Installment 6.4: Chad judges a book by its cover

Beanie came roaring back from Bakersfield about noon.  Chad was glad to see that she had brought back a couple of helpers.  His joy was muted when he saw they were an elderly, oriental couple.  He had been hoping for a half dozen, big, beefy farm boys.

Beanie said, “This is Akio and Akemi Tannii.  I ran into them at the farm supply store.  They were both working there.  She is a vet.”

“I am sure she is.” Chad said.  Then looking over at the tiny woman, “I thank you for your service.”

Beanie said, “Not that kind of vet.  She is an animal doctor.  She got all excited when I explained our problem.  She said she would be more help than a human doctor.”

Chad looked a little more interested.  “In that case, I apologize.  Let’s start over.  My name is ‘Chad Izzo’ and I am the commander of this sorry, messed up situation.”

The tiny woman’s eyebrows shot up.  “You wouldn’t happen to be the Chad Izzo who farms near East Orosi, would you?”

Chad nodded.  “Yes I am.” mystified that she could know anything about him.

“Can we talk in private?” the woman asked.

“Sure, we can take a little walk but I am mighty busy.  You are going to have to cut to the chase.” Chad said.

“You have a student-helper named Hua Yang.” the woman stated. 

Chad said, “Yes.”

“My name is really Lucinda Yang.  I am Hua’s mother and that man is his father.  I used to work in the Department of Agriculture and it became wise for us to disappear.”

“I was originally trained a vet.  I used to work in confinement facilities…factory farms.  We would get epidemics and we have ways of dealing with it.” Lucinda said.

She looked around at the camp.  “This camp is not fixable from an epidemic standpoint.  We need to spread out and we cannot do that alone.”

Chad shook his head regretfully.  "I have nothing to give you to get that done.  You see I don't have manpower and I don't have money to pay for help."

Lucinda said, "Then we will have to look to the enemy to find the sinews of war.* And that is something we can help with."

“I need to get up to this farm’s offices so I can get the ball running.  Do you have somebody who can give us a ride?” Lucinda asked.

“Hey, Kenny!  Are you busy?”  Chad asked.

“Naw.  I’m just waiting for Bucky to get back to me.”  Kenny said.

“Can you give this couple a ride up to the farm offices and then bring the truck back here?” Chad asked.

“Sure.” Kenny said.

Entering the building, Lucinda asked the receptionist the name of the farm planner and where she could find his office.  Walter politely followed behind her.

The planner was a fifty-year-old man named Mick Scerba and he was loudly berating somebody on his phone when they entered his office.  They remained standing until he severed the connection and acknowledged them.

“What do you want?”  he asked.

“I want to put some money in your pocket.” Lucinda said with a very calm voice.

Mick was taken aback.  Nobody had ever entered his office and asked to do that.

“Sit down.” Scerba said.  “Who are you and how,” he asked, “do you plan to do that?”

“Our names are Akio and Akemi Tanii.” she said as she pointed first to Walter and then to herself.  “The Cali forces tore up several of your fields.  How much do you estimate the damages to be?” Lucinda asked.

“Maybe a half million callors.  It is going to torpedo our bottom line.”  Mick responded.

“I just got back from looking them over.  Figuring in soil compaction and the cost of alfalfa seeds, I think you are looking at 700, maybe 800 thousand callors.” Lucinda said.

“I won’t argue with you.” Mick said.

“My associate is going to give you a 26 digit, Cali Government account number and he is also going to give you a six digit key code.  It authorizes you to transfer 800,000 callors into your account for 'bio-hazard remediation'.  I would like you to do that now so you don’t think I am blowing smoke up your ass.” Lucinda said.

Ten minutes later Mick Scerba leaned back in his chair and said, “Well I will be Gawd-Damned!  It showed up.”

“It would be wise to move the money.” Lucinda said.  “Sometime overzealous clerks try to claw back funds before they know what is going on.”

A big, toothy barracuda grin appeared on Mick’s face.  “I am a crack accountant and a pretty fair farmer.  If there is one thing I know how to do, it is make money disappear.” A few more strokes of the keyboard dispersed the funds to several different accounts.  Most of it was going to payroll and there was no way anybody was going to recover those funds because they would be spent in a thousand different shops within a few days of being dispersed.

“Now, is there anything else I can do for you?” Mick asked in a much more expansive mood then when they had first walked in the door.

“Well, actually there is.  Transferring that money was a demonstration that I have some clout and follow through on my promises.” Lucinda said.

“I need to have a meeting with you and the planners from three other farms.  The farms need to be big operations, they need to be close and the planners need to be people you respect.  I want to have that meeting at four this afternoon.  Can you swing it?” Lucinda asked.

“I won’t be able to keep them away if they find out you can snap your fingers and make nearly a million callors appear.  Do you want to meet here?” Mick asked.

* Marcus Tullius Cicero

Next Installment 

A day of rest

Very little to report.

We had a line of rain go through our area about eight this morning.  I ran out and threw around some fertilizer in the rain.

We went to church.

I pulled a few weeds, sprayed glyphosate for weeds and stripped buds off Black Walnut and Chinese Chestnut rootstock that I had grafted to assorted varieties.

I planted four zucchini seeds in Mrs ERJ's salad garden.

I lined out the most promising grape cuttings in the orchard.

I cleaned the hazelnut seeds out of cold storage that I had not gotten around to planting.  I "planted" them by dumping them on the ground beneath the grapes and covering them with shredded leaves.

Allergies
It is near peak Orchard Grass pollen.  Orchard Grass is my kryptonite.  I get skin dermatitis simply by brushing against the pollinating seed-heads. 

Raccoons and .22 handguns

I had a couple of guests with me for the ride out but they did not join me for the ride back.

Why don't manufactures have some kind of graphic showing the correct orientation for the bullets in the magazine?

My sister was telling me about her trials and travails in her CPL class.

One of the items that happened more than once was that she loaded the ammo in backwards.  I know this is a common failure mode in newbies.  There was even an HK promotional flier that showed the ammo loaded wrong.

Cutting posts for the grape trellis

A couple of Black Locust blew down

Hand in frame to show diameter at the fork.

That dangly vine is poison ivy.  Mrs ERJ insisted that I shower after I got home.

OK, ok...I know I am supposed to cut them exactly 8' long.  I screwed up, but I can cut them shorter.  I cannot cut them longer.

View from the side.  I also cut a few dead ash trees because they were right beside the two-track.

Vehicles are expensive

Belladonna called me with the news:  The Malibu's intermittent electrical problem was the ignition module and the key cylinder.

I did not argue.

$600 later and it is on the road.

Mrs ERJ reminds me to "normalize" the repair costs to the cost of car payments.  The last major repair was over a year ago and $50/month is dirt cheap compared to new car payments.

The Silverado's exhaust system disassembled itself in Ann Arbor on the way home last week.  That was $250 to get fixed.

I am clearly strapped for cash over the next few months.

Installment 6.3: Meanwhile, the world watches

Sasha Auerbach was heading back to her cubical with a cup of coffee when the TV that was running in the break room caught her eye.

Stirring her coffee, she noted that the interviewer was Brigid Barkley, one of the BBC’s star reporters.  Brigid was interviewing a scare-crow of a man.  The man was sun-baked, covered with tats and was not carrying an ounce of extra flesh.  The man was carrying some kind  of rifle.

The caption said it was an interview, live, from the front between Cali and the SD-LA rebels.

“What do you think are your chances of winning?” Brigid asked in her distinctive voice…warm as honey frosted with a bit of Scottish burr and Central European cadencing.

“Hell,” the man exclaimed, “we already won.  This” he said casually gesturing at the muddy tents that filled the background “is just sorting out the details.”

The caption identified the interviewee as Kenny Lane, rebel soldier.  Kenny’s voice was almost painful to listen to.  It was evidence of too many decades of cigarettes, shouting and bone-dry air.

“That is an interesting conclusion.  I have not heard it before.  What led you to arrive at that observation?” Brigid’s voice honeyed across the screen.

“Well, I ain’t no lawyer.  I am just a simple truck driver.” Kenny started.  “But the foundation of the Cali constitution is Universal Basic Income and ‘food security for all’.  Two months ago, Sacramento cut off both to every resident south of Modesto, except for Silicon Valley, of course.  Some of these folks ain’t been paid or fed for two months.”

“That either means that Sacramento threw those counties out of Cali and we are free to form a new government.  Or it means that the Cali constitution is null-and-void and Cali no longer exists as a nation, in which case we are free to form a new government.” Kenny said.

“What you see here” again gesturing at the tents “is a body in its death throes.” Kenny said.

Sasha remembered an audio clip that her husband had snuck home for the government security agency where he worked.  He said it was evidence of top officials in Cali ordering a ‘hit’ on one of their own officials.  In the clip, the hitman claimed that Cali was designed to fail.  Sasha had not paid much attention to it at the time.  It seemed too far fetched, even though her husband believed it was authentic.

Sasha did not wait to see the end of the interview.  She walked back to her office and logged on to her computer.  Sasha was a bond trader at one of the largest New York investment firms.  She queued up all of her Cali positions and triggered “Sell at market” for all of them.

Thirty seconds later she got a text from her supervisor.  “Do you know something?”  After a very short conversation with her supervisor she found herself talking to a Vice President.  That is not as impressive as it sounds.  The firm had over thirty Vice Presidents.

“What are you thinking?” the VP asked.

“Cali is at serious risk of losing half of its land area and two-thirds of its population.  That land area contains half of Cali’s collateral and the population much of its tax base, that is, its ability to make payments on its bonds.” Sasha said.

“There are a couple of other things.  One is an audio clip that purports to be a recording of Denice Delarosa being executed by a Cali hitman.  Most experts think that the recording is probably authentic.  In the clip, the hitman says that Cali is meant to fail.  If true, that leaves the bond-holders holding the bag.” Sasha said.  “If the word on the street is true, then our security people also have a copy of the clip and you may have already heard it.”

The VP nodded in agreement.

“Finally, CNN just aired a segment where Brigid Barkley is interviewing some low-level rebel on the ground.  And he pointed out that Cali recognized the rebel state due to some language in the Cali constitution.”  Sasha said.

The VP thought for a few seconds.  “Nobody ever went broke selling too soon.”  The VP looked over at Sasha’s chain-of-command, “Liquidate all of our Cali positions except for those of the very shortest duration.  Swap out of our longest term Cali bonds into shorter-term, but not Cali, bonds first.  We see how long we can keep the hounds off the scent.

The New York investment community is as incestuous and as gossip prone as any other community.  The community is tightly wired together.  Actions by any one agent are registered with milliseconds by the entire community. 

At first the other firms thought that Sasha’s firm was simply moving into bonds of shorter duration but then somebody noticed that they only selling Cali bonds and not buying any.  That is when the blood hit the water.  By the end of the day all of the major investment firms were dumping Cali bonds of all duration.  The effective interest rate for the benchmark 10 year bond was 9.5% at the close of the New York business day.

Computers in the Grand Cayman’s duly noted the fact that the bonds closed above 8% for the first time in history.  The computers sent signals to their counterparts in San Francisco, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, London and New York activating the derivative contracts that had been written.  The investors who had sold those derivatives, most of them in California, had thirty days to generate $120 Billion of hard currency.

Next Installment