"What did you think of the speech?"

"The bit about the pea stew was a bit silly."

"Freedom to the people, pea stew from Ebensbach from tomorrow onwards only one S-Mark." Marah emphasized that it was an advertising slogan. Then she raised her fist halfway up. "Yeah, pea stew." she cheered quietly, shaking her fist. "I didn't have a choice. I needed something I could pin on an S-Mark and my choices were severely limited."

"Now that it's over, can you explain to me what that was all about?"

"I can break it down for you. The S-Mark is devalued. People exchange their S-Mark for Fee at the private banks at the real exchange rate. The private banks lose their ability to create the S-Mark. Suddenly you need S-Mark. People exchange their Fee for S-Mark at the private banks, but even though they should still have so much S-Mark, they keep increasing the fees and the exchange rate. People can't exchange their Fee and can no longer use it for almost anything, at least domestically. Nobody wants the Fee anymore. Nobody wants the private banks any more. The private banks accepted the S-Mark and made massive profits from it through high fees and an exaggerated exchange rate. That is correct so far. But they didn't keep the S-Mark. It was devaluing and just as normal people thought that they could simply exchange it at a private bank if they needed it, the private banks thought that they shouldn't hold any currency that they could get as a loan from the state bank at any time. They always handed everything over to us, even still when the S-Mark was on the rise again but no longer belonged to them. That's a communication problem. Unfortunately, that's often the case in large companies. They didn't even just give back the S-Mark they had received. They even took out loans from the state bank in order to earn some money on the revaluation, but they misjudged themselves once again. Who do you think came crawling back to the state bank? We were nice and negotiated something. The private banks are not as close to the free banks as one might think. In the end, their own profit is always more important."

"But how did they know it would work?"

"The world of finance is a kindergarten where big kids snatch the toys from little kids, but when you pick up the one that's lying on the ground, they all come running. They've just made a mistake. Everyone can read up on the guidelines of the disaster protection act since it was passed, but nobody really expected us to have anything. Nobody knows how much we have. Even if all state companies stopped producing today, one could only speculate how long I could sell cans for one S-Mark before they run out. Maybe for 10 years? Maybe forever?"

"Did you just do all this to get one over on the banks?"

"The private banks themselves don't interest me that much. I just wanted to shake the confidence in the free banks and the Fee and increase confidence in myself and the S-Mark. The S-Mark needs international recognition and should strengthen so that we can create more and buy land, real estate, infrastructure and so on cheaply abroad. Without full control, this would not have been possible on the scale I envision. The free banks cry about every creation and I was tired of having to explain everything to them three times. So I wanted to nationalize the banking system, but keep the S-Mark in circulation and just collect the holdings and get a grip on the wealth distribution. It all worked very well. Fortunately, it's always the people with the most money who are first in the lifeboat. If the ship was seaworthy, in hindsight it was of course an unfortunate decision to sit in a rowing boat on the open water instead."

"You want to further enhance the value of the S-Mark with the price guarantees. But will that work? It's already at its old peak."

"It cannot not work. As long as I sell a can for one S-Mark, one S-Mark is worth one can."

"But if we fix the prices and demand increases unexpectedly, but we can't increase production, won't that lead to empty shelves again?"

"You're thinking too much in business school terms. Don't just listen to the experts. The ones who made them experts are the ones who taught them that. If you can't adapt production to demand, but there's still something on the shelves afterwards, it's because you've reduced the number of buyers through the price. But this is about essential food products. How do I benefit from full shelves? That's not better. I would prefer everyone has something to eat. Whether the price is loose or fixed doesn't change anything on the production side. You can either feed your population or not. You can't solve that through the price."

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"Will there be empty shelves again?"

"If people expect there to be empty shelves, then there will shortly be empty shelves, so I would always answer that question in the negative."

"In reality, the warehouses are empty, I presume?"

"A warehouse is not empty. A warehouse is a cost factor. As a test, we are currently only producing to delivery quantities in order to possibly achieve higher margins, as the provisions of the disaster protection act happen to be suspended for an unforeseeable period and there is therefore no legal obligation to hold an inventory."

"Haha, I see. In your speech, it sounded like you were bothered by the food waste. Wouldn't it be better to abolish the disaster prevention act then?"

"Is that a real suggestion? Don't let anyone tell you. The waste is minimal. It's all used. It just loses retail value and storage costs too. I'll still lower the maximums before reinstatement, but only because that's wasted labor. I will also exclude additional goods. In medicine, for example, Rotkäppchen's normal storage stock is now sufficient for Baele in an emergency. We don't even need the private sector for that. As far as storage itself is concerned, the costs for state companies, at least those close by, are relatively low. I have a dry cold storage facility in the north for some time now. They all use it. Food, weapons, medicine, wood, gas, oil, everything you can imagine fits in there. They've been mining there for hundreds of years. You can stuff half of Rosenberg in there if you have to. Storage, inventories, taxes, Schwarzberg does it all. Only the emergency services and whoever else needs it have the full inventory list."

"What if the cans aren't enough?"

"We have nothing more than this pea stew. People have to eat pea stew all the time for it to be not enough."

"Is the Schwarzberg mine actually exhausted? I heard that the last inspection revealed that it would be exhausted in a few years."

"As I said, they've been mining there for hundreds of years. When I look at the production volumes and the price trend, I don't think the other four mines are in much better shape. The ore will be used up in the next few decades. But it's not that bad. WE have enough."

"When the metal guild announces that the deposits are coming to an end, the price of fernium will explode."

"If the metal price rises, we lower the percentage. As long as the coins are black on the outside... I have something for you, by the way."

Marah took a folded envelope out of her pocket and gave it to Reyji. The letter was from the State Bank. When Reyji opened it, it contained a shiny black metal card with green lettering in relief. On the left side was a passport photo with a holographic effect, and there were a few other details on the card.

"A new bank card?"

"Mr. Turmer gave me the envelope for you. The number at the bottom is your new account number. It's also your new tax number, health insurance number, social security number, pension insurance number. It's pretty much all the government numbers you have. In a way, it's your citizen number. It's also your new service card. Your old service card, your old health card, your old bank card and so on will all be invalidated at the end of the year. You can then leave all your other papers and identification cards at home. You will only need this card. The letter explains exactly what it replaces and how it is secured."

"The picture is still my old one. I had already handed in a new one?"

"I actually commissioned this last year, but only now have the first cards been finished. I've been told they're difficult to make. It's not so important that your hair is blonde now. You're still recognizable."

"The card says: 'Unlimited Credit'?"

"Unlimited, means in your case only that so many zeros would not have fit on the card. This is also only for payments within the state bank and every customer also has a withdrawal limit that is not on the card. We can guarantee full security for payments within the state bank. For example, you can buy a house for 500,000 S-Mark and the seller will be able to use the full amount himself on the same day. We know who gets the money and can recognize whether it is a plausible payment. But even if it's a wrong estimate, all you have to do is get in touch and we know immediately where the money has gone. Even if it is no longer there, we can take further steps immediately because we know everything about the seller. As a fraud victim, you don't even have to wait for the money. We can credit it back to you immediately. In all cases where someone breaks our trust, we can impose all kinds of restrictions on them. Any kind of fraud will be very difficult and will always be a one-off. Ordinary people will quickly regard anything that is not with the state bank as suspicious and stop using it. Companies will voluntarily have an account with the state bank because their domestic customers are there, because it's faster and because the conditions are better overall."

.../ End Part