Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 392: Chapter 184: Snowball

The chorus of ringing phones in the office suddenly fell silent without warning.

Then, the phone in the center of the desk began to ring.

Just that one.

Its monotonous, urgent ringing echoed through the office, sounding particularly jarring.

Ethan glanced at the caller ID, then looked up at Leo.

"It’s Erie."

Leo wasn’t surprised.

Ron Smith—the old-timer who had dared to strip at the City Hall entrance to show off his scars—had evidently rallied all the panic-stricken mayors.

The old man now held all the bargaining chips for the entire Industrial Revival Alliance.

Leo took a deep breath and picked up the receiver.

"Good morning, Ron."

Leo’s voice was steady, betraying no hint of panic.

"Good, my ass."

Smith’s voice was gruff, his anger practically boiling over the line.

"Leo, I don’t want to hear your diplomatic bullshit. Tell me, why did Saint Claude pull out?"

"Saint Claude Capital put out a statement saying it’s risk management, but I’m asking you, whose risk are we talking about? Yours, or ours?"

Smith cut straight to the chase.

"Everyone’s saying Pittsburgh’s line of credit is shot. Are you planning to default on us? If so, I’ll bring my people to Pittsburgh right now. I’ll get Erie’s money back even if I have to tear down your City Hall and sell the goddamn bricks."

Leo leaned back in his chair. Even from hundreds of miles away, he could feel the air of a desperate man with nothing to lose radiating from Smith.

"Ron, calm down."

Leo’s tone was grave. He hesitated, debating whether he should reveal the truth to his ally.

’If I tell Smith that the funding pool we rely on to survive has been targeted by a greedy woman, this already fragile alliance could collapse in an instant.’

’But if I don’t tell the truth, will these flimsy excuses be enough to fool him?’

"Ron."

Leo took a deep breath, having made his decision.

"I don’t want to lie to you."

"It is risk management, but it’s because of Saint Claude Capital."

Leo’s voice dropped.

"Evelyn Saint Cloud. She wants to swallow you whole."

The other end of the line went silent, followed by the sound of Smith’s ragged breathing.

"Ron, go take a look at the balance of promissory notes sitting in Erie’s municipal accounts right now. You know damn well how huge that number is."

"Think about what you’ve all done over the past quarter just to grab onto this lifeline, just to get your shuttered factories running again."

"You restarted the blast furnaces. Your workers ran three shifts. The machines roared twenty-four hours a day. You loaded all the steel stockpiled in your warehouses, every last piece of rebar fresh off the line, onto trains bound for Pittsburgh, for any city in the alliance that needed it."

"You got US Dollars for it, but you also got a mountain of promissory notes."

"Ron, you and I are both smart men. We both know this promissory note system is, in essence, a carefully designed financial game."

"As long as those notes are just circulating between cities, being used to trade for cement, glass, or services, everything seems fine. That’s the magic of credit-based currency."

"But the moment you try to cash them out—the moment everyone rushes for the same narrow exit, trying to turn those numbers into cold, hard US Dollars—that’s when you have a liquidity crisis."

"It’s like a game of musical chairs. There are only so many chairs, but more and more people are trying to find a seat."

"Saint Claude isn’t going to just sit there and wait for you to redeem all of your notes."

"She’s waiting for the tipping point."

"She’s waiting for the moment your promissory notes pile up so high they can crush your city’s finances. The moment you not only want to cash out your profits but need to cash out the principal just to keep the lights on."

"That’s when she’ll stop the music and pull away the chairs."

"And then, you’ll be completely destroyed by the game. You’ll be forced to use your most valuable assets to fill a black hole made of nothing but numbers."

"I just never expected that day to come so soon."

"My original plan was to make a preemptive move, to block her harvesting scheme by issuing an executive order to suspend redemptions."

"But I didn’t expect her to be faster."

"She beat me to the punch with that announcement, splashing all the dirty water on me while putting a knife to your throats."

Leo admitted frankly.

"As it stands, if we keep redemptions open, the entire fund will be drained in an instant. Then your only option will be to go begging to her—to sell your cities to her."

"The only way we survive is by suspending redemptions, by locking the money inside the system for now."

"Ron, I know this is hard for you to accept."

"The problem with redemptions isn’t a lack of money in the system; it’s the collapse of trust. Once panic spreads, no fund in the world can withstand a run by all its holders."

"Even if I emptied out all of Pittsburgh’s coffers right now, I couldn’t fill this black hole that fear is causing to expand infinitely."

"We have to stop the bleeding, even if it means using the bluntest instrument we have."

"Next, I will officially sign an executive order declaring a state of financial emergency in Pittsburgh and suspending all US Dollar redemptions for inter-city promissory notes."

The other end of the line was silent for several seconds.

Smith understood.

"Leo, I don’t care what excuses you’ve cooked up, and I don’t care what that woman is trying to do." Smith’s tone was unyielding. "All I know is that because of this fight between the two of you, the notes in my hand are now just worthless paper."