Chapter 50 |
At the mention of being a young family head, Carter decided to accept his proposal graciously.
At the same time, he thought about Rockefeller’s idea.
‘These are things I wouldn’t do even if it killed me. I don’t have the guts to do something like that.’
The same was true this time as well. Unless someone else stepped up to take the lead, it wasn’t the type of plan that he could even dream about.
Carter, who had been struggling for a while, soon decided to accept Rockefeller’s conditions as though he had no other choice but to do so.
Either way, he was someone who was satisfied as long as he was able to earn more money than he had been doing so far.
“Alright. If it succeeds, then as you ask, I’ll promise half the profits to you. Instead, I have nothing to do with this. I don’t know anything and just got used by you. Never say anything else later since I only just went along with you,”
“Thank you, Ajusshi,”
“No need for thank you, if this makes money then the thankful one will be me,”
“Mr Carter, with that in mind, for my first pay, I’ll accept the promissory note written by the lord instead,”
Wages from a workplace were silver, or for high-earning people, gold coins.
Because that was the only thing considered ‘money’.
So when Rockefeller said he would take the Lord’s promissory note instead of such money, Carter had to question that decision.
“You’ll take the promissory note instead of gold coins?”
There was another problem with that.
“But the promissory note is too big for that. It’s a ridiculous amount for the salary you’ll get,”
“That’s true, so instead, I’ll take a promissory note from this store using the lord’s promissory note as collateral,”
“A promissory note from this store?”
“Yes,”
“How – What do you mean?”
Rockefeller once again showed him one of the promissory notes written by the lord.
“Okay, so, look at this. Since this is a 100-Talent promissory note written by the lord, we issue 100 promissory notes under the name of this store which is equivalent to 1 Gold – using this 100-Talent promissory note as collateral. And out of those 100 promissory notes issued by the store, I’ll take a few of them as my wages,”
“Not 1-IOU, but rather 1-Gold?”
“Yes, when someone leaves 1 Talent at the store for safekeeping, we issue a Gold Certificate – or a promissory note called an IOU, right?”
“Right,”
“But if we issue the promissory notes using the lord’s borrowing certificate as collateral IOUs, we would become confused with the Gold Certificates we give out to people when they leave their coins with us. So instead, we issue a completely new type of borrowing certificate in the form of 1-Gold. The difference being, unlike the existing Gold Certificates which the store guarantees, this 1-Gold promissory note is guaranteed by Loan Certificate issued by the lord – but our shop does not directly guarantee it,”
Carter had a look as though he roughly understood the concept.
“Oh my, and then?”
“So if we also guaranteed the lord’s promissory note, if people brought this 1-Gold promissory note to the shop, they would be able to exchange it for 1 Talent. That is, only if we at the shop guarantee the lord’s promissory note,”
“And if we don’t guarantee it?”
“If we can’t guarantee it, then, in other words, it would mean that, even if you bring the 1-Gold promissory note to the shop, we can’t exchange it for 1 Talent. Then, the people who have this 1-Gold, should go and demand the gold coins from this promissory note issued by the lord, right?”
“I see, so if we don’t guarantee the promissory note written by the lord, then the responsibility for upholding the new 1-Gold promissory note – issued using the lord’s note as collateral – falls on the lord’s original
promissory note, not us,”
“The important thing is that we have to clearly state this on the 1-Gold promissory note. That way, we can avoid the responsibility in the event of any problems later,”
“Let me ask you something,”
“Yes, ask me anything,”
Carter had another doubt.
He couldn’t calculate what one could achieve by doing something like that.
“What do you expect to get by going as far as to issue a mere 1-Gold promissory note,”
“I told you earlier, right, for the lord to be held accountable for the promissory loan notes he has issued without having too many thoughts about it, those promissory notes should be shared by many people,”
“Right,”
“The promissory note signed by the lord is too large, and it’s too inconvenient to be able to use it to trade with ordinary people. We’re helping to resolve that issue. We share the rights of the promissory notes written by the lord to everyone in the territory,”
Rockefeller put up his index finger.
“The important thing here is that, because we hold the original promissory note signed by the lord, we still get the interest payments, but the right to collect the money has already been split and sold to others. However, because what we’ve given to people is not the gold we have but a promissory paper note called 1-Gold, we can back out of any trouble that shows up in the future,”
“Hooo…. I see, but will that be okay? People usually prefer gold or silver to borrowed certificates themselves. Since that’s real money,”
“To be honest, it’s a bit uncomfortable, but Ajusshi, wouldn’t everyone follow after I take the initiative? If I intentionally avoid the 1-Gold promissory note, who else would dare to follow me and spend it like money,”
Rockefeller smiled with a knowing look in his eyes.
“And this is just the beginning of this work,”
From Carter’s point of view, Rockefeller’s idea was so ingenious that he stood there for a while, reflecting upon the things Rockefeller had said.
‘No matter how much I think about it, it’s an ingenious idea – how could he come up with something like that? Distributing the promissory note written by the lord indirectly, instead of directly trading it, and even handing over the follow-up responsibility – while we still get the benefits of the interest … .What a genius idea!’
Rockefeller had never looked as amazing to Carter as he did right now.
It wasn’t just ingenious to have such an idea – he was a genius!
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