by Floyd Looney
King Midus ruled a prosperous and powerful nation, its economy was the envy of the world. Midus was proud of this, and he was proud to be the leader of such a fine kingdom. Then one night a red lizard appeared to him in a dream and it talked to him.
“Oh sure, the kingdom is strong and rich. That is a fine thing indeed, but there are still a lot of poor people and can't you do something for them?”
The king responded that red lizards appearing in dreams seemed a bit demonic and why should he listen to one thing a lizard in a dream says?
“Your society has demonized and vilified the likes of me for generations, you have been accustomed to fear me. Can you not see that the system has done this for the purpose of keeping the rich rich and the poor poor? Can't you look past my skin and take heed of my message?”
The king knew this was a dream so he was willing to let the lizard make his argument.
“You are the king of this fine nation. There are needy and impoverished people who could use some help from you, their king! You are the only one who has the power to change things and to make them more fair” the lizard said “You have the power to make everyone rich!”
The king had barely been listening but the last sentence had startled him. “I? I have the power to make everyone rich? How can I possibly have such power? I cannot the control the economy, I cannot possibly monitor every single purchase and sale in the kingdom and direct it better than the market directs itself. This has been proven by many nations in history, direct control of the economy leads to economic ruin!”
The king was satisfied that his argument was right, history indeed was real proof of this. The lizard, though, acted as if this missed the point.
“You do not need to control the economy for my plan to work.” the lizard said
“I also know that you cannot help the poor by taking from the rich, there are far too few rich and punishing the productive with high taxes will simply destroy the incentive to be productive.” The king answered “Everyone who can read history knows all this, lizard, your rhetoric of pitting the classes against each other will leave a nation in a smoldering ruin.”
The lizard shook his head “Hear me out, Oh Great King Midus! I do not ask you to steal wealth from anyone. That is not my plan. Let me explain the secret that the powers-that-be do not want you to hear.”
The suspicious and doubtful king bid the creature to speak his piece. “Speak up and then leave me to my rest.”
The lizard simply said “You can simply order more coin to be minted, Oh King. Just print enough coin and give it to those who have the least. Print enough coin to make everyone equally wealthy. You won't need to take it away from anyone, you would be no thief. You will be a hero for breaking the people free from drudgery and enslavement to the very wealthy!”
Over the course of a few weeks the lizard appeared to him nightly, showing him images of a nation where everyone was superbly wealthy and happy. The images were Eden-like and the words of the lizard were soon intoxicating. He became more and more numb to the plan put forth by this dream-invading creature.
“I cannot simply mint an endless amount of coins, that requires gold. Gold is used because it is limited in supply. I cannot just used any metal to print the coins.” he argued one night “I grow weary of these discussions, Lizard, no matter how pretty the images you present.”
The lizard came closer. He seemed to grow much bigger over the weeks than he had in the first dream, but the King wasn't concerned, it was just a dream. “Oh King, Great King, I can endow you with the power to produce as much golden money as it takes to make everyone rich!”
“How can but a dream do this?” the king asked, forgetting for a moment that he and the lizard were on the opposite sides.
“I am no dream, Great King of mine. Tomorrow when you awaken, everything you touch will become gold. You can create a whole kingdom of gold that will be the envy of every nation in the history of the world!”
Upon waking up, King Midus had forgotten about this. Soon enough his toothbrush, his toilet seat and his towel were all made of the finest gold. Sitting down at breakfast his chair, the table, the plate and his fork all became gold.
“Great King.” his Keeper of the House interrupted his thoughts on seeing his dining room become gold before him, “You have a visitor, he says you will greet him.”
“Send him in.” the king said, waving his hand absent-minded, in thought about the golden table settings in front of him, including the paper napkin.
A man with a long, angular face entered the room. The Keeper waited a moment, which is how long it took for the king to shoot up out of his chair in recognition. The man smiled and slightly laughed to himself politely. The Keeper bowed and left.
“You are human after all?”
“I am here.” the man said “to become your Minister of the Treasury.”
The king was taken aback, the resignation of his last treasurer had not been made public. “I don't even know your name.”
“My name is Red Lazaar.” the man answered “I see you have already started filling your kingdom with gold. You can see how easy our plan will be to carry out.”
The king was too stunned to speak for a while.
Over the course of years the kingdom implemented a policy of giving stipends, credits and free things to the poor. To ensure that these policies met little resistance these were expanded to many who were not poor, eventually this reached half or a little more of the population.
Those who received this gold spent it. The merchants and shopkeepers happily took their gold, so there was little complaint. To placate some of the wealthy who saw through the plan, the government approved massive “stimulus” plans to pay corporations to repave roads and many other things.
Free quills and ink, free schools, free meals, free housing, free academies and colleges, free medicines and most of all free gold in many forms. Indeed the whole nation was soon filled with gold, golden houses, golden carriages, golden roads and everything else one could think of.
After the first few years the subjects of the kingdom became less and less happy and the Treasury doled out more and more gold to make them happy. This just made more people unhappy.
“No matter how much gold I make, everyone is becoming unhappy!”
The Minister of the Treasury, with his unchanging smirk, answered “They are ungrateful to your generosity, true enough!”
“Complaints are filling up my mailbags. No matter how much gold we give away, the price of everything surpasses it.” the king lamented “I warned you that the market is not to be toyed with.”
The other man nodded solemnly. “Obviously your economy has been sabotaged by the vested interests, you should find them and punish them.”
Over the next few years any dissent was punished harshly, any hint from the “usual suspects” was grounds for arrest. The peasants rallied against the saboteurs, blaming them for spoiling the plans of King Midus, the Generous. By now nearly all were equally rich and barely able to afford enough food to survive.
Finally this did not placate the masses enough, so the Minister of the Treasury blamed neighboring nations. “They are jealous of our gold and greedy to have it all to themselves! You should go to war against them!”
Red Lazaar wrote fiery speeches for the King, accusing foreign countries of ruining the economy and sabotaging food crops. He drafted young men into his armies (“You need to show gratitude for all your King has done for you, national service will do that”)
Foreign wars didn't help the economy. The spoils of war dwindled, they were never enough even in the beginning. Soon rebellions were spreading all over the vaunted Kingdom of Gold, the peasant armies carried pitchforks and torches were ever closer.
“Your gold cannot be eaten!” they said “Your foolish policies ruined everything” “Gold, gold everywhere and not a thing to eat.”
“I was trying to be generous! I was trying to make it fair!” the king pleaded in his dreams to the chants from outside of
the castle. “I should never have listened to that red lizard! That Red Lazaar! That demon! I knew it from the start and he still deceived me!”
“The more you mint, the less it is worth!” the King said to himself. Then the lizard once again appeared in his dreams, but he had the human face of Red Lazaar.
“They are going to hang me in the morning!” the King said “This is your fault, you tricked me.”
The lizard shrugged “You never believed in it enough to make it work! There might be one last chance to save your bacon, Oh Generous one!”
The king wanted the creature to become real, so he could thrash him into a puddle. “There is nothing I can do to fix this mess!”
The lizard smiled “Yes, just one chance. Have you ever heard of paper money?”
END
The Good Doctor Stutz
by Floyd Looney