Bravo Johnson
@bravojohnson
INT: ROYAL TREASURY, MADRID, 1637. OLIVARES (slamming open the door): Gentlemen! Welcome to a new age of finance. Spain is proud to unveil its latest instrument of international liquidity: the Soul-Backed Evangelical Bond. GENOESE BANKER (twitching): What… exactly backs this bond? OLIVARES (beaming): Salvation. (He clicks, and the Jesuit Consultant unfurls a scroll depicting cherubs baptizing Indigenous Americans.) OLIVARES (cont’d): For every 1,000 ducats you lend us, we guarantee: The spiritual salvation of at least four souls in New Spain. One hundred rosaries, blessed by someone who has definitely met the Pope. And a notarized indulgence, suitable for framing or eternal damnation insurance. DUTCH ENVOY: Is this… collateral? OLIVARES: Better. It’s moral yield. These are grace-indexed returns, gentlemen. GENOESE BANKER: But how do we redeem these bonds? OLIVARES: Redemption is the point! The soul is eternal. Unlike your ledgers, which we may or may not recognize next quarter.
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Bravo Johnson
@bravojohnson
The Count-Duke gestures to the scribe, who begins drafting a papal-sounding letter titled “On the Virtues of Deferred Payment.”) OLIVARES (cont’d): We’re also offering grace tranches. Tier One includes baptisms and full confessionals. Tier Two—just a firm handshake and a whispered Ave Maria. But the interest compounds either way—in heaven. DUTCH ENVOY: This sounds like religious indulgences wrapped in bankruptcy. OLIVARES: It’s a structured spiritual instrument. We call it… the Salvation Swap. GENOESE BANKER: Are you proposing to securitize mass conversion? OLIVARES: We prefer to say divinely collateralized. (A bell tolls ominously outside. The Jesuit bows and leaves to light candles somewhere.)
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Bravo Johnson
@bravojohnson
# ACT II INT. ROYAL TREASURY, MADRID – THREE MONTHS LATER The room is now adorned with elaborate charts showing “Soul Yields” and “Baptismal Futures.” OLIVARES stands proudly before a small group of increasingly skeptical European financiers. OLIVARES: Gentlemen! Our first-quarter salvation metrics have exceeded expectations. He gestures dramatically to a ROYAL ACCOUNTANT who unfurls a scroll with numbers. ROYAL ACCOUNTANT (nervously): We’ve baptized seventeen thousand souls in Peru alone. That’s a grace-adjusted return of… um… infinity percent. VENETIAN BANKER: But the silver fleet is three months overdue, and our actual returns remain at zero ducats. OLIVARES (dismissively): Temporal returns! So limiting. Our Jesuit analysts have developed a new metric: EBITDA. PORTUGUESE MERCHANT: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization? OLIVARES: Evangelism Before Indulgence, Tithes, Damnation, and Absolution! The growth is exponential.
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