Rodger wasn't about to bet on that. This sounded like a real nifty little story. Betrayal of kin, cheating, lying, financial shenanigans-maybe even stealing.
But, darn it, Rodger didn't really have a handle on money. Which meant he was going to have to share the byline with someone. Probably that twit, Karl Gottliebe, who'd been freelancing for The Street. And all over the radio. Any program that mentioned money or markets, there Gottliebe was, giving out advice. Ah, well. Rodger would share the byline for a story that sounded as juicy as this one.
****
"I'll say," Rodger muttered. "This contract is downright punitive once you miss that first payment."
"Worse than that," Gottliebe pointed out. "Take a look a subparagraph J. If you can read it without a magnifying glass, that is."
Rodger shook his head and picked up another contract. "I'll take your word for it. SFC is bad enough. It's almost honest, sort of. Not illegal, at any rate. The big bad guys are Heileman Finance. They're the sort the usury laws were designed for."
"I've blocked out a program time. The article hits The Street tomorrow, then tomorrow afternoon I'll announce my consumer report on credit," Gottliebe said. "There are more good companies than bad. But HFC is certainly going down. And SFC is going to lose a lot of business."
"Six weeks it's taken," Rodger said. "But we've got them.
****
"This is Hans Gunther, reporting for The Street. As anyone who has read the paper knows, our own Karl Gottliebe has been involved in an investigative report on consumer credit. While most of the companies were on the up and up, we want to warn you about Heileman Finance and a couple of other companies. Schuster Finance Company, for instance, has some very irregular contracts. Karl, tell our listeners more, please."
Rodger fairly hated listening to Karl speak over the radio, but it was impossible to do it himself. It would blow his cover sky high and he got too much dirt by being unidentifiable by the Grantvillers. Pity, though. Karl's voice was so nerdy-sounding.
"Ladies and gentlemen, there has been a great deal of 'rent with an option to buy' going on all over the place. And, over all, that has been a good thing. It's gotten a lot of products into the hands of people and businesses that needed to have the product in hand to make the money to pay for it. Farmers and craftsmen have benefited and so have their customers, as they have produced more. But it seems every silver-lining has to have a cloud. It's become rather easy to get in over your head. And worse, some of the people offering 'rent with an option to buy' contracts are dishonest. You need to read the contracts before you sign them. If you didn't do that, you still need to read them. Because not everything we have learned from the up-timers is good. Scoundrels and cheats have learned new techniques to take advantage of us. As if they didn't have enough already.
"We urge everyone in range of our broadcast who has signed a contract with any of the finance companies that have proliferated in the last few years to review their contracts very carefully. Pay particular attention to any fine print. Take them to a lawyer if they seem confusing-or even if they don't. I'm afraid, Hans, that there are going to be some very sorry customers out there. Some companies have perpetrated outright fraud, some others are skating on very thin ethical ice. I want to stress that most of them have proven to be excellent companies that provide excellent service. As usual, though, a few bad apples are rotting the entire barrel."
"What about the report that Anna Katherina Schuster was seen leaving Grantville early this morning? Do you think that's in indication of wrong-doing?"
Rodger cursed. He'd missed that.
Gottliebe went on. "While what the Schusters have done isn't illegal, it is certainly unethical. But it is not a crime in Saxony. Arguably, it's not even a crime here. It seems to me that Anna has left her brother Heinrich holding the bag for whatever they may have done. I'll have more on this in half an hour on our new program, which is called Consumer Reports."
****
Greta Schultz listened to the market reports almost religiously. And it was a darn good thing, too. She pulled out the family's contract with SFC, then had to sit down with her hand pressed against her chest. "Marie. Marie. Go get Peter Kreger. Right now."
Marie didn't think to argue, even though her mother had interrupted a delicate piece of soldering.
****
"This won't affect us," Eva Katharina said. "Hans and I didn't buy anything for ourselves. We've been waiting until we had some cash."
"You don't understand, Eva," Peter said. "I didn't either, not until I read the fine print. I commend Greta for bringing this to my attention once she found out. And I have to point out that it isn't just the Schultz family that has been buying with village credit." He looked around the room. "About half the families here have been signing contracts that obligate the whole village to a much higher interest rate if even one payment is missed. Among other things that are even worse."
"What?" "Not us!" "We haven't bought anything!" The uproar in the room was furious.
Peter waved them all down. "Subparagraph J on the SFC contracts is the culprit. And we won't even go into the HFC contracts, since we were lucky enough that we didn't sign up with them. What that little clause says is that if someone misses two annual payments, the debt is transferred to the village as a whole. Plus, they can repossess everything that has been bought. Everything. We all agreed to the main contract that let the village buy the plows, the reaper, the fridge unit, and all the common purchases."
That meant that if Greta's new tableware wasn't paid for, SFC could take the plow, the thresher, the refrigeration unit . . . everything that they had bought. That all the payments went into one common fund. Greta's flatware, Anna's bolt of fine wool cloth-all went into the same pot as the plow and thresher-so nothing was paid for till everything was.
They all started talking at once, blaming anyone who had bought anything on their own. Which just about everyone had.
Pastor Althus stood up and looked around the room. The uproar lessened in intensity. "I note that while you're all fussing, you're doing it in a warm room with good lighting and with full bellies." He walked over to a shelf that was full of how-to books. He picked up one that everyone in the village recognized. It had a big red cross on the front and covered such things as how to set a broken bone and the effects of vitamins on health. "Do you happen to remember the winter of 1628? There were no frozen vegetables that year. No raspberries frozen in August to be eaten in February. The insulation wasn't all that great, either. I particularly remember that, because three children died that year. All three from pneumonia. Have we had a case of pneumonia this year? I must have missed it. All the children that were in the village last fall are still here and a new one besides. A happy, healthy little fellow he is too, little Robin. Is there a lack of grain for the village to eat? A lack of vegetables?"
That got a laugh. People were eating rather more vegetables then they might have preferred in the winter of 1635. Pastor Althus put the book back in the shelf.
"Is anyone suffering from frostbite because they have no gloves or holes in their shoes? You all know that we really are living much less precarious lives than we used to. And what are we doing with the Lord's gifts? Arguing, fussing and fighting over who bought what that they shouldn't have. That they wouldn't have, I am quite sure, if they had known what it might mean.
"No one has accused me yet so it falls to me to accuse myself. I bought a new cassock and several books that weren’t, strictly speaking, necessary. What we have to do is make sure that no one defaults on their loan. Whatever their intent, the people of SFC have facilitated our gaining of the tools we need to pay the debt. We will use those tools. We will find new things to make and sell. We will work together as a community in God, as we always have."