Paradise

Paradise Conceived – JT's Journal

July 15, 1992: Sydney, Australia

After weeks of unemployment, checking with the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES), scanning the newspapers, and doing everything except actually canvassing businesses looking for work, I have become rather desperate.

As a result, I have thought of a wild idea that may net me some kind of cash if I do it right: I should become a corporate raider. Buy large volumes of stock on the common market, pushing the value of it up by making it very scarce, then sell it quickly to get as much profit as possible. Repeat this as many times as possible, probably destroying the company I'm buying the stock of in the process, and netting me some good, easy cash. I'll check up on it.

July 19, 1992

It's not only possible but feasible. The reason nobody's done it before is because it's extremely risky. Other people have tried this, and they made slips, ending up with them losing the whole lot, and going to prison for insider trading crimes. Because this idea runs just on the borderline of Insider trading. You have to be very damned careful not to go over the line, otherwise, you're stuffed. Pump and Dump, they call it. I'm going to try it. I haven't got anything to lose; if I go to jail, at least I'll get fed, and have a place to come home to all the time. So I'd be no worse off than I am now, and possibly better.

July 28, 1992

I have convinced some friends to aid me in this endeavor, with the help of a stockbroker who explained the whole thing to me and them. We've amassed almost $10,000. And we're going to try it with a small company called Amgaltech. They produce pharmaceuticals for the chicken feed industry. They have around $65,000 on the market already, and we're going to get a loan from the bank for as much as we can, then try to buy all the stock; thereby pushing the price up, and then we'll sell everything and walk away with the profits. We've decided not to do this more than once, otherwise, we'd destroy the company and put even more people on the dole.

July 29, 1992

We've secured a low-interest loan for $50,000. One of the partners put his house up as collateral. We tried to convince him otherwise because this is so risky it's almost insane. But he's as determined as the other three of us. We try it tomorrow. If it works, we estimate we'll clear almost $600,000 of it total. Enough to pay back the loan and give all of us well over $100k to play with. If it fails, we could go to jail. We're going to try it.

July 30, 1992

Well, we just managed to buy Amgaltech. Not only did our stock shuffle work successfully, but I put my money back on the market, and purchased all the open shares. I have now become the majority holder of Amgaltech, and I still have lots of free cash to play with. I'm going to discuss this with the other three, and we might try it again, with another small company in another part of the economy.

August 3, 1992: Brisbane, Australia

We've chosen our next target; a company called Derwint Cane Manufacturers. They produce wicker and cane furniture for export and have just recently placed themselves on the open market. We've got enough cash to flux their stock a few times, and we're going to do it until the company shatters. Then Amgaltech will step in and purchase their stock, thereby saving them, and ending up with us owning the company.

August 15, 1992

Derwint Cane is now part of Amgaltech. I've just come from a meeting with their board, and they agree that a merger is a good idea, after the 'disaster' on the stock market. Also, I've added some $250,000 to my account, from the profits due to the flux of Derwint's stock. This is fun, I'll try another company in a few days, I think.

September 4, 1992

We have successfully formed a corporation called Lightstreak International Ltd. We now own 12 separate companies, all of which are cross-training and building revenue. The companies owned are: Amgaltech, Derwint Cane Mfg., Koolgarie Water, Yeeros Intl., Microdata Pty. Ltd., Endicott Food Mfg., Hunts Pretzels, 2N media productions, Pitot Systems, Chiang Mai Productions, Multimedia Analysis Intl., and just as of yesterday; Result Management. We're doing good, and all of us are now both filthy rich, and ridiculously happy and content. Aside from that, what we've done is within the law for what we did. Merging companies is risky, but the manner in which we did it, by yanking their stock value up and down, and then buying it all through an existing secure company (Amgaltech), has proved to be a success. Lightstreak is well on its way to becoming a corporate entity.

February 12, 1993

Long time since I last entered anything in this journal. I thought I'd lost it in one of the moves, but it was just buried. Lightstreak has been buying small companies left, right, and center since we formed in September. But, we are not a securities or loan risk like those late '80s entrepreneurs. I have insisted that we make no corporate moves until we have the liquid cash assets to cover it. At no point are we in debt too deep to pay off within two weeks. And we aren't going to go any deeper. When we do our first balance sheet, I'll attach a copy to the journal so I can see the growth and my notes year by year.

February 18, 1993

Myself (JT), and the other major directors (Tom, Bob, and Stewart), have come up with a 15-year plan for the company. We intend to target a small country deeply in recession, become citizens (At least one of us), and then buy all the companies within that country. After that, we run for elections and take over. Turning the country into the World's first corporate state. All citizens become workers and shareholders in the company, with the Government becoming the Board of Directors. We have discussed this at length, and have decided that once we locate a country, we will reduce essential service costs to almost nil for citizens, put a global tax on Goods and services (A reasonable percent GST), and a duty on imports. No personal Income tax, no company income tax (No companies, except Lightstreak), no luxury tax, and no other taxes. We can run a country as long as it isn't too large, and we can make a huge profit doing it. We've named this plan 'Paradise'.

March 8, 1993

I'm going to make one entry a month in this, and I'm going to describe everything that happened during the previous month during that entry. Lightstreak had its first major failure during late Feb. Pitot Systems crashed. Their offices were caught in a huge fire, and all their records were destroyed. Luckily, no one was hurt, but the loss of the entire company, combined with the reluctance of MNE Insurance to pay up, even though it was an electrical fire, and in no way proven to have been arson, or any other sort of dirty trick. The entire company's loss has damaged us overall. We've had to drain active funds to pay off its creditors, and we're now going to do serious restructuring. But the potentially worst thing is that the Trade Practices Commission (TPC) is taking a rather close look at our operations. I'm beginning to get worried that we may have done something wrong in our acquisitions. We're not getting any new companies until I'm sure we're operating legally.

Also, since the last entry, we have purchased a rather large number of small firms. We now have a total of 86 companies under our logo, and all up, employ a little over 16,000 people. Since we purchased them, we restructured each company to operate at top efficiency, and all are showing healthy profits so far. We're going to have to move to larger premises; these four rooms at Crows Nest are too damned small for the thirty people we employ at Lightstreak to work efficiently.

April, 1993

Thank god that month is over. The TPC did a massive audit on us, aided by PKM Accountants, but found nothing wrong in the way we did business. I just came out of a meeting with them, and all our principal directors, and they actually congratulated us on how we were operating with so much liquid cash to pay off emergency creditors or loans. I was very surprised, then they showed us their audited figures on our overall performance. We're doing good, real good. Overall profit was up 48% from individual companies, and as we plow the cash straight back into the company expansion projects, we continue to expand. We may be one of the major companies to come out of this recession alive and still expanding. I never realized that, but we may. We were warned to make sure the companies we bought were able to handle the sudden shock of being absorbed by such a large firm beforehand, and then they left.

May 1993

We've moved to four floors in a building in Chatswood. It's a much better location because I'll be damned if I'm ever going to drive myself. I still prefer to use the State Transit, even with all of its delays and problems, and even though my personal worth has now exceeded $50 m. Which doesn't surprise me. The other major directors all have personal values in that area, so I'm not alone. But I am beginning to feel lonely. I'm thinking of taking a vacation to some SE Asian country and coming back with some pretty young virginal thing I can keep for myself. I've got to time it right because if I make an error, I could end up being trapped, or worse. HIV is rampant in those countries, and the recently developed cure, costing almost $1000 per dosage, with the patient needing one dose a day for between thirty and forty-six days, is out of reach from most of those countries so far. I've pushed us into looking at purchasing some of the companies involved with making the cure. We're looking at it seriously because it could mean international recognition; and for Paradise to become a reality, we need that recognition.

May 15, 1993

We have had to cut down on rapid expansion due to the sudden outbreaks of violence in Europe and the Middle East that threaten to drive the world to war again. It is hoped that the UN or the new US/CIS alliance will move in and stop this before either side uses atomics, but no one knows what'll happen. The stock market is bouncing lower and lower. Luckily, we purchased companies that provide essential services, mostly, and so we are still in business. We are slowly purchasing chunks of other companies to keep them afloat and increase our reach. We now hold almost 10% of the overall Australian economy under our grip. We'll be looking at our first full year's profits in the next three months, and it looks good. If only the wars in Europe and the Mideast would stop.

May 28, 1993

I write this special entry to record for posterity the third time a nuclear weapon has been used in wartime. The Iraqi army somehow got hold of a small tactical nuclear device and launched it at Israel. The device struck its intended target, and a 5-kiloton nuclear explosion devastated the Israeli city of Haifa. Over 10,000 people were killed by the explosion and resultant radiation shockwaves. Israel did not waste a second, but launched a full strike against Iraq, or attempted to. Only two missiles hit their targets, and the Iraqi city of Baghdad was vaporized by twin 10-megaton explosions. The remaining missiles struck in the desert, turning a fair portion into glass, but with few casualties outside Baghdad. As soon as the shock struck, the US and CIS forces moved in and secured both countries within days. As Israel attempted to launch more weapons, the missiles were destroyed by American Anti-missile satellites, and silos were wiped out by strategic bombing runs, while the Soviets stopped the massive rollout of Iraqi battle troops, and shot down any Iraqi planes that took off towards Israel. The UN has now taken over and is expected to declare Iraq a non-entity and announce its absorption of it into the surrounding countries. It is a remarkable chain of events; nobody ever expected the CIS and Americans to agree and jointly move to secure a location, but what has happened here has also never been anticipated. Over 4 million people have died in less than two days. The result of one country's madness, and another country's over-aggressive reaction. I think the Jews have now repaid the world at large for the Holocaust, and they can now be held accountable for this; the worst nuclear disaster ever on record.

June 1993

The US/CIS alliance and Israel are at war. Israel is trying to justify its actions, while the Soviets and Americans jointly patrol and aggressively maintain the peace in the region. Israel is threatening hostilities, which it cannot do, and the Alliance is simply stopping any fighting by eliminating both sides involved. It seems very sensible to me, although the rest of Australia is split, as is the world, by the actions and reactions. All over the world, the UN is enforcing a very recent act to eliminate all nuclear weapons of a tactical nature and to fully catalog all remaining weapons. It is being enforced by the Alliance, who seem very competent; almost as if they had been planning it all along. Perhaps they had. In any case, we have stopped trading for the last week in memory of the millions dead, and have just begun to commence a full move to take over up to 40% of the Australian economy. Watch out, world. Here we come.

July, 1993

We have completed part of our goal. We now hold sway over nearly 40% of the following markets in Australia: Imported Electronics, Imported Food, and imported textiles. As a result, we are increasing the GNP of the country, and are being severely curtailed by the Australian Government due to our potential to corner the market on these goods. I am off to a meeting with the Minister for the Economy in a few days to tell him our company's plans and reassure him that we intend to hold only 40% of the overall market, not more. If he tries to pressure our company into selling some of our markets to reduce our percentage, I will show him the Profit and loss statements we've had constantly updated for each company showing profit, and jobs within and without the aid of Lightstreak. He should see the wisdom of our plan, and if he pressures us, we can always just pack up and move countries, and leave Australia to it's recessionary blues.

August 1993

We've got our control over the Australian Market. The Government doesn't like it, but we've got our control. There is no law that says any company owned and operated by Australians, with no overseas money, cannot gain up to a 40% hold on the market. We do not have complete control, nor are we reducing competition. It seems to me that since we've done this, we've increased competition. The other companies outside Lightstreak are fighting each other to undercut us, and we simply glide over them and their petty fighting, and get the best profits and best opportunities.

We now hold almost a thousand companies, far too many to list in the journal and employ around 53% of the working population of Australia in those companies. I am ready to retire, or at least take an extremely long vacation in respect to the company. In less than a year of very rapid movement, we've purchased and held more corporations than any other company has done in the history of the open stock market. I'm exhausted, and am going to take a very long vacation; beginning, I think, in the Cross. I need some serious relaxation, and a good session with an attractive whore will begin my vacation; hell, I've got the money, why not pay the women to enjoy it as well?