The Bad Fiscal Year of Temps & Tiempo Travel, or: Grandpa Safaris May Improve Economic Hardturns

The following happened during a small shareholder meeting being held in a convention center in New Mexico sometime in the future. That particular shareholder meeting had two purposes: account for a solid year of lost revenue and make reassurances to owners of common stock in that company that there'd be no repeat of the previous year's fiscal failure. "The problem," said by one of the executives of the company, who happens to be a majority shareholder of preferred stock in Temps & Tiempo Travel, reading from a TelePrompTer "was that we forgot the two most important words in the English language: shareholder value. We stood around and mocked time, both literally and metaphorically. However, the invisible hand of the market is a dutiful student to time. In the first quarter of the previous fiscal year, we decided to exploit a government loophole, an act of legislative fiat with unintended consequences, that allowed private corporations, such as ourselves, to  manipulate quantum irregularities in the space-time continuum that not only make time travel possible but with the right technology affordable. As you know, we began to do a series of what we called, 'excursions into the past'. At first people enjoyed petting Triceratops or mocking baby Tyrannosaurus Rex's with a steak but after a while our customers wanted more bang for their buck. At the time many of our customers complained that the safari was an expensive petting zoo, and some even accused of us committing a fraud with pyrotechnics and animatronics. In dealing with those baseless accusations is where we made our mistake in the second quarter. We offered customers the opportunity to hunt down dinosaurs the way rich dentists and poachers during the turn of the 19th century used to hunt for ivory and the like. It should be noted that we technically violated no international or local body of laws because time travel is currently not under the jurisdiction of any single judicial body. Perhaps, due to the inactions of Temps & Tiempo Travels and other companies like it there will be a serious backlash crying out for a Time Protection Agency to be created. However, such backlash as yet to materialize. However, we certainly toed an ethical boundary and as is the nature of unethical behavior it is a tremendous powder-keg of public relations fallout waiting to explode. Poaching dinosaurs was a highly profitable venture until nine people died and many more were injured by more cunning versions of Dinosaur-beast. This would not have been a problem if not for a loophole in the law, which was not in our favor. This loophole allowed those who signed those liability waivers to argue that because the events of being mauled, and nearly killed by a group of Velociraptors happened, chronically speaking, before the agreement was even signed - which, of course, is sort of true given the nature of time travel itself. The courts felt that our liability waivers were null and void. It was in the words of the court, 'a retroactive document no more valid than someone writing a will for the deceased after they've passed away declaring themselves sole beneficiary'. This court decision, of course, without any surprise here, opened us to a whole world of liability. This is how an otherwise profitable quarter could quickly find itself with significant financial loss. So the tremendous profits were made at the time were certainly offset by the staggeringly high out-of-court settlements we ended up making. The third quarter of the last fiscal year, more or less, was the same story. Dinosaurs took b out of our customers and the customers in turn took huge bites of us with lawsuits. These lawsuits took the third quarter from black to red. Now, during the fourth quarter we felt we needed to find a new angle. Word had indeed spread that the 'Dinosaur Hunts' were not as safe as previously assumed. A significant decrease in our sales was a reflection of this trend in consumer preferences to not be eaten by dinosaurs, which is a reasonable expectation for our customers to have. We thought we could offset our slumping sales figures with a free hat and t-shirt giveaway but that didn't help much. Now I can see all the looks on your faces. How does Temp & Tiempo plan to get out of this predicament called a bad fiscal year and not produce a sequel of it? The answer is simple. So simple it can be summed up in two words. Grandpa safaris. Physicists say we can't kill our own grandfathers without creating irreconcible paradoxes. Temps and Tiempo Travel says, 'not a chance'."

Florentine Usury, Medici Style

This was a story originally told to an employee at his bank by his manager that wanted to cheer him up. The following happened in the Florentine Republic, during Lorenzo de Medici's time (a.k.a. Lorenzo the Magnificent) during The Renaissance. Lorenzo said to someone who was interested in taking a loan out from "[Lorenzo's]...bank of some forty employees" (but reluctant to do so because of a few unsavory details in the agreement), "This is Tuaca. A brandy based liqueur of my concoction that brilliantly blends vanilla and orange. Vanilla and orange, star-crossed lovers not unlike Tristan and Isolde: one a spice, the other a fruit. Truly, fate hath conspired against such metaphysically unlawful unions but alas through a fine, cask aging the impossible was made possible and through Tuaca, vanilla and orange are finally free to love. Tuaca, I think is best served, chilled and served neat. It can also be mixed with ginger ale or hot apple cider, of which I enthusiastically recommend a chaser made of the former. Now about this loan you are so persistent to refuse. I don't understand what grievance you have with it. It is a good offer. Business requires capital and the easiest way to come about capital is to acquire it from someone who has it. I have it. Of course, I wouldn't just give money without an incentive to make it worth my while. For every florin, I lend out is a florin I do not have for my own. Fair compensation is necessary to make the whole venture of lending out florins in the first place to be worth my while."

"It's extortion, fair and simple," answers The Man in Lorenzo's home, "Any pretense to suppose otherwise is fraud or delusion on your part."
"The rate is competitive."
"Two-hundred and fifty-percent interest are far from competitive. It is robbery. There is no other word for it."

"I can think of another word to call it."

"What singular word could best personify the sentiment other than extortion and its myriad of synonyms?"

"Investment..." answers Lorenzo de Medici, who soon after offers two more off the top of his head, "Opportunity...privilege."

"I would hardly see myself as privileged if I took upon myself the burden of this loan. To damn myself to  pay two and a half florins for each one borrowed would be a folly bordering on madness. In the spirit of pragmatism, I could see myself paying a hundred and ten percent, perhaps up to one hundred and fifty for the right to borrow money at a time most necessary to commerce. For as you said, the venture should be made worth your while. However, this is too much. Like a gluttonous child needs to be told to abstain from sweet things I must be firm and resolute and say, 'no'."

Lorenzo, clever as he was, knew exactly how to respond to the man refusing a loan on general principle. "I understand," he said, "Your reservations are not without merit. I want you to know that I respect your decision despite obviously wanting you to have made the other. It is an example of pragmatism at its finest. You have proven yourself today a wise man who does not care what other people think of him. A wise man who does not care that people will make fun of him and like the currency of some nation low in esteem to all the others, truly debase their value of him in their eyes. I am glad that you have both the confidence and self awareness of your poverty to know you should not take upon, as you said so eloquently, the burden of a Florentine loan because you know you can't afford to pay it back. We both know that if you want to pay a reasonable interest, that is, in essence, a discount compared to one I would furnish you with, you must go to a Jew in the foundries, ghettos. A most loathsome race of men certainly but they do not charge more than forty-five percent interest. If you do not mind doing business with such men who routinely desecrate hosts well power to you, I suppose. I wish I, myself, had the courage and the confidence to go to a discount bank, such as a Jew, because I was both aware and willing to follow the logical conclusions of my awareness, to not be able to pay back the extravagant rates of a real loan. If you can't afford to pay back two-hundred and fifty percent interest, I understand. If you must get a frugal loan because you know, as well as your friends who will know eventually, that you're a small fish in large ponds well that is your prerogative and who am I, the gentleman Florentine, that I am, to stop you.”

“What if my friends find out? They’ll think I can’t afford to pay back two-hundred and fifty percent interest. I will be less in their eyes.”

“Yes,” Lorenzo says, “They’ll think you’ll only be able to pay forty percent interest. However, if you’re fine with your friends thinking less of you in their eyes because financially you're not really an aristocrat well that is your business to be minded and none of their own. If necessity dictates that you must do business with the ones with the weird clothes, wearing that patch with a six-sided star, who often smell because they often live near tanneries and have bizarre customs and names such as Shlomo or Chiam, well be my guest and only pay forty-percent interest, while your friends will have the means to pay me back the other two-hundred and ten percent because they are wealthy enough to afford the indulgence and prove it through action.”

”I can’t do that," the man says, “I just can’t. It’s two-hundred and fifty percent interest. Can’t you, as a gesture of friendship, lower it to one hundred and fifty percent, maybe one seventy-five?"

“This,” said Lorenzo, “Cannot be done.”

”When would the debt, if I were to do it with you, be amortized?”

”That all depends on when you pay it back. Obviously, the sooner you pay it back the less the overall repayment will have been”

”I have a shipment coming into the new world. I need only to pay Ottoman tariffs to clear the merchandise from their customs. I need some capital to pay normal duties, fees. Wet a few Turkish and Balkan beaks to, of course, expedite the process. You know how it is."

“Of course.”

”I am short of cash right now. I would be able to pay it back after I successfully sold the merchandise in Europe.”

“I understand,” Lorenzo said just before his client said, “When can I get the loan?”

“As soon as possible,” answered Lorenzo de Medici, “As soon as possible.”