12. Little Ricky
“A nation is the more prosperous today the less it has tried to put obstacles in the way of the spirit of free enterprise and private initiative. The people of the United States are more prosperous than the inhabitants of all other countries because their government embarked later than the governments in other parts of the world upon the policy of obstructing business.”
“I hereby call this meeting to order. Sally is taking the minutes.” Hutchings scanned the faces around the table. Most of them looked nervous and uncertain. Uhlich just looked slightly bemused. There were three attorneys, two bank managers, an IRS special agent, and Uhlich. Aside from the general, Hutchings had known most of the men since high school. Seated by the wall were the county sheriff, the acting chief of police, and two men wearing OCPs who had arrived with Uhlich: a command sergeant major and a young lieutenant, Uhlich’s aide-de-camp. A court reporter sat to one side, silently tapping at a battery-powered stenotype machine. The County Office Building smelled musty with the power out.
Hutchings continued: “Given the, uh, unprecedented situation nationwide, it has become clear that action must be taken to restore order in Hardin County and beyond. I’ve asked General Uhlich to be part of this emergency council in an advisory capacity. I need y’all’s agreement that we will take whatever means are necessary to get things set back in order.”
There were nods of agreement, so Hutchings went on, “I’d like to make a motion that martial law be declared, amplifying the existing declaration from the state of Kentucky, and that henceforth looters will be shot on sight. Requisitioning of supplies and manpower will be made by force, if need be.”
L. Roy Martin hired the Cuban just six months before the Crunch, snatching him away from a refinery in Oklahoma. Ricardo Lopez had a reputation as a very resourceful petroleum engineer. Growing up in Cuba in the 1970s and 1980s, he had learned to improvise everything. Under Lopez’s leadership, the Bloomfield plant’s Unit No. 2 was immediately diversified, adding the ability to isolate and decant a variety of fractions and compounds that previously had been dismissed as uneconomical for the plant. Heretofore, working with Four Corners Light Sweet Crude and natural gas was seen as economical for just light fuels.
Having been given carte blanche by Martin, Lopez soon developed a reputation as a space hog, filling up nearly all of the available warehouse space with plastic containers of various shapes and sizes and in large quantities.
He bought thousands of unmarked five-gallon oil cans (the type most typically used for commercial sale of hydraulic fluid), military-specification twenty-liter “Scepter” cans and spouts, and thirty thousand empty one-quart oil bottles. Lopez bought so many small containers that additional storage space had to be brought in: fourteen continental express (CONEX) forty-foot shipping containers were purchased, repainted white to match the Bloomfield storage tanks, and lined up in a phalanx next to the Bulk Lube building, near the front gate. These CONEXes were stuffed full of factory-new unlabeled bottles, jugs, cans, and small drums of all descriptions.
It was Lopez’s large purchase of the Scepter cans that caused Phil McReady, the plant manager, to finally complain to Martin. McReady walked into L. Roy’s office with a stern look on his face. He was carrying a copy of the Scepter purchase order. McReady slapped the PO down on Martin’s desk and exclaimed, “Sir, have you seen this?”
Martin looked up from his oversize flat-screen monitor and pivoted his chair. He tilted his head down to look at the document with his bifocals. “Well, not this actual generated PO, but Rico and I did discuss it, and we did agree that eight thousand of the twenty-liter cans, and three thousand donkey-d… ah, ‘spouts’ was a good number. Our only debate was about how many of the spouts should be the small-diameter type, for unleaded gas.”
“But, Ray, those cans and spouts are banned from civilian sale in the U.S. because they don’t meet the CARB-compliance rules. Now, I mentioned that fact to Lopez yesterday, and he just said to me, ‘I know they’re banned, but we can still get them if we say they are for export.’ Is he crazy? How will we ever recoup that investment? We aren’t in the export market! We don’t even have any sales representation in Mexico. I’m sure you know PEMEX has that market sewed up tight in a sweet little deal with the PRI party. It’s a total monopoly down there. So, why buy all those cans if we have no market? This doesn’t make any sense to me! And Lopez has this strange fixation with small containers. We’re in the bulk business. We don’t package itty-bitty retail containers. We don’t have the distribution channels. This just doesn’t compute.”
Martin chuckled. “I think in less than a year you’ll be
McReady gave Martin a puzzled look.
Martin explained, “The Schumer is about to hit the fan. Just suffice it to say that I believe that the marketplace and the legislative environment are about to shift substantially, so fuel-can legalities will be the least of our concerns. Just keep in mind that I don’t have a board of directors to answer to. This plant is mine. I paid
Without giving time for the plant manager to respond, L. Roy went on, “So, henceforth, I expect you to mention Dr. Lopez’s projects only if there is a safety issue that is not being properly resolved, or if you think that there is some malfeasance.” Martin clasped his pudgy hands together and rested them on the desk. He put his chin down and eyeballed McReady.
McReady gave a quiet “Understood,” and walked out.
Ricardo Lopez’s shift in emphasis for the plant at first mystified and soon chafed old-timers like McReady. They considered him a bit of a mad scientist and thought that most of his projects would be unlikely to break even. Since Lopez was Cuban and only five feet three inches tall, he was soon nicknamed “Ingeniero Ricky Ricardo” or “Little Ricky.” It was not until after the Crunch that they all realized that L. Roy and Lopez had repositioned the company to be able to continue to operate in the midst of a massive economic upheaval.
Immediately after the Crunch began, Martin ordered three of the plant’s four units mothballed and closed out all the company’s existing commercial contracts. “No paper money accepted. Silver only!” Martin decreed. Gasoline, diesel, and propane sold for twenty cents per gallon, payable in pre-1965 U.S. silver coins or equivalent weight in .999 fine silver trade dollars. Empty Scepter fuel cans were $4 each in silver coin, and their spouts were fifty cents. Martin began paying his employees in silver, and they had the opportunity to buy gas at a 10 percent discount. The average wage was $1.20 per day-all paid in pre-1965 U.S. silver coins. Their feedstock suppliers were happy to be paid in a mixture of silver and transferable vouchers for finished product. In many ways the business model for the refinery was similar to before the Crunch. It was only the scale that had changed. But the smaller scale of production made for a tight profit margin, since many of the overhead costs in running the plant were the same, whether they were running all four refinery units or just one.
At L. Roy’s direction, seventeen refinery employees with recent combat experience in the Big Sandbox became full-time security guards for the Bloomfield plant, working round-the-clock shifts. Many of them were armed with “black guns” from Martin’s extensive gun collection: AR-15s, M4s, M1As, AR-10s, L1A1s, and HKs.
13. Kasserne
“Inflation has now been institutionalized at a fairly constant 5% per year. This has been scientifically determined to be the optimum level for generating the most revenue without causing public alarm. A 5% devaluation applies, not only to the money earned this year, but to all that is left over from previous years. At the
