Innovate or die’. These famed words of legendary management guru Peter Drucker have gone to The Man’s head as he chairs the New Year’s Day meeting of the CatAstrophe investment fund’s asset-relocation team.
Alongside Diogenes Fernando are The Man’s banker buddy and loan-shark Boris ‘The Bite’ Fernando. The latter is in attendance solely on the grounds that, as Lyndon Baines Johnson so memorably said of J. Edgar Hoover, “it’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in”.
Diogenes, having spent most of New Year’s Eve night celebrating with the local riff-raff at the Feisty Fisherman, is barely compos mentis, while the banker buddy exudes the bedside manner of someone with his finger firmly on the nation’s financial pulse, if not it’s jugular.
The Bite, meanwhile, is seemingly dumbstruck by his first, and no doubt last, admittance to The Man’s luxurious inner sanctum, with its dark oak panelling, crystal chandelier, and antique brass-bound mahogany desk on which sit gilt-framed photographs of the not-so-great and the not-so-good.
Right then, listen up, says The Man, as he quotes megabanker Jeremy Irons in Margin Call: There are three ways to make a living in this business—be first, be smarter, or cheat! And unlike Mr Irons, he adds, I do cheat, and will continue to cheat for as long as everyone else is doing likewise..!
Moreover, he says, we are entering a not-so-brave new world of economic fear and uncertainty, with Scorpio in the seventh house and pestilence stalking the land! Therefore, we must be ready to take the bull by the horns, strike while the iron’s hot, and leave no money-making stone unturned…
Diogenes has stopped listening.
As the toreador who took all the risks with the bearer bonds and much else besides, and who will very likely be at the sharp end of whatever The Man has in mind, ‘innovate or die’ has unfortunate and unwelcome connotations.
He recalls philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s best known aphorism—‘what does not kill me, makes me stronger’—and Mahatma Gandhi’s take on facing the future: ‘Live as if you were to die tomorrow.’
Which was easy for them to say, he thinks, but not quite in accord with his New Year’s resolutions to a) avoid putting his head any further into the lion’s mouth, and b) to assemble an escape kit for if or when the shit hits the fan and he finds himself the subject of an Interpol APB.
On the other hand, if that last were to happen while he’s abroad and in possession of another sizable chunk of illicit bearer bonds, the future could very well take care of itself, which might be something worth thinking about…
He is jerked back to reality by The Man banging on the desk. I want ideas, he says, innovative ideas, ideas that will make CatAstrophe a name to be reckoned with in the assets-relocation business! And I want them yesterday! So Happy New Year, onwards and upwards, and see yourselves out!
Diogenes has now gone back to bed, where he intends to stay until his head stops spinning, which might take some time…