One Trillion Dollars

by Andreas Eschbach

  John drank a gulp and felt the desire to get drunk tonight. “Sounds great. Maybe they’ll have to spend a few million for the last bucket of clean water at some point in the future. Who knows?”

  “Hey, you could donate your money, if that suits you better. Old Rockefeller did that when he was hit by crisis of conscience and nowadays it’s hard to imagine not having his charitable foundations in medicine, education, and science.”

  “Maybe I need to find someone with a vision. Someone who’ll invest a half million dollars for five hundred years and then some poor slob will inherit a quadrillion dollars or whatever the name of the money will be in the year 2500.” He downed the drink … enjoying the burning sensation in his throat. It felt good to numb the pain in his soul. “Who knows, maybe the Fugger fortune got started like that too. I would laugh myself silly if I found that out one day. Hey!” John lifted the empty glass and said loudly: “Another one … a double this time!”

  Paul gave him a critical look . “Are you planning on getting sloshed?”

  “You got it,” John said nodding.

  “Don’t.”

  “I have to. I have to, or else my head will blow up with all these thoughts that are going round and round. But he waved to the man behind the counter. “Order rescinded. One Coke, please.”

  No one said anything until the Coke had been brought over. Then Paul sighed and said, “You know, maybe we’re living through a much more significant phase then we realize. Maybe we’re witnessing the re-birth of the Middle Ages.”

  “The Middle Ages?” John had in his mind, for whatever reason, the stern looking face of Jakob Fugger, from the painting hanging in his bedroom.

  “I once read something like this, but I can’t remember where. Someone once put together some comparisons of today’s companies and the structures of the ruling classes in the Middle Ages. You, for instance, are the king and I’m your chancellor. The directors are the dukes you appointed, and so forth all the way down to the regular employees, your peasants.” He gestured from the ceiling down to the floor. “You have a castle, protected by brave knights, don’t you? You have your own communications system, and when you think about the cafeterias, the company gas stations for the company cars, and all the places where company ID cards are used to pay, you also have your own monetary system. And while all around you the countryside is getting desolate and traditional customs are getting lost, the barbarians are assaulting the boundaries, and as smoldering crises occur everywhere, you and the other kings reinforce your kingdoms yet even more, making your power grow, and the old empire — back then it was Rome, today probably America — will fall and you will establish a new order.”

  “Hey,” John said, “that’s pretty good.” He imagined defensive walls of castles, towns and monasteries, armored knights, and colorful caravans. He almost felt the ermine-fur cloak around his shoulders.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Paul agreed, but then added soberly, “But the Middle Ages were dark centuries of ignorance, wars, diseases and misery. Maybe we should establish a number of monasteries while as we still can, so that they can at least preserve today’s knowledge. That is, if freedom and democracy should succumb to feudalism after blossoming for such a short period of time.”

  John nodded impressed. “Yes, maybe we should do that.” He looked out over the city. The tall buildings looked like impressive castles, the streets the bastions and moats. Fog rolled in, like the smoke from an encroaching battle. “What a concept …”

  Afterwards he could not say what the final trigger had been. He suddenly felt stiff, as if he had a cramp, as if the skin he had thought was growing over the wound of his soul was expanding into a boil, and that it would burst and pour out whatever had accumulated inside it, pouring out in waves of images, ideas and feelings. He was certain it must have been what Paul had said that triggered the chain of associations swirling in his mind, like a falling row of dominoes, and while all this was happening, the world around him collapsing, he himself collapsed into pieces and slowly he put himself back together from the same constituent parts, only now rearranged so that they fit together better, more efficiently… working better than he could ever remember. It was like an avalanche of thousands of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, rearranging themselves into a recognizable image. It took no effort, because he had already gone through all that already, all he had to do was brace himself for the impact and take a deep breath.

  “Now I’ve got it,” he whispered hoarsely. He remained seated, staring out at a building with a brightly lit window, somewhere in the distance, a yellow point of light.

  “Excuse me?” Paul said.

  “I know what we have to do.” He was motionless, because the slightest movement could shoo away the vision.

  Paul leaned forward and looked at John warily. “What we have to do?” he repeated.

  “To fulfill the prophecy.”

  “John, are you…”

  “It’s so simple … so simple. We should have thought of it a long time ago.”

  “Oh,” Paul said, confused. He thought for a moment while John kept his eyes fixed on the small point of light in the distance. He finally asked, “So, tell me?”

  John told him … he told him what they had to do.

  The room was quiet after he had finished, as if the air was frozen. John relaxed then looked at Paul and saw big, round, disbelieving eyes staring back at him. For the first time in his life he had managed to flabbergast Paul Siegel.

  $46,000,000,000,000

  NEW YORK, CAPUT mundi, capital city of the world. It was the first really nice day of spring and the sun shone down upon the city on the Hudson River, causing a haze to rise from the damp street canyons and letting the glass facades of the skyscrapers shine far out into the Atlantic. You could go up to the panorama deck of the World Trade Center and look down upon the freshly washed world without ice-cold winds and rain forcing you to seek shelter inside. No one took note of the snow-white aircraft landing at JFK International Airport with the dark-red f on the tailfin. The plane landed here often enough to be a normal sight. “Money Force One, you have permission to land.” No one knew that this time John Fontanelli was coming to change the world.

  The United Nations Headquarters, situated on the East River, is a large, inviting building designed by architect Le Corbusier. It radiates size and optimism even today. Nevertheless, anyone who wants to enter it must wear a glossy photo-ID, issued only after a thorough background check, and must undergo meticulous inspection of his baggage and person. Armed security personnel, x-ray machines, and metal detectors are permanently stationed in the lobby, and are a normal sight.

  The limousine that brought John Fontanelli and Paul Siegel here from the airport was directed to its usual parking spot by a guard the size of a bear. A cordon of armed guards escorted them up the stairs. They were allowed through all the checkpoints without anyone even asking to see their badges, and were escorted up to the 38th floor, where they entered the large, nondescript rooms where the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, personally greeted them.

  “I always knew that we would meet one day,” Annan said. “Welcome.”

  Later on, sitting together comfortably and exchanging mutual niceties, John found an opportunity to make his proposal. “You know that I’ve been attempting to fulfill my ancestor's prophecy,” he began. “For a very long time, I was in the dark as to how to accomplish it. But now I know. I have to add that I do not need your support, but I’d rather have it. I could do what I need to do without help, but I’d rather not.”

  “Then how may I be of assistance to you?” Annan asked.

  “Please, let us first discuss globalization.”

  In 1998 there were some 25,000 mergers of companies worldwide, amalgamations or acquisitions. One of the most spectacular was the merger between the German Daimler-Benz AG and the American Chrysler Corporation forming the first transatlantic corporation. Daimler Chrysler, which became the third-largest automake
r in the world. An even bigger deal was the takeover of the investment bank Bankers Trust Corporation by the Deutsche Bank, which, with total assets of 1.4 trillion deutsche marks, was ranked number one of all banks in the world, ahead of even before the former leader UBS — United Bank of Switzerland.

  “What are we talking about?” Paul Siegel said. “We’re saying that barriers are being taken down, that communications are expanding. We’re talking about something that we’ve had for a long time in the Olympic Games — worldwide competition without respect to heritage, skin color or religion — and this is spreading into the world of economics. Programmers from India, engineers from South Korea, directors from Argentina, doctors from Egypt … it is now obvious that there are talented people all over the world.. Yesterday’s prejudices are fading fast and will soon be a thing of the past. People are talking to one another not because they have to but because they want to. We're talking about ever-broadening global networking that makes peace more attractive and more likely than war. That on its own would already be justification enough. When we talk about globalization, we are talking about, to put it in a sentence, a process that has the potential to solve the great problems of all mankind.”

  The secretary-general nodded sympathetically. “You're talking about my purpose in life,” he said.

  Now John Fontanelli took over. “The dark side of globalization is that corporations have developed that are capable of pitting countries against each other in order to force them into ruinous concessions. I know that, because I’ve done it plenty of times myself. I’ve put governments under pressure, bribed officials, and I’ve held up potential investment as bait and threatened to take away jobs. I’ve done it all to get what I wanted — things such as prospecting rights and other licenses, lucrative monopolies or privileges that allowed me to neutralize the competition. Sometimes I’ve destroyed national industries to gain access to their markets. The result was that we wiped out any semblance of a level playing field. For a normal company to go up against Fontanelli Enterprises is like playing a game of chess except I have fifteen queens.” He raised his hands as if to apologize. “I’m not proud of what I’ve done; I’m only telling you how it is. I was acting under the influence of my former chief executive, but I know I’m still responsible, all contracts, letters, and other documents have my signatures on them.”

  “No one is blaming you,” Annan said.

  John nodded. “Yes. But that is precisely the problem, isn’t it? There is no one who could blame me. There really aren’t any laws that can control me. I can do or not do whatever I want.” John leaned forward. “We have a word for organizations that do what they want, the word is Italian … mafia.”

  The French national soccer team won the World Championship on July 12, 1998, after a deserved victory over the Brazilians, who had been the favorites to win. It is interesting to note that many of the French players came from former French overseas or North African colonies. For a while after the World Championships, the right-wing parties in France mostly dropped their racist campaigns.

  “It should be obvious,” John said continuing with the topic. “The level of wages and social expenditures are going down everywhere, but at the same time our profits are rising at a double-digit percentage rate, not to mention our gains on the stock markets. I mean, it should be obvious that governments that really care about the well-being of their populations should not support a situation like this. But in truth they have no choice. Even if many heads of state believe themselves acting as sovereign leaders when making decisions on important topics, they really can’t, and it’s the multinational corporations profit from this.”

  The head of the United Nations nodded with a look of concern.

  “When I say they profit, I mean they are making money. Everything is sacrificed, everything subordinated to that one aim. Despite our noble intentions, I discovered at a later stage even Fontanelli Enterprises had let toxic waste escape into streams and rivers, discarded industrial waste in normal garbage dumps, polluted the air, ignored industrial safety regulations, and disregarded environmental laws everywhere it was possible to do so without penalty. Why? Because if we don’t, then others will. In some cases I put a stop to it, and the result was that our competitors were able to offer their products cheaper and our share of the relevant markets declined, until we had to get out of that sector altogether.” John stretched out his hands, palms up. “We don’t do this because we’re greedy, nor are we simply bad people, we do this because we feel that we must. We chase each other in circles, so to speak. And because we can get away with it, we don’t dare stop doing whatever we need, however vile, to stay ahead.”

  For an irritating moment John had the feeling that he had always known he would be sitting here one day. Even back when he was cycling through the streets with pizzas on the bike, down there where now the limousine was parked. As if his entire life had only been a preparation for saying these very words one day. “But is that ideal? To have companies that can act independently of the law? I can’t see how companies that act like this are much different from organized crime syndicates.” John shook his head. “I don’t think that anyone really wants this. You might want to be wealthy, but you can be that with valid rules in place. They only have to be fair and applicable to all. That is the crucial point. Such rules, such laws don’t necessarily have to be restrictive. On the contrary, they should make life easier. The problem is that currently they don’t exist.”

  The secretary-general said nothing. He only sat there, looking at John.

  John locked his fingers together. “Back in the days of the Wild West, people explored and settled new territories further and faster than the government could follow. Outlaw gangs made large parts of the land unsafe, until the law caught up. But it wasn’t easy. We find ourselves in a similar situation today. Some multinational corporations have become mightier than many countries. In effect, the old principles of national sovereignty have become obsolete. What we need is a transnational power, capable of establishing law and order at a global level.”

  Kofi Annan looked at John with even more concern writ large on his face. “Surely you don’t mean the United Nations?” he asked.

  “No,” said John Fontanelli, “I don’t mean the United Nations.”

  Currently, the building at 40 Wall Street, previously known as Fontanelli Tower, was undergoing a major overhaul. Battalions of uniformed movers dragged out furniture, boxes, and crates, and loaded them into moving trucks that pulled up outside in a never-ending queue. At the same time, work was being done on the façade. The bottom five stories had stylized human figures painted on it in red, yellow, black, green and blue. The entire rest of the upper part of the structure was painted with a new type of paint that contained optical brighteners similar to that in washing powder, which made the building gleam.

  “What’s that going to be?” a reporter asked the foreman.

  “The bottom five stories,” he explained, talking loud enough to be heard above the noise of the trucks and the compressors for the paint guns, “will be the headquarters…”

  “No, the white part.”

  “Oh, that …?” The foreman took off his helmet and wiped the sweat, paint splatters and dust from his forehead. “Well, that’ll be quite something else …”

  “Just like all the other international organizations, the WTO, IMF, World Bank, and so forth, the United Nations had been set up by governments to provide a forum for questions of international significance. But the institutions themselves do not have power. Nobody ever intended to create a world government. On the contrary, what they wanted was to prevent a world government. That’s why the United Nations was never given any power.”

  The secretary-general looked perturbed. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  “There really is only one true power on this planet,” John said. “It took me a long time to figure it out, even though it should’ve been obvious.”

  The man with the rust-red cu
rly hair waited until the photographers were ready, then he pulled the white cloth off the sign with a demonstrative jerk. In a blaze of camera flashes, the man stood there pointing at the logo he had just uncovered.

  It showed a world map, which was reminiscent of the emblem of the United Nations; five stylized heads in the colors of the Olympic rings — blue, yellow, black, green, and red — arrayed in a similar pattern to the Olympic logo.

  Underneath it said: We The People Org. — Headquarters.

  John felt as if there was a fire burning inside his chest, forcing him to speak out … to say what had to be said before it was too late … without delay, without hesitation, and without worrying about the consequences. Other disconcerting thoughts — a shadow of a doubt — hovered on the edge of his consciousness. He no longer allowed Paul to speak, even though they had discussed their roles in advance. And the secretary-general … was his polite interest in the end only that … polite? And was it only because even the secretary-general of the United Nations didn’t dare anger the wealthiest man in the world? But in the next moment those thoughts faded away, and then were gone, forgotten, as if they had never been there.

  “I can no longer count the occasions,” John said, “where I misled, lied, and or simply placated the public, the occasions on which I tried to divert public attention from certain things by manipulating the media. I do not know how many hours I've spent worrying over what the public would think of the things I intended to do. I have spent tons of money to manipulate public opinion in favor of one thing or another, in a word, to influence people’s attitudes, their emotions, their decisions. And now I ask you: Why?”