"My real trouble is this," said Smith. "I don't understand this world at all. I'm a business man, I'd like to go into business here. (Mind you, I've got nothing against this world, this period. It seems okay, but I don't understand it.) I can't go into business. Damn it, nothing works the same. All they taught me in school, all I learned on the Street, seems utterly foreign to the way they do business now."
"I should think that business would be much the same in any age-fabrication, buying, selling."
"Yes and no. I'm a finance man-and, damn it, finance is cockeyed nowadays!"
"I admit that the details are a little involved," Hamilton answered, "but the basic principles are evident enough. Say-I've a friend coming over who is the chief mathematician for the department of finance. He'll straighten you out."
Smith shook his head decisively. "I've been experted to death. They don't speak my lingo."
"Well," said Hamilton, "I might tackle the problem myself."
"Would you? Please?"
Hamilton thought about it. It was one thing to kid sober-sided Clifford about his "money-machine"; another matter entirely to explain the workings of finance economics to ... to the hypothetical Man from Arcturus. "Suppose we start this way," he said. "It's basically a matter of costs and prices. A business man manufactures something. That costs him money-materials, wages, housing, and so forth. In order to stay in business he has to get his costs back in prices. Understand me?"
"That's obvious."
"Fine. He has put into circulation an amount of money exactly equal to his costs."
"Say that again."
"Eh? It's a simple identity. The money he has had to spend, put into circulation, is his costs."
"Oh ... but how about his profit?"
"His profit is part of his cost. You don't expect him to work for nothing."
"But profits aren't costs. They're ... they're profits."
Hamilton felt a little baffled. "Have it your own way. Costs-what you rail 'costs'-plus profit must equal price. Costs and profits are available as purchasing power to buy the product at a price exactly equal to them. That's how purchasing power comes into existence."
"But ... but he doesn't buy from himself."
"He's a consumer, too. He uses his profits to pay for his own and other producers' products."
"But he owns his own products."
"Now you've got me mixed up. Forget about him buying his own products. Suppose he buys what he needs for himself from other business men. It comes out the same in the long run. Let's get on. Production puts into circulation the amount of money-exactly-needed to buy the product. But some of that money put into circulation is saved and invested in new production. There it is a cost charge against the new production, leaving a net shortage in necessary purchasing power. The government makes up that shortage by issuing new money."
"That's the point that bothers me," said Smith. "It's all right for the government to issue money, but it ought to be backed by something-gold, or government bonds."
"Why, in the Name of the Egg, should a symbol represent anything but the thing it is supposed to accomplish?"
"But you talk as if money was simply an abstract symbol."
"What else is it?"
Smith did not answer at once. They had reached an impasse of different concepts, totally different orientations. When he did speak it was to another point. "But the government simply gives away all this new money. That's rank charity. It's demoralizing. A man should work for what he gets. But forgetting that aspect for a moment, you can't run a government that way. A government is just like a business. It can't be all outgo and no income."
"Why can't it?' There's no parallel between a government and a business. They are for entirely different purposes."
"But it's not sound. It leads to bankruptcy. Read Adam Smith."
"I don't know this Adam Smith. Relative of yours?"
"No, he's a- Oh, Lord!"
"Crave pardon?"
"It's no use," Smith said. "We don't speak the same lingo."
"I am afraid that is the trouble, really. I think perhaps you should go to see a corrective semantician."
"Anyhow," Smith said, one drink later, "I didn't come here to ask you to explain finance to me. I came for another purpose."
"Yes?"
"Well, you see I had already decided that I couldn't go into finance. But I want to get to work, make some money. Everybody here is rich-except me."
"Rich?"
"They look rich to me. Everybody is expensively dressed. Everybody eats well-Hell! They give food away-it's preposterous."
"Why don't you live on the dividend? Why worry about money?"
"I could, of course, but, shucks, I'm a working man. There are business chances all around. It drives me nuts not to do something about them. But I can't-I don't know the ropes. Look-there is just one thing else besides finance that I know well. I thought you might be able to show me how to capitalize on it."
"What is it?"
"Football."
"Football?"
"Football. I'm told that you are the big man in games. Games 'tycoon' they called you." Hamilton conceded it wordlessly. "Now football is a game. There ought to be money in it, handled right."
"What sort of a game? Tell me about it."
Smith went into a long description of the sport. He drew diagrams of plays, describing tackling, blocking, forward passing. He described the crowds and spoke of gate receipts. "It sounds very colorful," Hamilton admitted. "How many men get killed in an engagement?"
"Killed? You don't hurt anybody-barring a broken collar bone, or so."
"We can change that. Wouldn't it be better if the men defending the ball handlers were armored? Otherwise we would have to replace them with every maneuver."
"No, you don't understand. It's-well..."
"I suppose I don't," Hamilton agreed, "I've never seen the game played. It's a little out of my line. My games are usually mechanicals-wagering machines."
"Then you aren't interested?"
Hamilton was not, very. But he looked at the youth's disappointed face and decided to stretch a point. "I'm interested, but it isn't my line. I'll put you in touch with my agent. I think he could work something out of it. I'll talk with him first."
"Say, that's white of you!"
"I take it that means approval. It's no trouble to me, really."
The annunciator warned of a visitor-Monroe-Alpha. Hamilton let him in, and warned him, sotto voce, to treat Smith as an armed equal. Some time was consumed in polite formalities, before Monroe-Alpha got around to his enthusiasm. "I understand that your background is urban industrial, sir."
"I was mostly a city boy, if that's what you, mean."
"Yes, that was the implication. I was hoping that you would be able to tell me something of the brave simple life that was just dying out in your period."
"What do you mean? Country life?"
Monroe-Alpha sketched a short glowing account of his notion of rustic paradise. Smith looked exceedingly puzzled. "Mr. Monroe," he said, "somebody has been feeding you a lot of cock-and-bull, or else I'm very much mistaken. I don't recognize anything familiar in the picture."
Monroe-Alpha's smile was just a little patronizing. "But you were an urban dweller. Naturally the life is unfamiliar to you."
"What you describe may be unfamiliar, but the circumstances aren't. I followed the harvest two summers, I've done a certain amount of camping, and I used to spend my summers and Christmases on a farm when I was a kid. If you think there is anything romantic, or desirable per se, in getting along without civilized comforts, well, you just ought to try tackling a two-holer on a frosty morning. Or try cooking a meal on a wood-burning range."
"Surely those things would simply stimulate a man. It's the primitive, basic struggle with nature."
"Did you ever have a mule step on your foot?"
"No, but-"
"Try it some time. Honest-I don't wish to seem impertinent, but you have your wires crossed. The simple life is all right for a few days vacation, but day in and day out it's just so much dirty back-breaking drudgery. Romantic? Hell, man, there's no time to be romantic about it, and damned little incentive."