A few weeks after the cash ran out, things began to settle down. The simple people of Banga Banga learned a new word: bankruptcy. There were loans that could not and would not be repaid. These issues were settled, for the most part, amicably.
Boats that were not needed were left or converted to play sets for the children; except for one. Workers who had changed professions drifted back to their old jobs. Though a painful transition, the island went back to normal – though prices eventually settled quite a bit higher than they were to start with.
The one remaining boat was to be a gift to Krugman. A crew helped the economist into the boat by himself. The boat was towed by another and began sailing a course parallel to the coast. None of the islanders would look at or talk to Krugman. Dark thoughts went through his mind; of course, they are taking me out and will drown me thought to himself. Hopefully they would not eat him. He did not blame them. Never one to be selfish, he felt sad for the islanders that they would not have his expertise any longer. His main regret was that he never got to publish his last column. It was about an alien invasion and how that would be great for the economy.
They sailed in silence for over an hour. The islanders cut the tow rope, leaving Krugman alone in the boat. They quickly turned and went back the way they came, paddling with some extra enthusiasm.
‘Well this is it’, Krugman thought to himself. He did not know how to sail. He would die of thirst and starvation in short order in the hot tropical sun. Now he was sure he should have paid attention when the villagers tried to teach him to fish and sail. The cosmic injustice!
Then he heard it in the distance. It could not be. But it was! The sound of a helicopter. The chopper, based at the opposite end of the island the whole time, did not see him at first or thought he was a native. Swinging his white suit jacket high in the air and yelling with all his might, he attracted the helicopter, and he was saved.
Back at home in New York, after having the pilot that had dumped him into the ocean fired and personally ruined, Krugman had taken a sabatical from the new bank to reflect and write about is harrowing adventure. The resulting book, titled, ‘Island Banker’, told how he had saved the islanders, risking his life on more than one occasion and left the simple village a virtual emerging economy. The book was in the running for a Pulitzer and he was up for, yet another, Nobel Prize. Most fitting of all though, he thought, was the inscription on the title page of the new book: ‘To the world’s Central Bankers: Hang in there. There is justice in the world.’
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