YAMListan has seen enough men confuse a treasury with a stage prop. Grain pays the country. Trade feeds it. Owners who can still read a margin know the order of operations: keep taxes low, keep borders open, keep the granaries full, and stop manufacturing prestige wars with other people's balance sheets.
I am not running to sound grand. I am running to make this republic cheaper to build in and harder to starve. That is a better use of office than posing with a knife.
- Mirelle Quist, The Velvet Ledger