Page 48 of The List

It was a narrative addressed specifically to him, dated yesterday. He resisted the temptation to scroll through its entire contents.

Instead, he began to read.

I have always been a history buff. Years ago, I read the story of Qin Shi, a second century b.c.

ruler who consolidated what would eventually be called China into a single political entity.

Qin Shi had enemies, though. Lots of them.

Scattered everywhere, protected by mountains, rivers, forests, walls, or sometimes mere anonymity.

In order to maintain his empire a way of controlling those enemies had to be found.

But how? That was a problem which plagued his advisors for years.

They thought of force, execution, imprisonment, and banishment.

But each carried a price in terms of time, energy, and retaliation.

They thought of doing nothing. But the message sent by indifference cautioned otherwise.

Finally, the emperor himself came upon the method that proved most effective.

He ordered the construction of a city littered with magnificent palaces and splendid manor houses, each richly suited for the aristocracy who would soon occupy them.

He staffed the city with hundreds of servants charged with providing all of the labor the inhabitants would ever need.

He made the city an opulent place. A place of envy.

A place where people wanted to live. Then he commanded all of his enemies to live there.

Many grumbled at first. But once there, accustomed to the luxuries freely provided, it became hard for any of them to leave, and none ever did.

But that was the whole idea. For the residents it was a good life.

For Qin Shi even better since his enemies were all contained in one place.

Rebellion became next to impossible. Sedition disappeared.

Qin Shi rested easier each night knowing his enemies were monitored around-the-clock by servants absolutely loyal to him, and his descendants ruled China, unchallenged, for another two hundred years.

Southern Republic Pulp & Paper’s methodology is a step back to Qin Shi’s time.

We too built a town and within the limits of Concord we dominated.

But just like with the enemies of Qin Shi, who over 2000 years ago basked in ignorance amongst the luxury of their surroundings, no resident of Woods County ever realized the full extent of our presence.

For the first few years of our existence, we obtained our operating capital through borrowing and remained heavily in debt. We based the company out of Atlanta, renting space in a variety of downtown office buildings. Not until twenty years into the venture did we build the Blue Tower.

Keeping trained and stable employees is critical to any business’ long-term success.

So we immediately implemented a development program to upgrade Concord and Woods County.

Our first venture was the Woods County State Bank, which offered a variety of services not then available locally.

The institution immediately prospered and complemented the Southern Republic Credit Union, which was also company-controlled.

Eventually, we diversified into more covert investments, ones that didn’t leave an obvious link back to the company or any one person.

The decision to conceal our ownership was designed more as a public relations move than anything else (negating any charge of a company town) and a lot of money was spent purchasing these varied businesses.

Here are some examples. Hamilton Lee owns the Hardee’s, Burger King, Ace Hardware, the building supply center, Ford dealership, NAPA store, and, with some other partners, the Oak Trail shopping center.

Larry Hughes invested in convenience stores, buying commercial tracts all over the county.

Hughes also has exclusive gasoline supply contracts through several wholesale suppliers.

Home construction was another area Hughes concentrated on.

Over fifty percent of the houses built in Concord during the last thirty years were by his companies.

Hughes also owns the GM dealership, produce market, funeral home, flea market in the north end of the county, a variety of commercial office space, and the Bull Creek shopping center.

I stayed in banking, opening the competing South Central Georgia Savings.

We assumed enough business existed for at least one other financial institution, so before someone else moved in we agreed I should open it.

I also hold a controlling interest in the Toyota dealership, Econo Lodge, Eagle Lake Lodge, McDonald’s, the truck stop on Highway 16A, the cable television company, and, like Hughes, various commercial buildings all over the county.

All of these holdings are noted at the end of this narrative in Appendix A.

Appendix B is a listing of undeveloped real estate we still own.

Our landholdings are extensive. Early on we recognized what could happen if we were successful with our investment, so a point was made to buy as many parcels as possible.

You should know that these businesses and land tracts are controlled through management companies, themselves owned by holding companies, which are in turn run by corporations controlled by one, two, or all three of us.

The names of all these various LLCs and partnerships are provided in Appendix C.

None of these ventures were overly profitable and some even lost money.

And, unlike Qin Shi, we do not own or control everything in town.

But we have enough to provide the means by which a substantial amount of company wages could be recycled back into our pockets.

Someone, or some entity, was going to secondarily profit from our investment.

It might as well have been us who derived the bulk of any money to be made.

We even coined a name, “recycled payroll,” for the dollars realized from these secondary businesses.

This diversification ultimately provided another benefit, one we initially did not realize, but one we now regard as priceless. Access to an enormous amount of personal information. Banking records, tax records, credit information, sales histories, new and used car purchases, and the like.

Our original plan called for ten years of investment then several decades of profit.

However, unexpected dips in the economy, two recessions (one quite deep), and foreign competition plummeted the price of paper.

At the same time our three labor unions relentlessly demanded more in the way of wages and benefits.

A dangerous spiral evolved, one that easily could have forced either reductions in our work force or the shutting of our doors.

But that didn’t happen, and to fully understand why a few other points about Southern Republic need explaining.

Initially, like most companies, we maintained employee health insurance through a variety of outside insurers.

The same was true for our workers’ compensation coverage and retirement programs. Over the years the costs associated with these third-party providers skyrocketed and the continuous demands from the unions for more benefits compounded an already difficult situation.

Then, with the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, new financial pressures were placed on our coverages.

So imagine if a way could be found to control those costs.

Perhaps even predict them with reasonable certainty.

A company with that capability would certainly have an advantage.

We found such a way.

Murder.

Robbie Shuman was first. We discussed him the other evening at my house. Suffice it to say Shuman was not the victim of a random act of violence, as the police and everyone else so easily assumed. He was slain by a hired killer, then posthumously revealed to be a thief to destroy his credibility.

The second time was a fortunate accident.

Corey Horne was a retired paperworker who unfortunately needed a heart transplant.

Our health insurer at the time shuddered at the projected costs involved.

Luckily for the insurer, and us, Horne died naturally before any expenses were incurred.

Horne’s death, combined with how easily the problem of Robbie Shuman was eliminated, stimulated my thinking.

Eventually, I was the one who conceived the entire scheme.

Seven years after we bought the company we canceled our health insurance and workers’ compensation coverage with the respective third-party providers.

We then borrowed enough money to become self-insured, creating a fund to finance medical coverage along with a reserve to provide retirement and pension benefits (which were also simultaneously internalized).

Employee contributions multiplied this fund and allowed for lucrative stock investments, which eventually paid off handsomely.

Overall, our self-insured fund is now solvent to hundreds of millions.

But to assure continued vitality we knew that costs had to be controlled on the back side.

So the Priority program was created.

The first hired killer (who we then referred to as an “employee” but now as an “Associate”) was found through the same people who connected me with Robbie Shuman’s killer.

Initially, we concentrated exclusively on retirees, eliminating people with expensive vested benefits.

Almost immediately large sums of capital were realized that could be recycled back to finance front-end extensions of health insurance benefits demanded by the unions.

As we became more proficient, we expanded the program to encompass not only vested retirement benefits but the ridding of excessive health risks, what we considered to be unreasonable workers’ compensation claims, and the elimination of some particularly disastrous third-party claims against the company.