Marah and Reyji arrived at the palace square. The financial court was a wide building here and stood directly opposite the palace as the crow flies. There was a general administration building between the palace and the financial courtyard. So you could still only see the tops of the palace towers. The sky was now a deep gray. It was good that they had arrived before the rain.

They entered the Finance Court via the guarded main entrance. After registering, they were able to go through to the offices. There were not many people around. Most of the offices were empty at this time of day. After following the corridor to the right almost to the end, they turned into a very large stairwell and took the stairs up.

Marah went ahead. Reyji followed her. The facade of the stairwell of this building was again made of glass, only this time it was clear glass. The rest of the façade had normal windows. Reyji could see into the inner courtyard from here. It was half a green area with trees, grass and lots of benches. At one corner through the back was a half-open space. It was a snack bar that Reyji often visited. Some of the missing civil servants were sitting there under the roof. Many civil servants were currently on their lunch break.

Reyji already knew what Marah wanted here. Inflation increased the cost of living, so she wanted to link state benefits, such as the unemployment pay, and legal requirements, such as the minimum wage, to inflation by law so that she did not have to constantly make individual changes to the law. She also wanted to link tax rates more strongly to inflation.

Some taxes, such as income tax, were progressive taxes. This meant that the higher the taxable amount, the higher the maximum tax rate that could be applied. This did not mean that a salary increase could make you worse off than before if it resulted in a higher tax rate. A tax rate always applied to a range, from a lower limit to an upper limit. The only exception was the top tax rate, which had no upper limit. For example, if the top rate of income tax was 50% from 100,000 S-Mark, then you only paid 50% on everything you earned above 100,000 S-Mark. But now came the problem. Assuming inflation was 4% and Reyji got a 4% pay rise, she might nevertheless not be able to afford as much as in the same period the previous year if the pay rise meant she reached a higher tax rate. The pay rise was not to blame and was of course desirable. However, Reyji's salary had only increased in amount, but not in purchasing power, so she therefore suddenly had a higher tax burden in percentage terms. This was cold progression. For this reason, the tax rates had to be adjusted regularly, otherwise you had a creeping tax increase.

At the end of the stairs, Reyji could still see the inner courtyard on one side and on the other side she could see the roof area and with it the lawn and the trees that were on this roof. The roof of the financial courtyard had a full green area, like many buildings in the city center of Rosenberg.

They went straight through a door to the left and came to a reception. On the right, at a dark desk, was a young woman leaning forward with her arms stretched out on the tabletop and a magazine in her hands. She was so engrossed in reading that she had not noticed that someone had come through the door and up to her at the desk.

Marah knocked on the tabletop like on a door.

"Hello, Mousie? Are you mentally at home already?"

In shock that someone was there, Mousie almost threw her magazine away. "Mi- Mi- Mi- Mi-" She tried to say something and kept taking quick breaths, but got nowhere.

"Save yourself the trouble. I know my name. Tell me, is Benno here?"

"Mi- Ms. Von Rosenberg, what are you doing here? Don't you have a tournament today?"

"Yes, I had a tournament, but I also had an appointment that I couldn't reschedule."

"Is that why you're in a bad mood?" she asked cautiously.

~Spot on.~

"Of course not. Is Benno here now? I need to speak to him."

"I've been instructed that if you want to see him, I should ask you what you want before I tell you if he's in the house."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"If he wasn't there, would you still ask me?"

Mousie pondered for a moment in silence, as if trying to find the best answer.

"No comment."

Mara shook her head and left it at that.

"Things are going to get a bit bumpy in the near future, so I want to link social transfers und minimum wages and so on to inflation. Is that enough of an answer for you?"

"That's why you want to talk to him? Does that make sense?" Mousie raised her finger like a teacher or as if she was about to quote something. "If the costs for companies rise and they have to increase their sales prices as a result, the cost pressure on the companies will only increase further if they have to increase wages on top of the new costs. In other words, they have to increase sales prices again, but then they also have to increase wages again. At the same time, people have more and more money, which means that demand continues to rise. This goes on endlessly." The conclusion sounded almost panicked.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Don't you know that? It's the wage-price spiral. If you increase wages, prices always increase too."

"If wages always went up just because you ask nicely, then we wouldn't need a minimum wage."

"But you want to link it to inflation, or not?" She quietly greeted Reyji and waved to her. "Hello, Reyji."

"When costs go up, profits go down. Where's the spiral?"

"What do you mean? I don't understand."

Reyji could see from their faces that Marah was annoyed by the question and that Mousie was starting to regret it.

"A company's costs go up, so they raise prices, so inflation goes up, so they have to adjust wages because I say so, so costs go up again, but then they just make less profit, as they should have done in the first step. There is no spiral. The state companies will not raise their prices as long as they are not allowed to, but will always reduce their profits first. The rest of the market will follow suit or be pushed out. Apart from that, I don't want to increase all wages. I don't even want to increase the minimum wage, I just want to keep it at the same level. If inflation is 8% and you increase the nominal wage by 8%, then real wages are back to the old level, demand is back to the old level. Nobody suddenly has more purchasing power out of nowhere. What you are talking about is greed. If inflation is 8% and you don't increase the nominal wage, the real wage of your employees is 8% lower. In itself I don't care whether any companies lowers their wages when their costs rise. But not the minimum wage. That's the least you deserve for your time. Minimum wage earners have to spend all their money as it is. Let's say half of that money goes to the landlord and the other half to the retailer. If inflation is now 8%, but the real wages of these groups are only increased by 4%, the remaining 4% is missing in retail, because they can't pay the landlord less, they can only eat less. Apart from the fact that the rent may also have been increased. Those who are most opposed to linking the minimum wage are companies that have their goods produced by minimum-wage workers who cannot afford these goods. A manufacturer of luxury clothing will gain nothing if the minimum wage follows suit, because it will only ever have more costs, but no one will be able to buy it. As a shareholder and supposed economic expert, you still have to be able to argue this fact in a reasonably humane way to get unsuspecting people on your side, which is why you spread such bullshit. For the relevant economy in a country like Baele, a falling minimum wage is economically damaging."

Mousie remained silent. Her lower lip trembled and her googly eyes shone as if she was about to cry.

"How do you know about the wage-price spiral? You didn't make that up yourself, did you?"

Mousie put her gossip sheet aside and took a magazine with a glossy cover from the bottom of her desk and held it up in front of her.

"The economy."

Marah snatched the magazine from her hand and looked over the cover once indifferently.

The magazine was called 'THE ECONOMY'. It was quite well known and had a market share of almost 28% in its field. The publisher was 84% owned by various financial trading companies.

"Don't read such manipulative garbage."

Marah slammed the magazine loudly into the wastepaper basket, which made Mousie wince. She then pulled a journal out of the pile on the table and pushed it towards her.

"If you're bored, read this instead. It's fact-based."

"O- O- O- O- Okay, Mrs. Von Rosenberg, if you recommend this to me, I'll only buy this in the future."

The magazine had a rather simple design and was called 'Economic Journal'. The publisher's parent company was 64% publicly owned and 24% personally owned by Marah.

~The world is not a safe place for naive people.~

"Is Benno in his office now or do I have to get down on my knees and beg first?"

"Mr. Turmer is present, Ms. Von Rosenberg. You can go straight through."

"Good, I don't want us to be disturbed. The adjoining rooms will also remain empty." Marah took the handbag from Reyji. "Reyji, you're waiting here."

From Mousie's place behind the desk, to the left was the door to the stairwell, to the right a straight hallway that led up to a single door, and in front of her at the far end of the room was a glass wall with a door to the roof area, which itself had a small canopy. This floor itself was a structure on the roof. There was only this entrance room and the rooms along the corridor. The room through the back was the office of the head of the financial court. Marah followed the corridor, knocked on this door and after someone invited her in, she disappeared into the room.

.../ End Part