Clara Junker was terrified. She left the office as soon as she could get away. Claus had been ready to actually hit her. She was sure of it. Claus had never threatened her with violence before. He was gruff and often sarcastic but not violent, not to those of his own class.
Clara was less involved than she would have preferred in the financial decision-making for the Junker family. She knew that Claus had mostly done a good job. He'd been willing to listen if she was careful how she approached him, at least until the Ring of Fire.
After the Ring of Fire, things at home had gone downhill. Every change the uptimers proposed caused Claus to become more insistent on keeping things the way they were before. Claus became less inclined to listen to her and more insistent that she had no business interfering.
Clara knew that they weren't really worse off than before the Ring of Fire, depending on how much Claus had spent on that microwave business. Clara was beginning to suspect that he had spent much more than she had thought. Still, as everyone around them seemed to be getting richer, it felt like they were worse off. She wished her son Egidius would get home. She didn't want to have to turn to her brother, Franz.
Egidius came into Claus' office while he was going over the books looking desperately for any readily convertible assets.
"Father, what is this I hear?" he asked, insisting on becoming part of the disaster. "What has happened?"
Claus had always tried to keep his son away from the darker aspects of doing business. Yes, everyone did things like using town funds in backing private ventures, and his heir would eventually have to learn that, but not yet.
"It is only a temporary problem," Claus blustered. "I have only to raise some money and it will be overcome. We have assets, after all." The Junker family owned several townhouses in Badenburg, and owned the rents on the village of Sundremda, along with the rents on two other villages that were farther from the Ring of Fire. The family had interests in several trading ventures. Together these things brought in quite a bit of money annually. Unfortunately, most of them were tied up in ways that made it hard to get quick cash out of them.
Claus finally gave in to his son's persistent questions and dogged determination to get to the heart of the problem. When Claus disclosed the amount of money he had invested in the microwave project, Egidius was clearly appalled. That was the hardest thing to take, the disappointment in his son's eyes. Claus gave up and waved Egidius to the accounts and retreated. He felt driven to run from his office by the look in his son's eyes.
Eddie Junker was left alone in his father's office. Since the Ring of Fire there had been quite a bit of talk about the financial innovations the Americans were introducing. At Jena, in the college of law, there was a lot of talk about civil rights, and the concept of equality before the law, but a lot about the uptimer business law and practices. Many of the students would never actually practice law. Like Eddie, they were there to learn enough to be able to deal with the lawyers in their employ, or their family's employ. For them, especially, the focus was increasingly on business law and practices.
There were no colleges of business or economics at Jena, but there was talk of starting one. At least, a college for economics was being discussed. A college of business was considered, well, too plebian. Economics, though, that was a proper theoretical field of study. Determining the GNP might actually be as esoteric as determining the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin and be useful at the same time.
Eddie's favorite professors were those who were pushing hardest for a college of economics. One of the professors had even been heard to say that a college of business might not be all bad. The notion of treating those necessary matters of business as a science appealed to the professor.
The notion appealed to Eddie, too, especially now. Written there, neat and tidy, in his fathers' books was a tale of disaster waiting to happen. Every ready source of quick funds had already been tapped. The village rents would come due in the fall, too late to help. And even if hadn't been too late, the rents weren't enough.
The Junkers were going to have to sell something. But, selling things meant finding a buyer. There was enough talk in town about his father's failed investment that everyone knew they were in need of quick cash. That would force the prices down. The Junker family would be bargaining from a position of weakness.
"I've been over the books and father's notes," Eddie told his mother. "From what I can tell, this man Pomeroy actually did try to make a microwave. I wish he hadn't. It would have cost less. We do have assets to sell, but we won't be getting a good price for them. By now, everyone knows that father was invested in the microwave project. Everyone will know that we need the money.