"High goddam time." He grimly extracted a notebook.
"Jack, here's the mea culpa. I now confess before God and you that I've been a very uneasy point man for an outfit that calls itself Dai Nippon, International. They have been playing a little game with interest-rate futures and currency forwards in quantities that stagger the mind. Thus far, however, their activity has been strictly legal and right out there for everybody to watch. I also tried to warn anybody who would listen. Consequently any of our financial analysts who didn't see this brouhaha coming a mile away has been suffering a severe rectal-cranial inversion."
He snorted and pulled at his drink. "Okay, since you seem to know so much about this Dai Nippon outfit, care to clue me in on what's down the road?"
"Jack, I think the answer is one nobody's figured." Then I delivered my brand-new theory.
He stared at me skeptically, sipping at his drink. "Good God, you've gone off the deep end, Walton. I always assumed it would happen someday."
"Jack, from what I hear, none of the big Japanese securities dealers here will even pick up their phone. What does that tell you? They're softening us up using the weapon the market dreads the most. Uncertainty. What better way to terrify the Street? Christ, let somebody start a rumor the President has a toothache, and they practically have to shut down trading."
"Matt, nobody's going to believe your crazy scenario.
Matter of fact, I don't either. It's too wild. I'll tell you what most people are saying. All the news shows tonight hauled out our doomsday economists, Lester Thurow and his ilk, to declare we had this one coming. The consensus going around is the Japanese are finally fed up hearing us bellyache about trade barriers; so they've decided to treat us to a pointed demonstration concerning exactly who needs who. That's all. Japan now controls America's destiny. But since a few people here still have the idea we won the last war, Tokyo just wants to make sure we get our history straightened out."
Could be, I answered. But I still thought everybody was missing the forest for the trees. Then I went on to describe Noda's building, his high-security computer setup. Nobody would install an elaborate headquarters like that merely to get your attention.
He listened in uncharacteristic silence, beginning to appear a little more convinced. "Well, let's run with your cockamamie theory a second." He rattled his ice cubes, a habit of his I always found distracting. "Say something bigger is coming up, and this is just the pre-game warm-up. What can we do?"