Higher Cause

by John Hunt

  Sophia reluctantly removed herself from the automobile and walked toward the imposing and unattractive cement edifice which housed the laboratories. Her morning’s work would be more dull than usual: solving unimportant equations for unimportant particles for a rather unimportant purpose. It would be a favor for a friend, but it would still be a chore. It was clear that this work had little value.

  She pushed open the swinging glass door and passed through security. Moving through the stark front lobby, she wished it was time for her meeting. She was not in the least bit nervous, for this meeting was more a test of the academic system than of her. She thus stood comfortably while she waited for the elevator. It was painfully slow, as always, giving an obese junior laboratory assistant time to amble up beside her and offer dull pleasantries as his forehead dripped sweat onto the dusty tile floor. He was a nice enough chap, but Sophia was pleased when the elevator finally arrived to carry her the three floors down to her department. She turned left as the doors slid open and then navigated the long wide corridor towards Laboratory 63 and on to her office in the back. She would nestle in for the duration of her morning’s mathematical torture, and solve those onerous equations.

  She was not far into her morass of calculations when she began daydreaming. Jeff worked in a dangerous profession, she was pretty sure, and this already concerned her. He had affected her greatly during their short time together. Fortunately, he seemed as eager as she to become more than just acquaintances — and they were clearly on the road to romance.

  That previous evening had been wonderful for her. She had dearly needed a break from the day-to-day stresses of her work, and particularly from the stress of the major life decision she was currently trying to make. She had gone to her friend’s party with the sole intention of relaxing and behaving irresponsibly perhaps. Behaving irresponsibly is one of those necessary human pursuits that must not be ignored, and people of Sophia’s ilk needed to consciously recognize this and make concerted efforts to be dutiful in this regard. It actually didn’t take much coercion for Sophia to let loose for a time — she just had to remember to convince herself. Last night she remembered, and it had been worthwhile.

  Her first impression of Jeff had been positive. He had walked up the wooden stairs to the porch of the beach house with a broad smile — a smile that gleamed from his eyes as convincingly as from his mouth. There was something about those faint crow’s feet around his eyes that fostered a sense of trust.

  She lapsed into the romantic thoughts, and with nothing of real worth to pull her back to reality, luxuriated in her reverie until a faint sensation in her stomach triggered a quick examination of the clock. It was about time.

  Sophia stopped by the water fountain on the way to Dr. Chamberlain’s office. He was the absolute leader of this laboratory — a dictator. His position had been achieved by virtue of his significant contributions to fusion research… in the past. No one questioned his authority, or his right to be in charge, although there were the occasional mutterings that he did not provide inspiration anymore. He now fulfilled a bureaucratic role primarily, with the younger scientists providing the more stimulating advances in theoretical and applied physics. He performed his bureaucratic task well, however, and Sophia thought that he even took comfort in that, knowing that his intellectual contribution to the fusion world was past history, and he was unlikely to be an important contributor again.

  She approached his office door. It was on the top floor of the complex, figuratively — and literally — removed from the work in the laboratories far below. His was a large and well-appointed office, entirely unlike the windowless cubicle that Sophia called her own. A heavy oak desk sat in front of a wide window set in the paneled wall. The arid land beyond the window was expansive, but gradually gave way to the increasing lushness of the hills to the west, nearer the ocean.

  As is common in scientific arenas, no secretary was present to impede her access to the man, so she gently tapped on his door. Dr. Chamberlain was sitting at his desk, reading some papers. He seemed to be in this position always — examining proposals for grant requests or reviewing defense contracts. He looked up immediately and motioned her inside. He was a thin man with glasses, balding — but with residual short hair well groomed — and professionally dressed in a three-piece suit. He smiled warmly as she approached, climbed out of his seat and reached his hand over the desk to shake hers.

  “Please sit down, Dr. Bjarnasdottir.” He pronounced her name in the typical American fashion, as “Byarnsdaughter.” She never bothered to correct anyone about this. She was not sure she would recognize her name anymore, if pronounced well, with the long “o” sound, “i” pronounced as a long “e,” and the slight roll of a barely iterated “r.” It was unimportant. If she stayed much longer in this country she might just change her name to something a little easier, such as her old-fashioned Icelandic family name. She would be moving away from the Icelandic custom of being called your father’s daughter (her father being Bjarn), by slipping back to an ancient custom of the now rarely used Icelandic family name.

  “Good morning, Dr. Chamberlain. Thank you for taking the time to see me.” Sophia’s English was perfect, and she only revealed a hint of an accent when it suited her to do so. It suited her now. There was something about a European accent that gave more credence to one’s position as a physicist.

  “It is my pleasure. I am always happy to listen to new proposals, although they are not commonly presented by someone of your, shall we say, youth.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, in a rather bored way, and Sophia suspected that he had meant little of what he said. She was determined to give this man a fair shot despite his apparent lack of interest. She hesitated while she considered that. She really was testing this man — to see if he, and the system for which he worked, had the foresight to recognize the value in what she was proposing. She really did not care much if he approved or not. She had other avenues she could use if this one was a dead end.

  She handed him several sheets of paper, with lines of equations, several diagrams, and two summary paragraphs at the end. He glanced at the front page, shuffled through the remainder, then looked up at Sophia.

  “Please tell me what you have here,” he said.

  Sophia spent the next fifteen minutes informing the man of her philosophy regarding the slow and expensive direction of current fusion research, her conception involving an entirely different means to accomplish the same end, and her intention to request funding to further examine some of her ideas. She stressed that since her idea was entirely distinct from any others at the facility, it would need to be considered a separate project. It would also need a small amount of funding. She grew increasingly animated as she made her presentation. Dr. Chamberlain simply did not seem enthusiastic about the proposal however, and she was mildly deflated.

  He asked, “Have you channeled this through your lab director?”

  “Of course. But he discouraged me from pursuing it further. He thought it would come to nothing. He did allow me to bring it to your attention however.” She did not mention that her lab director had let her proposal languish in his inbox for almost two months before he got back to her with his non-committal reply, and that she had to be firm in her insistence that she be allowed to approach Dr. Chamberlain directly with it.

  “Well, I am glad he did, and that you indeed did come forth with this. It is most worthy of my time.” His tone of voice suggested otherwise, of course.

  Dr. Chamberlain arose from his chair, and guided her out of his office, saying, “I will give this some consideration, and get back to you. Thank you so much.” He had not asked even a single question about her underlying theories — questions she had been prepared to answer. As she walked away from his office, she cast a quick look over her shoulder, to see the man picking up her documents and placing them on a large pile of forgotten papers that sat on the floor to the left of his desk. They did not even get the benefit of being placed
in his inbox. She was acutely aware that the great man would never give the issue another thought.

  That did not bother Sophia one bit. In fact it made her feel free again — free to choose the not-so-simple path that she had, deep down, yearned to pursue. Had her proposal been received favorably, she would have been tempted to stay on at the university, for it would have been the safe and easy thing to do. Now that temptation did not exist. She stopped by her office to pick up her purse and then headed home. Today was a short day at the lab, but a major turning point in her life. The university had given her her doctorate, and for that she was grateful. She followed her urge to contact her brother right away and tell him that after a few more months promised to the university, and to the navy research project, she would be free to join him and eager to work on his much more important project — what he called the “Island Project.” She knew Petur had been hoping that she would make this decision, and she was eager to hear his familiar yelp of glee when she told him that her proposal to Chamberlain had, for all intents and purposes, been denied.

  Sophia seemed to be glowing. In fact, Jeff was now sure that there was no person more beautiful in the world. She had been eager to come out that evening, saying that she had good news to tell him. But when she told him her news, it seemed to be bad. The upper muck-a-mucks at the University had not been the least optimistic about her request for funding for her project. Why that was good news, he could not fathom — but she was smiling broadly as she told him. He hoped that this was not a sign that she might be a little crazy, for he was already falling in love with her.

  They were fully ensconced in both the process of discovery and the standard subconscious mating ritual of humans, presenting to each other that particular self-description that represented the desired self, the idealized self, the someday self, the occasional self, that self which one wished to be, aspired to be, but knew one wasn’t quite, or at least could not be all the time. It was the earliest stages of the relationship, so their conversations were brisk and full and exciting. Neither cared to waste time on the unimportant, the droning brainwashing, the soma of modern-day entertainment that served to hypnotize the masses.

  As they ate dinner at the waterfront restaurant on San Diego Bay, she told him about her brother Petur — a passionate man, driven by his carefully considered concerns about the financial situation of the country and the world. Sophia’s description of these concerns frightened anyone who overheard it at adjacent tables. Indeed many people dining nearby were paying attention, attracted perhaps by the energy that was moving so rapidly back and forth across the table separating couple. But also, there was nothing ordinary about Sophia. She was strikingly beautiful, and strikingly brilliant. She attracted attention wherever she walked and whenever she spoke. Jeff was completely infatuated, and intimidated.

  She said, “The governments all over the world, but particularly right here in the United States, are bankrupt. Think, Jeff, that the United States government is supposedly the most powerful entity on the planet. The president is supposedly the most powerful person on Earth. How do these concepts jibe with the rather undeniable fact that the US government is bankrupt? The answer is simple: the government prints as much money as it wants, and that money empowers the government. Absent this creation of money out of thin air, the US government would have to be, well, stuck within the limits of the law, and forced to spend more wisely, and that is something few of the political leaders want. Because it takes work.”

  “But printing money causes inflation, right?”

  “Printing money is inflation, Jeff. Expansion of the money supply is inflation. Inflation of the money supply then, sooner or later causes prices to rise. It is the rising prices that make people realize that inflation is happening.”

  The conversation was outside Jeff’s knowledge base. He asked, rather naively, “But if printing money is inflation, as you say, why would the US government want to do it so excessively? They know inflation is bad.”

  Sophia shook her head. “Do they? Let me ask you: who benefits from inflation? I’ll tell you. Anyone whose net worth is negative, that’s who. If you are a net debtor, inflation effectively reduces your debt. If one dollar today is, because of inflation, only worth 50 cents tomorrow, then your debt is cut in half without you ever paying anything. So, what entity is the biggest net debtor on the planet? The answer is obvious — the United States government.”

  Jeff nodded. “It is the biggest beneficiary of inflation.”

  “It surely is. In multiple ways. By printing money, it is easier to pay the debt with inflated dollars. By printing money, the government maintains power by fraudulently pretending to be rich. The politicians get to make all sorts of promises about government programs and spew money around in exchange for favors. The damn politicians can avoid dealing with the impeding financial disasters of Social Security and Medicare, that in and of themselves will destroy the economy. They can build roads, or resurface perfectly good roads. They can invade countries. They can proclaim power, while being broke. The politicians can pay off their supporters through stimulus programs. They can do all this without getting citizens angry by raising taxes.”

  “I am sorry about my cluelessness, and I am sure inflation is horrible. But why? If the US government can get away with paying down the incredible debt we have by printing dollars, and not raising taxes, why not do it?”

  Sophia winced and her voice got louder. “Because anyone who has worked hard and saved money suffers. Anyone who has a life savings loses his or her life savings. The same way that net debtors benefit from inflation, anyone with savings loses. The US government wins, while America loses. The government gains power while the people lose it. Meanwhile, the dollars are ‘invested’ in projects that the government determines are appropriate, and they are notoriously lousy at picking good investments. You see, it isn’t their money, so they don’t care enough. They invest in projects that have low likelihood of creating value. That means money is spent to encourage people to waste their effort. People are paid to do projects that are futile or counterproductive, and they spend part of their lives in such waste. It is called ‘malinvestment.’ Actually, malinvestment happens privately too, when money is too cheap. Inflation makes money cheap, and people then spend unwisely. This sends what used to be a free market into a cataclysm of wasted efforts, wasted human efforts. Jeff, these are lives being wasted. And then, also, inflation is a tax. A surreptitious, sneaky tax. Inflation is taxation without representation. It taxes anybody who has saved money, and it is a tax that occurs each and every year, not on your income, but rather on your entire life savings. If you have a hundred dollars saved today, it may be only worth fifty dollars tomorrow.”

  “Isn’t the Federal Reserve charged with the job of controlling inflation?”

  Sophia nodded. “Supposedly. At least that is what we are told. But actually I think their job is simply to try to keep the prices from rising so fast that people start to notice the inflation. The Fed is the organization that is most egregiously creating money out of thin air, effectively printing it. It is even easier to do it electronically. They don’t even need printing presses. They have been inflating the currency for 100 years. Between when the Fed was created in 1913 and now, the US dollar has lost almost all of its value. A dollar in 1913 is worth 3 cents now. Every year people lose part of their wealth, part of their savings, to inflation, year after year after year. The Fed sucks at controlling inflation, obviously. My brother actually claims that the Federal Reserve is the biggest threat to the security of the nation, and the security of the world. And I agree.”

  Jeff smiled thinly, a bit incredulously, as he thought about the people whom he faced in his own job, and said, “The biggest risk? Really?”

  “The Fed controls the money supply, inflates the currency, and is the central agency in charge of the fraud that is fake money. Money is the central component of an economy, and the medium of exchange that keeps a society functioning efficiently
. With fraud at the center of the economy, the economy is a house of cards.”

  “Why?”

  “It is a confidence game. It’s a con. The biggest con ever perpetrated. The successful con depends on the confidence people place in the fraud. This fiat, fraudulent money con has been accomplished expertly, and people have had much confidence in it, not seeing the fraud. But now, finally, people are waking up. And as they wake, the fraud is exposed, and the confidence — which is the primary supporter of the currency — disappears. Then the currency is no longer considered valuable. So that is the main and inevitable problem. The collapse may continue to occur slowly. But it can be sudden and unexpected as well.”

  “How?” prompted Jeff, when there was a too-long pause.

  Sophia’s eyes glinted. “I will give you an example. One man, just one man, can destroy the US economy. He can decide to not take the US dollar in exchange for oil, and given the horrific built up inflationary pressure, such a decision will start a rapid slide away from the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The US dollar will collapse, and with it, a huge percentage of our wealth. Overnight, the nation becomes poor. The US economy can be demolished, Jeff. All based on one man’s decision. That is just one of many examples of how our security is profoundly threatened by the Fed.”

  “Who is this man who can destroy our economy?”

  “The king of Saudi Arabia of course.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “It doesn’t make sense, economically, for him to do it. But that doesn’t matter. There is no rule that says that logic is an important part of governmental or dictatorial decisions. Think about it — the power one person has over the fate of the United States. No war is needed to bring us down. This isn’t a fundamentalist religion threatening us. The military cannot defend against this. We have allowed the dollar to become so weak that the only reason it is functioning at all is because so many other currencies are in even worse shape.”