Knight Aramburu gestured for a servant to bring chilled wine and said unhurriedly, "Joseph, you probably do not understand these things called funds. They have been popular in Europe for more than a decade.
"If Indians buy them in large numbers, that will be a tremendous boon for us. Because it will drive up the fund's rate of return...
"What is a rate of return?
"Ah, just remember this: the more people buy the fund, the more dividends we can receive."
What he did not know was that the 2.2 million Escudos in principal for the New Granada Wealth and Trade Fund announced by the Spanish government existed now, and would continue to exist in the future, only on the books of Madrid's Treasury Department.
According to Joseph's arrangements, all the Colony's propaganda machines would soon launch a massive campaign promoting the fund's profitability.
Since this was a "good thing" that every noble Peninsular would hold, once it went on public sale, it would certainly be snapped up frantically by Creoles and even Caboclos.
For the first year, purchase limits would be imposed. Each person could hold at most ten shares, worth roughly fifty Escudos, or about 550 Francs. As the fund invested its capital in plantations, workshops, and ports in Venezuela and Colombia, it would reap enormous profits—
After the Madrid government lifted its various restrictions on the Colony, the lower classes, long suppressed, would throw themselves into making money with tremendous enthusiasm. Explosive economic growth was nearly inevitable.
And it was not only the New Granada Fund that was preparing to feast on this wave of development dividends. There were also three local banks controlled by the Spanish Royal Family and Saint Carlos National Bank, as well as the New Granada Stock Exchange.
The banks operated on a