Page 20 - Nutshell 3

rumored that the Great Cat himself, Felix Damisa, is the visionary
behind Luna.”
Meringue was skeptical. “But what does that have to do with us?”
“Did you ever stop to think why cats have done so well in modern
times? Yes, of course, we are half-domesticated, happy to have a
home once we have become established in it. And our tolerance of
human foibles is a wonderful example of our innate virtue. But how
are the house-people able to provide for us? What if we become ill?”
“They take us to the doctor,” said Furina. “We’ve already been
there once. Not much fun, but specialists are what we need. I
wouldn’t want anyone else to touch me.”
“That’s right,” nodded their grandcat. “And what about eating?
Do you have to go out into the city and risk life and limb to catch a
small animal every day?”
“No,” said Kitty Boy Floyd. “But I could, I know I could! But you
let the humans get the food for you.”
“And so will you, my fine little tomcat,” growled Grimalkin. “If all
the millions of cats in this country were out there hunting, it would
definitely disrupt the balance of nature—and we would be blamed,
not praised, for following our half-wild side. No, we are kept
relatively healthy and well-fed, and the humans are able to keep their
economy humming along, all because of Luna LLC.”
The kittens were puzzled. How could that be?
“Luna owns the meat-packing plants. Luna owns the cat food
factories. Luna owns the veterinary clinics. Luna pays for veterinary
education. Luna LLC is what used to be called a vertical trust.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s where one entity controls all the divisions of a cycle, to keep
it going for the benefit primarily of that controller, but also for
everyone affected by it. Here is an example: suppose you, Floyd,
wanted to supply mice for the other kittens. First you would trap
some breeding pairs and make sure they reproduced in quantity. Of
course, that has an expense, which you would try to minimize by
taking over the source of mouse food and keeping the price low. You
also want to make sure your mice stay healthy enough to make them
enticing to your customers—your siblings, in this case—so you
would take over a school training mouse doctors and then control
their costs by buying up the mouse hospitals in which those
veterinarians could work. Thus plenty of low-cost mice for your
hungry brothers and sisters who won’t have any other source of