Third excerpt: Day six Heres a third sample of May Day to whet your appetite for tomorrows Book Blast sales in the US and UK. (This ones expecially for our UK members.): May 6, 2020, 4:37 pm BST (11:37 am EDT) 1 Lime Street, London, England Sir Cyril Dunbar, Baronet Balfour of Sheffield, CEO of Lloyd’s of London, reached out to the magnificent Newton’s Cradle which sat on the opposite side of his massive, steel-and-glass desk from his office telephone. He lifted the right-most of its five steel balls, and let it swing downward, to impact upon its neighbour with a clack. Immediately, its impetus was transferred through the intervening globes to the left-most ball. It flew up in an arc, until, momentum expended, it descended again to strike its own neighbour. Then the ball on the right flew up once more, to what seemed like the same height from which it had originally been released. Sir Cyril regarded the toy soberly. It had been a gift from the Chairman of Lloyd’s – a token of the Board’s appreciation for the sterling results the firm had enjoyed in Dunbar’s first year as Chief Executive. The materials from which it was constructed made this particular version of the classic demonstration of Newton’s laws of motion unique. The five steel balls were plated with iridium, rather than chromium. The wires from which they were suspended were titanium. The frame from which they hung was made of paladium, the surface of which had been exposed to a series of femtosecond laser pulses, turning it midnight black. Lines of two-carat rubies decorated the top of the frame, diamonds its sides, and emeralds the base. It was literally priceless – a one-of-a-kind objet d’art that had been made exclusively for him. Sir Cyril spun in his chair, turning his back on his desk. The computer monitor displaying the screaming headlines of financial newsfeeds from around the world, and his swiftly-expanding email inbox, with its list of messages pleading for his attention both went unheeded. His desk phone’s red, incoming-call lights, blinking their silent panic, and his smartphone, with its growing backlog of unanswered text messages, vanished from his view. Instead, he gazed out over the vista of his firm’s fabulously wealthy neighbourhood. Gloomily, he regarded the staid, square tower of the Deutsche Bank building, which loomed across Leadenhall Street to his left, and the giant, peculiar oval shape of 30 St. Mary Street – the infamous Gherkin – off in the distance to his right. He thought, not of Newton’s Cradle, but of dominoes. Dunbar envisioned those skyscrapers falling, tumbling into one another, bringing each other crashing to the ground – the ruin spreading out from Lloyd’s in all directions, until it laid the entire world low. - But we’re not the actual centre, then, are we? - No, the keystone of the financial universe’s destruction was 180 Maiden Lane, in New York City, headquarters of American International Group. When it had toppled – rather too literally, in the wake of the nuclear explosion that had done for Lower Manhattan – the company that the Yank government once had deemed “too big to fail” had, nevertheless, failed. Spectacularly so. For more than an hour now, Sir Cyril’s phone lines, cellie, and email inbox had been filled to overflowing with messages, as the news of AIG’s bankruptcy and forthcoming dissolution spread around the globe. Desperate for reassurance, Lloyd’s Names, Members, brokers, and affiliates, along with myriad media and government officials, all demanded the answers they needed and feared. Their questions were all the same, in the end: “What does this mean for me – for my family, my company, my future?” - Ruin. It means ruin for us all. - As complex as the insurance business often was, in the end, the reason for its forthcoming demise was dead simple. Reinsurance was the strategy of underwriting other companies’ policies. It had been meant to spread risk as widely as possible, so as to lessen the chance that a single, major payout could ruin any one firm. Instead, it had so incestuously interconnected the whole industry that the abrupt and utter collapse of its biggest player could not help but topple the lot. Reluctantly, Dunbar turned away from the window, back to his desk. The steel balls on each end of the gorgeous, incalculably-dear toy on his desk continued alternately to fly up and back, rhythmically clacking as they went. But, in the time he had spent staring gloomily out at London’s doomed financial heartland, the heights each little globe reached had steadily diminished. Now, with each cycle they rose a mere fraction of the distance they had initially ascended. - That’s it then, isn’t it? Eventually they bloody well stop. - - Eventually it all bloody well stops. - Need to know what happen on May third, fourth, and fifth? Here are the links to the greatly reduce May Day, Book one American Sulla amazon/dp/B00FT8U6IO amazon.co.uk/May-Day-Book.../dp/B00FT8U6IO
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 03:55:32 +0000
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