The question seemed to hang in the air, like the reverberations of a distant echo. John Fontanelli looked around him, at the silent faces of the others. How had Giacomo Fontanelli felt when he told other people of his vision? Did those moments of despondency plague him too, and did those sparks of glimmering fear overcome him the same way?
“Why all this effort?” he continued, his voice shaking. “People tell me I’m a powerful man. Why do I put in so much effort to influence the common people on the streets, in the factories and subways? I don’t need to give a hoot what you or they think, do I?”
The sound of his voice seemed to fade into nothing amidst the bare office walls and the view over the sheer endless ocean of buildings that disappeared in a brownish haze on the horizon.
“Think about all the really commanding men in history, the powerful dictators. Each was obsessed with having total control over the media, to control over what was printed, drawn, or said. Why, if they were so powerful, did they care about all this chit-chat?” John interlocked his fingers and could feel the beating of his own pulse. “Because in reality they didn’t have power … because I really don’t have any power. It only seems like it.”
Now … at last, as if he was coming out of shock, the secretary-general relaxed a little, began to nod gently, and a thin smile appeared on his lips. For the first time John suddenly realized the truth of the surreal situation in which he found himself: the son of a shoemaker from New Jersey, sitting together and talking to the top man of the United Nations … and the man was listening attentively.
“There is only one true source of power on this Earth,” John said, his words hammering home “and that is the people themselves. The people. And when I say this I don’t mean that’s how things should be. This is not just some noble idea or bit of wishful thinking. No, I’m this is a truth as unchanging as the movements of the stars and planets. Anyone who wants to take power must convince others to support him — that is democracy. Or they have to make the people forget that they have power and feel like they are simply pawns — and that is tyranny.”
He looked over at Paul, who nodded encouragingly to him, and then to Annan, who was stroking his beard, deep in thought. But to John it seemed as if he was back in Leipzig, sitting in the Nikolaikirche. Back then, he did not — could not — feel what he was feeling right now. “I only started to really understand this fundamental principle a couple of weeks ago,” he admitted. “In Leipzig, I realized that people can simply get up and say ‘enough,’ and I saw the results. I was amazed. I told myself it must have been a remarkable moment — and it undoubtedly was — but I had not understood that it was nothing more than a demonstration of a very basic principle.” John lifted his hands as if he was surrendering. “You can even see this in democracies if you look closely enough. It is not just a question of holding elections every few years. No, almost every week some minister or secretary of state utters a seemingly casual comment or expresses a suggestion, and then waits to see how the public reacts. If people get upset you can still back away and deny it, or say it was taken out of context, or that it was a misunderstanding. In other words, the people influence political development, without even realizing it!”
He pointed a finger at the secretary-general, and felt his hand jitter. “The people never voted for you, and no one who sits alongside you in the plenum was put there by the people. The UN has no democratic base. And that is why you are weak.”
“I believe I think I know what it is you have in mind,” Annan said.
“No,” John Fontanelli said, “I don’t think you do.”
The four-story building was set back a bit from Zurich’s Paradeplatz, home to all major Swiss banks and the biggest money transaction center in the Alpine republic. From the window of the office where Ernst Färber, head of the Fontanelli Foundation for Money Education worked, you could see one of the cast-iron lions and some of the grape-like lanterns and hear the tram bells ringing as they rattled by.
“A few decades ago,” the solidly built man with a mustache and intense blue eyes told his visitors, “a campaign was launched worldwide to create global awareness for the importance of basic hygiene. This was followed up with large-scale efforts to teach illiterate adults to read and write. We see ourselves pursing aims like this in the future.”
One of the journalists lifted a pencil. “So, does this mean that you want to teach Third World people to do math?”
Färber turned red and his eyes narrowed. “If you write that, young man, you will never be invited to another press conference. We want to teach people how to handle money. Math …? That is a very small part; most can do math already.”
“But most also know how to handle money,” another reporter argued skeptically.
“You think so? Then why are there so many households hopelessly in debt? Why do so many people work their entire lives and are still poor when they’re old? How many people don’t have the slightest hint how much they spend or what they spend it on?” Färber shook his head. “I will introduce you to Dr. Füeli later on, our psychologist. He believes that more people have problems with money than with sex. I will leave it up to you if you share his hypothesis. But, ladies and gentlemen, handling money well is no idle pastime. It’s not a subject you can just gloss over, like flicking through a brochure before booking a vacation. Money is a building block of life. No one can avoid it, not even a monk in a monastery. Money problems can ruin your marriage or make you sick. Too much debt can cause you to die younger. Whether or not you fulfill your dreams depends a lot on your ability to correctly calculate the cost of a loan.”
He led the group of reporters through the bright, airy building and let them look into the offices, both big and small, where busy employees were working at comfortably equipped desks
“We have our own TV satellites that can reach every point in the world,” he explained. “Starting next Friday our TV stations will begin producing and transmitting educational programs in one hundred and twenty different languages at first. Currently, we’re setting up at least two institutes a day somewhere in the world. They generally begin work right away by having a local printer produce educational material and books.”
“It sounds as if you have plenty of money available for all this,” a female journalist said.
Färber nodded. “The capital available to us for the project is around sixty billion Swiss Francs. This makes Fontanelli Foundation for Money Education the largest endowment that ever existed.” He allowed a thin smile. “At least for the moment.”
“There is a saying that money rules the world, but oddly, hardly anyone thinks about who rules money, or what rules it follows. There’s no more mysterious realm than that of high finance.”
John suddenly felt uncomfortable, even afraid, as if he had set foot behind the lines of a powerful enemy. But that was crazy, wasn’t it? He owned one of the largest banks in the world. He owned the largest private fortune of all time. He was the enemy! But he did not feel like that. He was not really one of the other wealthy people. To the directors of his bank he was a stranger, an interloper, a usurper. Even after three years, he was neither accepted nor one of them.
“Most people look on the monetary system if it was the water supply … boring, essentially unimportant, something that already functions according to unchangeable laws, so there’s no point in wasting time thinking about it.” John had the feeling he was talking about himself; this was how it had been for most of his life. You either had money or you didn’t, and if you had it you spent it. Even a savings account had been beyond his means. That was something for other people. The business section of the newspaper was, at best, something you used to line the trashcan.
“But nothing else could be further from the truth. The laws of money are not irrevocable, and especially not unimportant.”
He looked at the gray computer monitor on the secretary-general’s desk and pointed at it. “The monetary system is like the operating system of our civilizati
on. Its rules determine how everything else functions. Whoever makes the rules, rules the world.”
Annan raised his eyebrows. “A few minutes ago I would have said your aim was to set up a world government in control of all armed forces across the planet. And I would have told you that was impossible.”
John agreed. “Unquestionably.”
“But now it sounds more as if you want a worldwide supervisory apparatus for the financial system.”
“Correct.”
The secretary general folded his hands. “This has been attempted often enough in the past, Mr. Fontanelli,” he said earnestly. “No one argues that this would be a very good thing. However, all such attempts failed because nations do not want to relinquish their sovereignty.”
John nodded. He suddenly understood that it had been a misunderstanding to believe that a vision could provide certainty. It did not. But it did provide determination.
“Your aims are honorable, Mr. Fontanelli,” Kofi Annan continued, “but I simply cannot envision how you could reach this goal.”
“No?” John Fontanelli raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I thought it would be obvious.”
Larry King leaned across the table, his thumbs hooked in his wide trademark suspenders. “Mr. Fontanelli, what do you think an institution of the sort you are suggesting could do, this — what do you call it? — Global Central Bank?”
“I would prefer the term ‘world finance ministry,” his guest replied.
“Is this something we really need?” the famous talk show host asked. “Mr. Fontanelli, I seem to recall that you were attempting to fulfill some ancient prophecy about restoring humanity’s lost future. People might think — I certainly would — that meant fixing the hole in the ozone layer, or preventing climate change, or a population explosion. Instead you’re tackling money and taxes.”
“But money is what’s causing all our troubles. People starve because they have no money to buy food. People have lots of children when that is their only means of being cared for when they grow old. Having a livelihood means earning money and, in the end, everything in the world comes down to finances.”
“But will it save the world if I pay the same tax rates as, say, a rice farmer in Southeast Asia, or a rural doctor in Tanzania?”
The richest man in the world smiled. “The goal is to change the entire tax system.” He adjusted his seating position. “I want to give you an example from my own experience. You are aware that unbelievable amounts of money gets swapped back and forth in the money markets — about one and a half trillion dollars per day — one currency traded for another in seconds to earn money from tiny differences. It is a type of business, to be honest, that produces nothing, no product and no service. It doesn’t feed anybody. More money changes hands this way on a single day than you would need to buy all the products in the world for an entire year, and yet by the end of the day there is not a single slice of bread more as a result. Huge gains are made, but each gain means a loss for someone else right down to the last decimal point. Until a few weeks ago I also had a section that dealt with currencies, but I’m not proud of it, believe me, sir.”
“But the people in this business are in a unique situation, aren't they? It's a bit like gambling in a casino. What's that got to do with me?”
“Because it affects you. You see, a wave of money constantly on the go is like a virtual tsunami that can flatten developments in the real physical economy by the sheer force of the numbers. The Asian crisis, with all its misery, plundered shops and bankrupt firms, was due to a sudden storm in currency trading.”
“Which Fontanelli Enterprises caused,” Larry King threw in, batting his eyelids behind the thick-framed glasses. “On purpose, to put the governments there under pressure.”
“Yes. We did it for a simple reason: because we could. It may not have been nice, but it wasn’t illegal either.”
“But what could a world finance ministry have done to prevent such a particular crisis?”
“Something awfully simple and effective,” John said. “There has been a plan in existence since the seventies developed by the economist and Noble Prize winner James Tobin, which is scientifically sound. His plan calls for a tax on all currency transactions, and it doesn’t need to be higher than one percent.”
“So if I go to France on vacation, I’d have to pay a one percent tax on francs that I buy with my dollars?”
“But this would be hardly noticeable compared to the charges the bank applies anyhow. Normal exports would also hardly feel the effects of this tax, and neither would long-term investments.”
“Okay … but what’s the purpose of this tax?”
John explained, “Currency speculators trade a large amount of a currency, say one hundred million US dollars, for another currency. A few hours, or even minutes later they trade it back again. Let’s say the currency rate has improved by a hundredth of a percent, he just earned ten thousand dollars. However, if they had to pay a tax of one percent, which in this case would be one million dollars — on each transaction — this sort of business would suddenly not be worth it anymore. The tax doesn’t even have to be one percent — even a few tenths of a percent would put a damper on this sort of dealing.”
Larry King put a hand to his chin. “All right. The boys just lost their jobs. Then what? What good will it do the rice farmer in Southeast Asia?”
“In this day and age a financial crisis in one part of the world affects the rest immediately. The capital invested flees, which worsens the crisis. There’s a real possibility that that rice farmer will suddenly get less money for his rice and ends up in financial trouble, just because some bank in Japan went broke, or the Brazilian economy is losing steam.” Fontanelli made two small walls with his hands on the table. “The Tobin tax would act like a dam protecting the land from a flood. To a degree it would isolate different regions from one other and allow the central banks of the affected countries to readjust their interest rates to reflect the actual economic conditions. In reality, of course, it wouldn’t really be a wall, more a sort of breakwater, governments still couldn’t do what they want.”
“But this would also mean less freedom in the currency markets, wouldn’t it?”
“Why? It wouldn’t restrict the freedom of the market at all. You could buy and sell any currencies you want: you just have to pay the price to do it.”
“But would it be worth it? If there is as much money going around as you said earlier, wouldn’t a legion of computers be necessary to control all that?”
“Sure, but all these computers already exist, otherwise this sort of trading wouldn’t even be possible in the first place. You would just need to load the appropriate software. This sort of tax would be one of the easiest to implement.”
The talk show host cocked his head. “I don’t know. If it really is as easy as you insist, then why wasn’t it been implemented a long time ago?”
“Because the people it would target have been pitting governments against each other. If even a single currency exchange market in the whole world declined to implement the tax, it would draw the entire currency exchange business. It can only function if it is put into place absolutely worldwide.”
“And how will it save the future?”
“This would be only the first small step. There are other concepts that still need to be looked into. For example an environmentally targeted taxation.”
Larry King looked into the camera. “We will discuss this topic when we come back. Stay tuned.”
The secretary-general of the UN looked skeptically at his visitor.
“I have founded an organization that will start work soon,” John explained. “It is an independent foundation that has at its disposal one hundred billion dollars. It will organize a global referendum in the coming months, a referendum on whether humanity would like to see such an institution given a global remit. The name of the organization is We The People and the headquarters is on 40 Wall Street.” Now he had come out
with it — the entire crazy plan. “It will organize an election for a ‘World Speaker,’ someone to represent the entire world’s population and help coordinate national governments in making decisions that have global consequences.” John raised a hand to block any objection. “The ballot will, of course, also allow people to vote against the scheme.”
Kofi Annan leaned forward, placed his elbows on the armrests, and looked at John. “That is audacious.” It sounded as if he really wanted to say something less diplomatic. He shook his head. “That is absolutely … audacious,” he said again for lack of any other semi-diplomatic term.
John had been preparing himself all along for an outright rejection, ever since he stepped into this building, even before he got on the plane. Now, to his utter surprise, he realized that now that he had effectively got it, it had given him strength and determination instead of discouraging him.
“Everyone says the same thing. Do you doubt that such a referendum can be carried out?”
“With a hundred billion dollars to back it up? I’d be happy with a single billion. No, I don’t doubt you can carry out such a vote. I only doubt that it will achieve anything. What makes you think the world’s governments will listen to what this so-called World Speaker has to say?”
“The fact that he or she has the support of all the people in the world.”
The secretary-general was about to respond to that but stopped to pause a while, staring into space, deep in thought. Then he said, “That is unquestionably a strong moral position.” He looked up at John. “How will you deal with possible accusations of having manipulated the ballots?”
“Everything except casting the ballot itself will be done openly. Every polling station will have voting monitors present, after the end of the voting period the ballot papers will be counted in plain view. We will use normal ballot papers, not computers or other machines that could be manipulated. Even the finances of We the People will be transparent. Since there’s nothing to hide, everyone who wants to can check all account transactions and entries.”
One Trillion Dollars Page 70
