For Gold, Bright Gold, Is Master of Sophs All...
In answer to your questions, gentlesophs, and in view of both the composition and the promise of confidentiality promised by this committee, the Directorate have authorized me to make the following statement:
It is true that loans authorized by our polity banking department underwrote much of the recent Naxklak-Tlafotl Conflict. It is further true that in keeping with our standard policy on sovereign liabilities, we have no intention of forgiving those debts despite our willingness to offer deferral of payments, and will enforce any defaults with our customary vigor.
What is also true, but not commonly known, is that the current state of affairs was entirely intentional. This latest chapter in the Naxklak-Tlafotl Conflict, with particular note to both parties commerce raiding and free exercise of the right of angary, has seriously impaired traffic along a major spur of the Golden Band – which is to say, the Circumferential – and perturbed markets across the entire constellation. If you will consult the figures we have made available, we estimate that over the six-year course of the Conflict, we have seen a 20.4% drop in Gross Regional Product, even allowing for the war economy offset, and a 38.2% diminution in regional trade volume.
As such it is the policy of Gilea & Company to take these belligerents firmly by the budget and – shall we say – discourage future ventures into military adventurism. The wealth, good sophs, must flow…
– Innis Cheraelar,
Vice-President of Polity Banking, Gilea & Company, ICC
testifying before the Conclave Commission on Trade and Industry