product four more and so on. The Russkies had gotten to that point by 1955 or so and by the 1960s they were fully under way. A planned economy; no depressions, no strikes, no unions to stand in the way of automation. They caught up to American gross national product in the 1970s and kept expanding.
Now they're really underway and the Chinese and the satellites along with them."
Mike wound it up with, "Is that what you mean?"
Jones flicked a finger at the bartender for another beer. "As far as you go," he said. "I was dwelling on the international aspects."
Mike grunted. "That was our own fool fault. When we refused to trade with them, in the early days, we threw them back on their own resources. By necessity they made themselves self-sufficient. Now the Soviet Complex has no particular need for foreign trade. There's nothing we've got that they require."
"Nothing but one thing," Jones said quietly.
Mike scowled again, not getting it. "What's that one thing?"
"Tourism. The Russians were penned up in their own borders for a couple of generations. Now that travel restrictions have been lifted and prosperity prevails in the Soviet Complex, tourists are flowing out like water over a broken dam."
Mike shuddered. "You're telling me!" He brought himself back to the original subject. "What in the hell's this got to do with NATO and with me?"
"I'll tell you in a minute," Jones said. "Mr. Edwards, why is there currently a depression in the West?"
Mike said impatiently, "I sound as though I'm giving a course in freshman economics. Actually, we've never recovered from the ending of the cold war. We had a booming economy based considerably on defense production. When a workable peace was arrived at, and the Asian War terminated, that production fell off. In our economy, boom begets boom, but bust also begets bust. Once you start downhill, it's almost impossible to stop. Thus far, we've found nothing to start us booming again."
Jones was nodding, even as he poured himself more beer. "But there's one point you've missed."
Still no signs of Catherina. The other Horizonal Holidays people were filing into the dining room, but there were no signs of Catherina. Confound it. He had several duties later tonight. He'd hoped to be able to have a cocktail or two with the girl.
Mike said, "Look, let's sit down and talk while we eat. I'll have to be going before too long."
They found a table for two and a waiter scurried up with his lista de platos . After they had ordered, Mike said, "You were saying something about a point I missed."
"Yes," Jones pursued. The reason why we've never gotten out of the rut."
"You tell me," Mike said, breaking up a bread roll.
"It's the Russkies. As you pointed out, they're self sufficient. They don't need international trade. They can consume internally the full production of their industries."
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"And?" Mike prompted.
But the waiter was coming up with their food and a bottle of white Metropole wine which Mike had ordered. The dish was paella , a favorite of the travel agent, and rich with prawns, fish and small bits of pork in saffron rice.
As they ate, Frank Jones went on. "Our economies of the West are different. Considerably different.
Our industries operate only so long as we can sell what they produce. Production is for sale, rather than for use. Under free enterprise we roll along fine when there is a demand for the product. Always in the past we were sparked into new booms by either war, preparation for war, or by foreign trade-by pumping our products overseas, developing new lands, creating new markets abroad."
Mike Edwards took a bite of the Spanish rice dish and nodded. "I wouldn't put it exactly that way, but go on."
"That's it. We can't go on," Jones said dourly. "That's the problem. There are no wars any more, there can't be, or the whole race is doomed. And foreign trade? The Soviet Complex, in spite of the fact that it isn't basically interested in foreign commerce, itself, has for all practical purposes destroyed foreign trade for the rest of the world."
Mike poured them both more of the white wine. He said, "They have indeed. How can we sell typewriters in the Argentine, where they don't manufacture them, when the Russkies come along and dump several shiploads of them into the country to retail for ten dollars apiece?"
The NATO man leaned forward. "That's the point. If the Russkies don't need foreign trade to maintain a healthy economy, why do they bother to raise money by dumping?"
Mike said, "We've already covered that. They don't need our products but they do need foreign exchange for this fabulous tourist outpouring of theirs. Perhaps five million Russkies a year go down to the Argentine, so they need Argentina pesos to pay the tab. The same with every other country to which their tourists go. When you consider some forty million Russkie rubbernecks a year, you realize that they need lots of foreign exchange. So they dump. But, once again, what has this got to do with NATO and above all what's it got to do with me."
He let his eyes roam the room again, while waiting for his answer. No Catherina.
Frank Jones nodded his head and looked sour. "To stimulate our economies again, the West has got to get back into international commerce on a large scale. As long as the Soviet Complex is dumping products at cut rates, we can't. And they won't stop as long as they need money for tourism. The answer? The only answer is to figure out some way of stopping the Russian tourists from leaving home."
Mike blinked at him. "Stop them? Holy smokes, how? It's the damnedest phenomenon in the history of travel. They pour over the border of their country like lemmings. And each year it gets worse."
Frank Jones looked down at his glass of wine unhappily. He said, "Beer would go better with this." And then got back to the subject. "Right. And with your background, both academic, and as a working tourist representative handling the Russkies, one of the NATO bigwigs thought you might come up with something."
Mike Edwards leaned back in his chair and laughed. "So that's what you've been building up to for the Page 15
past hour."
"What's funny?'
Mike said, "My job is that of a tourist representative. Now you want me to figure out some impossible scheme which will drive my best customers-hell, practically my only customers, any more-back to their homeland."
Jones drummed a finger impatiently on the table top. "Good Lord, man, the economies of the whole West are at stake. If you can suggest anything, we need your help desperately."
Mike said, "Well, frankly, I haven't any answer to your problem. In fact, by the looks of things, like I said earlier, it's going to get worse, not better. Production still continues to grow in the Soviet Complex.
Next year, Russkie vacations will probably be extended when they make cutbacks in the work week, and the number of months each has to work."
He spotted Catherina and her party coming in the door. Her blonde head was back and she was laughing exuberantly at something that had evidently transpired just before they entered the hotel. Nick Galushko and Ana Chekova were with her, plus Vovo Chervozov who had a guitar and was rendering a Spanish flamenco piece. To render means to tear apart.
Just seeing her tightened Mike's throat. Holy smokes, what had gotten into him?
He came to his feet, deserting the balance of his paella and wine. "Pardon me," he said to Jones. "Well have to finish this some other time. I'll have to go over and… well, sort of check with these people. See if everything is going all right."
Jones looked at the new arrivals. "They look as though they're going fine. They're already walking two feet off the floor. If you improved things for them, they'd go through the roof."