A bit over a month later, in May 2024, Rajesh knocked on the door of Xiao’s office on the third floor of a small building in Geneva. Through the glass partition wall, Rajesh saw his colleague sitting behind his enormous desk wave him in, miming an enthusiastic “Come in! Come in!”
“Rajesh! Look at you! Look at that tie! Didn’t they have ties in New Delhi? And how do you pick your colors you bum! Just because we’re nerdy scientists doesn’t mean we can’t look good!” cried Xiao as Rajesh entered the office.
“You’re right boss! Still can’t get used to the adulation for the geeks that we are! Tell you what though, I miss my Indian apparel sometimes, much easier than this whole noose around my neck business. I don’t need a reminder that I should be dead! Anyway, don’t tell me you just called me in to talk about my allegedly poor taste in clothing?” Replied Rajesh, trying to adjust his tie and tuck his shirt in a bit.
“Tucking your shirt in won’t help with the poor taste mate! But I suppose now you’re a tidy bum rather than just a full fledged bum with poor color coordination, slight improvement! Anyway, enough chinwag, indeed that’s not what I called you in for, come here, quick, have a look at this” Xiao, was again waving at Rajesh to come in a bit closer and join him behind the desk to look at his computer screen.
Rajesh crossed the floor still adjusting his shirt, came behind his boss and looked over his shoulder, squinting a bit to peer at the video footage that was playing on the screen.
“What’s that Boss? Looks like some sort of CCTV recording?” Rajesh asked.
“It is CCTV, do you recognize anyone in it? Look at the guy on the left.”Xiao was pointing at a tall slim 70 odd year old Caucasian with white shoulder length hair and an equally white goatee. The even whiter smile that he suddenly flashed caused the camera to go into a balance adjustment cycle and the image brightness took a second or so to adjust. That was the giveaway for Rajesh. “Oh yeah, that freight tycoon guy, Randy Trigger isn’t it?”
“Geeez Rajesh, sometimes for a bright guy you’re pretty dumb you know! Trigger is the company, Drongo is the name” lamented Xiao.
“Yeah, that’s I said boss, didn’t I, Randy Drongo! Same diff anyway” protested Rajesh, who had rapidly picked up on some trademark Xiao Australian-isms
“Whatever, doesn’t matter, focus mate, focus…”Said Xiao. “Hang on, I’ll turn the volume up a bit. Nobody outside?”
“We’re the last ones here Boss, everyone else has gone home for the weekend. There’s just Fred the security guy at the front, so no, all good. So where’s that? ”Rajesh asked.
“Drongo’s meeting room in London, his airline HQ, in January this year. Hang on, I’ll play it back from the start, listen up.”
The transcript below is of second meeting held after Davos at the Trigger HQ in London in January 2024{1}.
Randy: ”Ok guys, thanks for coming today, please let’s all take a seat”
Monk: “Thanks Randy, I presume all is secure in the room, no leak possible? We are talking about probably the biggest conspiracy that has ever been pulled off on a worldwide scale”
Mickey:”Ow Geez, no need to be such a drama queen Monk! Nobody wants a flatlining economy anyway, some smart people will make a bit of dough out of this too mate, not just us, you’ve really got to look at the big picture”
Randy: “Room’s secure, no problem there. May I suggest we avoid going at each other’s throat for at least a few minutes, until we’ve had a chance to do some constructive work?”
Monk: “Sounds good to me”
Mickey: “Sire, yes Sire, let’s get on with it” Scud: “All good to go Randy!”
Randy: “Good! Now those Bangalore Boys did some pretty good work there with the Oscillating Economy theory. Don’t know why we didn’t see it before really”
Monk: “To be fair, it’s not that long ago that we’ve been able to see effects so clearly. In the Great Depression there were a lot of lag effects that muddled all the trends, everything was just moving so slowly back then, and there was not a lot of integration. These days between the GATT agreements and internet connectivity the ripple effects are almost instantaneous, we saw it with that Covid-19 in 2020-21”
Mickey: “yeah, made a buck on that one! I could do with one of those every year”
Randy: “It’ll almost be that way. According to the simulations by the New Delhi team, we’ll skim the most cream if we work on roughly a 3% oscillation with a period of 2 to 3 years”
Monk: “So -3% the first year, +3% the following year or so, etc?”
Randy: “Pretty much, that what the model says will be the most productive”
Scud: “All for it, bring it on! How does it happen in the real world though, can’t really make a virus appear can we?”
Randy: “Actually we can, and actually there is one planned for release for 2028 by the US. Ah, sorry, it’ll be called Great America then.”
Mickey: “Kind of feel like we’re gods now! Yeah I saw that US virus thing in the outline. Pretty radical stuff, and all that for a 3% dip in the economy. I saw there’s a planned complete cutoff of the US, sorry, Great America, from the rest of the world in 2025? Are you guys sure about those Dump nuts, looks like their minds have gone walkabout these days, and they do hold the codes to potentially a bit of mayhem, it’s a bit of a worry isn’t it?”
Monk:”We’ve got to remember that cutting off America is one measure amongst thousands of other levers that are being actioned at the same time. It’s almost an exact science. Those guys at New Delhi did some amazing work, it really goes into every aspect of the economy. Taxation, minimum wage agreements, tariffs, wars, down to marketing campaigns to modulate consumption of one or another category. As for the Dump son and uploaded Tronald, I agree, they’ve always been loose cannons, but they do reflect what’s happening there, so the move to cut them off will probably clean the place up a bit. And don’t worry too much about the nuke codes, they’re not valid, we changed the accesses two years ago remember? And in any case Mickey, you also remember that we had planned to revoke the US Dollar as the currency standard, they are just crumbling dinosaurs now, so the rest of the world will actually avoid the mess that it’s going to create. Except for Canada and the rest of the Americas, chances are they’ll keep using the US Dollar within themselves, we might be doing them a favor by cutting them off actually!”
Mickey Looked up and nodded, suddenly remembering the smart move indeed. “Ah yes, that’s right! And then we’re replacing the money benchmark with your new thing, the Viper, wasn’t it? Yeah, good for you Monk, smart little move there mate!”
Monk: “It’s the Cobra, but hey you can keep trading in US Dollars if you want Mickey, you might just want to buy a bigger car to put them in next time you go buy your baguette in the morning?”
Randy quickly intervened before things had a chance to once again turn ugly: “Right! I think yes, moving forward guys! The amendments are precise and fine tuned enough to give us the confidence we need for a fairly accurate timeline. Of course then there are some lag effects for the reporting of economic data, and some countries might want to muddle the truth a bit to keep citizens in line. Can’t do much about that, but we can expect up to 6 months delay in getting a clear picture. Now we need to discuss the PR stra