Had Noda been lying to me right down the line? Setting up a cockamamie cover with interest futures while all along he was setting up an international currency swindle?
Or were we about to get down to the real action? He'd scheduled his curtain raiser, whatever it was, then realized he might accidentally pull the plug on the U.S. greenback? So he'd decided to arrange a little currency insurance for everybody back at the ranch, just in case.
Don't ask me why, but I was drawn to this pending nightmare like a moth to flame. This was a ringside seat at . . .
All right, who am I trying to kid? That was the moment when I finally, finally grasped what our meeting was all about. It was to formally announce the tidal wave that would soon engulf America. And now Matsuo Noda—or maybe I should say Noah—was, in his oblique Japanese way, handing me a pair of tickets good for one round-trip passage on his ark. The only thing missing was the schedule.
By then I didn't care whether I was on board or not; I figured I'd just as soon try swimming on my own. But I had one very good reason to play along.
"Okay, what's the game? Want to sell some dollars for delivery down the road?"
"We assume you are familiar with the markets."
"I stay in touch. How would you like to go? If you want
currency futures, there're the exchanges. Or you can buy forwards, which are more or less the same thing, from any number of banks around town. Futures only go out for a year, maximum, but I can probably get you forwards out to three. Come to think of it, Citibank will quote you ten-year forwards."
"We would be looking at shorter terms."