This is Chapter 6 of The Universal Good Deal, you may want to start at the beginning or go back to Chapter 5.
6
A great believer in nepotism, Flinders brought his cousin, John Franklin, as an assistant. They met the president in her office. She greeted them each with a crushing handshake over her desk; it seems that Martian women were always expected to perform certain clichés of manhood when they inhabited roles traditionally reserved for men, and often had to overact.
After Welles explained the problem, she asked, ‘Will you help me sell the public on my little invasion, Mr Flinders?’
To which he responded: ‘As much as I like tropical islands, the best advice I can give you is not to do it.’
‘Come again?’ said Welles.
Flinders said, ‘Can you give me twenty bucks?’1
Welles did not usually carry money on her person, and had to send for one of her aids. And they brought a bill of that denomination.
Then he said to them, ‘Who's it say to trust?’
Welles answered, ‘God.’2
‘You know why it says to trust that old fat white guy in the sky?’ asked Flinders.
‘I think they put it on there to scare communists,’ said Welles.
‘It's been on money since long before that. We put it on there because it's all just a confidence trick: Money's as pretend as the all-powerful big guy, and therefore you can throw supply and demand out the window. Say this bad actor starts dumping their money. People are going to buy at first, because they're selling low. And if they have enough to satisfy the initial frenzy, and they keep on selling—that's when everybody else is going to sell, which is what you're worried about. When the time comes, pull out that official microphone of yours and put the question—'Will you trust in our nation?' People always have a hard time saying no. Tell them they are patriots or fighting terrorism or saving the lives of children with cancer. It doesn't really matter. People like to feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves.’3
Welles said, ‘When the dollar crashes, you want me to ask people to trust us?’
‘I'm saying you should con them.4 Nobody's ever seen a dollar;5 money isn't worth anything but what it is traded for.6 Our entire economy is driven on misplaced trust; it proves there's still some humanity on Earth. It's a good thing that people can still get swindled—after all the horrible things we've done to each other.’7
The records of the moment, made opaque by the truly momentous events that were about to occur, suggest that this pitch may have been less than successful with Welles.
But before the president could speak, muscular aides burst into the office and hurriedly surrounded her, followed by a flood of other functionaries. One of them spoke urgently into her ear.
President Welles stood up and said, ‘Apparently, we are being invaded by aliens. So it looks like I won't be needing your services, but thanks anyway.’
Chapter 7 (the Christmas edition) tomorrow, same time, same place.
Footnotes
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have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until to-morrow? New York Herald, 8 July 1849 ↩
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Show me the coin used for the tax.' And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, 'Whose head is this, and whose title. They answered, 'The emperor's.' Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 22:19-21 circa 33 ↩
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Accosting a well-dressed gentleman in the street, the 'Confidence Man,' in a familiar manner, and with an easy nonchalance, worthy of Chesterfield, would playfully put the inquiry--'Are you really disposed to put any confidence in me?' This interrogatory, thus put, generally met an affirmative answer. After all, there is a great deal of 'the milk of human kindness' even in the inhabitants of great cities, and he must be a very obdurate sinner who can resist a really scientific appeal to his vanity. "The Confidence Man on a Large Scale,” New York Herald, 11 July 1849 ↩
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You had better have let me had that fifty cents; I think it would have been an advantage to you; I didn't want the money, I only wanted your confidence; I have got plenty of money of my own. New York Herald, 9 October 1849 ↩
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The eye has never seen, nor the hand touched a dollar. All that we can touch or see is a promise to pay or satisfy a debt due for an amount called a dollar. Mitchell A Innes, “The Credit Theory of Money” Banking Law Journal, January 1914 ↩
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Money is not the Value for which Goods are exchanged., but the Value by which they are exchanged: the use of Money is to buy Goods, and Silver while Money is of no other use. John Law, Money and Trade Considered, with a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with Money 1705 ↩
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That one poor swindler like the one under arrest, should have been able to drive so considerable a trade on an appeal to so simple a quality as the confidence of man in man, shows that all virtue and humanity of nature is not entirely extinct in the nineteenth century. It is a good thing, and speaks well for human nature, at this late day, in spite of all the hardening of civilization and all the warning of newspapers, men can be swindled. The Literary World, Volume 5, 18 August 1849 reprint of editorial by Merchant's Ledger ↩