep our economy growing, but it’s still up to you to decide what to do with your money. Unlike the American economy, whether you spend or save, work or consume, you’re helping our economy either way.”

  “So, class, what would Jesus do?” Meryl asked. “Spend or save?”

  A ripple of chuckling passed through the two cliques.

  Mahmoud raised his hand. “Jesus saves,” he said.

  Now Meryl chanced a glance directly at Pete Smiley. To her own flushing glee, he looked charmed.

  Chapter 6 The Keys to the Universe