DEVOLUTION by Lars Emmerich

Author:Lars Emmerich [Emmerich, Lars]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lars Emmerich

49

Lost Man Lake Ranch, CO. Saturday, 6:45 p.m. MT.

Dinner was incredible. Protégé marveled at the gorgeous moose steaks, venison stew, and wild boar goulash. “The hungry hordes will shoot everything with legs or wings in the first two months after a meltdown, so I figured we’d better enjoy these now,” Archive had said with a chuckle.

It was a strange, apocalyptic comment.

But Protégé certainly enjoyed the meal. Wine, conversation, and laughter flowed freely.

It was an eminent crowd, and the setting was beautiful and opulent, but Protégé was pleased to realize that he felt right at home despite the uncomfortable topics that occupied the group’s conversations.

Toward the end of the meal, Sir Randolph Bronwin, the business mogul and Knight of the British Empire, rose and walked to the front of the room.

“Our kind host has asked me to update everyone on the status of our little to-do,” he began quietly. Conversation around the table subsided quickly.

“I hope not to bore you or insult your intelligence, so I shall be brief. But a little background is helpful. By the way, if you’ve heard me blather on about this topic recently and would care to spend your time more productively, I shan’t be even slightly offended.” No one budged.

“Right, then. Off we go, diving in bravely.” Randolph donned a slightly sardonic smile, which gave way to a more academic mien. “Given that devolution events are historically inevitable, it is useful to study their mechanisms a bit.

“It turns out that while there are both bloody and bloodless revolutions, devolutions, on the other hand, tend to be quite chaotic and catastrophic. It seems we’re quite wired to indulge our darker nature when social institutions break down.

“But we’ve made an important observation about the kind of, shall we say, unsavory behavior that tends to cause the greatest post-catastrophe damage. It is generally linked to the breakdown of physical and tangible systems.

“Crumbling walls, inoperative vehicles, flooded streets, burning buildings, and the like, all tend to foster more animalistic human behavior.”

There were nods of assent. It made sense, Protégé thought. It was every man for himself in a survival situation, and nothing quite screamed “survival situation” like a physical disaster.

“But let’s briefly recall the banking crisis of several years back,” Randolph continued. “It was, by all popular accounts, a genuine crisis. The flow of money stopped virtually overnight.” No arguments from the crowd.

“I believe our little group of armchair analysts has pinpointed the ultimate, if not also the proximate, cause of this crisis,” he said. “Spun rhetoric blames lax regulation, but in actuality the American Congress took quite an active role in creating the crisis by demanding that millions of unqualified borrowers be granted home loans.”

“We bankers, of course, happily obliged,” Archive said with a smile. “The greedier among us, that is.”

“At least until the music stopped, and the loans couldn’t be unloaded,” Randolph said. Archive nodded.

“Congressionally mandated misbehavior is duly noted, and it clearly contributed to the issue,” the British magnate continued. “But I think we’ve all rather

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.