John Simpson Dyer arrived as a ghoul in Atlanta at the behest of his master, Uwe Oppenheimer of the Ventrue, in February of 1999. Dyer had served as a financial investor and industrialist for Herr Oppenheimer in New York City, increasing his business assets while avoiding assassination by the Sabbat elements of the city. Since his arrival, he has attempted courses of purchase and investment to increase the holdings of his clan, and especially of himself. As a reward for his efforts, he has been Embraced by his former master, became the Ventrue Legatus in charge of economic activities, and has worked his way up to the position of Primogen of the Ventrue.

The Financial Section: Mr. Dyer, thank you for granting this interview.

John Simpson Dyer: My pleasure. I have a strong desire to share my fascination in the accumulation of wealth with your readers.

TFS: A fascination that has spanned nearly a century. What originally interested you in the financial world?

JSD: I originally came from, if not humble beginnings, then certainly modest ones. My father practiced medicine in New York, and while he was somewhat well-to-do, he could not be described as wealthy. I excelled in academics and attended Dartmouth, in the wilds of New Hampshire, where I was exposed to some of the better minds of the country, as well as some of the wealthiest. The continual exposure to those whose fortunes were so undeserved inspired a need in me to accumulate sufficient earnings to show that I was more than their match, but their superior.

TFS: Would you call that egotistical?

JSD: Certainly not. Many of them were absolute cretins whose sole purpose was drinking to excess and seducing females from the various women's colleges in the area. And yet they were supposed to be the next generation of leaders for the country. It was for the good of all that I do well and crush them until they could inflict no harm upon the world.

TFS: And you did just that.

JSD: Frequently. After school I had great success on Wall Street. Those were truly wild times, as though the fast and loose spirit of the Westward drive had been redirected into a new frontier, investment. I made fortunes, for others and myself. And whenever the opportunity arose, I broke and tossed aside my former classmates. I checked them off in our senior annual, just to keep track. In the jungle of the economic markets, they were they prey devoured to make room for the strong.

TFS: And yet you were nearly destroyed yourself, were you not?

JSD: Much to my embarrassment, yes. I think that so much success ruined my survival instinct. It had been too easy, and when tragedy ensued, I was ill prepared to face the mania that gripped the street. In my despair I nearly ended my own existence with a jump from an appropriately high ledge. If not for Lord Uwe's restraint, that would have been the end, embedded in the pavement of Wall Street.

TFS: But you survived and moved on?

JSD: Of course, although it took some instruction and mentoring in the rules of this brave new world I was entering. My new path was set, and while I needed to remove myself from my old haunts, for the obvious reason that lacking any aging process would be suspicious, still I kept my hand in. Especially when my surviving classmates were concerned. Of course, the last of the '23's passed on some few years back- completely without my aid, may I add. Since then, I have kept going in the realms of finance out of more intellectual interest than burning personal purpose.

TFS: But you turned to other areas.

JSD: Yes, because while the older markets were still accessible, new areas were developing. If you stagnate, you die. I had no intention of stagnating, so I expanded my holdings and interests, and have continued to do so to this day.

TFS: What areas are you currently interested in and why?

JSD: I had always been interested in Finance, as my experiences on Wall Street have shown you. There is something very pure about the markets, the idea of making a fortune without ever having produced a tangible good, or dealt with anything but the abstract. There is a mathematical, almost musical, flow to the buying and selling that will always hold my fascination, not to mention the chance for the exercise of pure power. Even now, so many years after the markets were begun, the constant innova