Entry Forty-Three – Days after Geonosis, Two Hundred Sixty-Four
It turns out that someone is trying to do something about the mass displacement issue here on Coruscant, and to a lesser degree on other major core worlds with similar vast cityscapes. Specifically someone in the Senate proposed a resolution to study the issue. The committee of bureaucrats they appointed to that task came up with the idea of tying new housing production into the broader redevelopment plan structure via industrial wasteland reclamation. I became aware of this when a corporate agent of the organization that somehow wrangled the plan evaluation contract out of the committee showed up at my clinic to ask my advice at matching species against potential low-level lingering hazards and toxins in reclaimed environments.
This is not actually nearly so terrible an idea as it initially seemed.
As I learn with regard to the ancient lab case, the Municipal Authority lacks the resources and expertise to conduct proper containment and decontamination and has a tendency to simply bury their problems in duracrete, which is cheap, and wait for them to go away. This is especially common if they can't extract any sort of funds through forfeiture out of the myriad shell companies and other false lures that control so much of the underworld's real estate. Given enough time most toxins and other bioactive agents break down, though as I am now intimately aware not elemental poisons or heavy metals. There are any number of sites sealed away decades or centuries in the past that can be safely demolished and rebuilt now.
Unfortunately, it seems the whole plan is locked into the theoretical stage. This plan is attached to an amendment bill to the redevelopment plan's second annex and is firmly lodged in the bowels of its Senate committee. Identifying potential locations and candidate residents is of little use without any funding for actual construction.
It always seems to come down to credits in the end. A depressing aspect of the galaxy, truly. It is hard for me to admit how long I was blind to this central issue. Even now my understanding of such matters is limited to mostly household-level expenses and daily supply costs. The complexities of corporate dealings and government spending bills remain far beyond my grasp. Even a brief look at them peels back a world centered upon bizarrely counter-intuitive principles, esoteric rulings, and curious behavioral assumptions. This opacity appears to be deliberate, a means to conceal the maneuverings of finance from casual observation. Notably, none of those I have come to know of late can explain to me how the Republic is paying for this war or how the various corporations comprising the Separatists expect to see any long-term gains from fighting it. Most I have asked, including those both smart and connected, proffer stumbling answers no more complete than my own idle musings.
When I put the question to poor Tesso he spouted an endless string of theoretical economics so mathematically chaotic I had to shut him down and wipe his short-term memory. I suspect Takul, frightfully, out of all those who I broached the subject with, might have been the only one with any real insight. He told me "above the clouds all sights are illusions." That the entire banking system has become compromised and fraudulent does seem distressingly possible, especially when any and all queries regarding the pre-war funding for the GAR are flagged as seditious.
There may be good reason for that. If Master Sifo-Dyas did commission the army at the Council's direction there must have been funds sent to Kamino from some source. That the Order, or more likely our friends in the Senate, has access to such immense monies seems worthwhile to conceal.
A pity I do not know any of these friends, or I would ask them to help the underworld. They would probably say the war is more important, but I least then I could say I tried.