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. Nor would he own it all; he felt almost poverty-stricken when he discovered that mother and father together held only eighteen percent of many thousand shares.
Then he found out about "voting" and "non-voting; the shares coming to him were eighteen-fortieths of the voting shares; the remainder was split between relatives and non-relatives.
Rudbek & Assocs. owned stock in other companies -- and here it got complicated. Galactic Enterprises, Galactic Acceptance Corporation, Galactic Transport, Interstellar Metals, Three Planets Fiscal (which operated on twenty-seven planets), Havermeyer Laboratories (which ran barge lines and bakeries as well as research stations) -- the list looked endless. These corporations, trusts, cartels, and banking houses seemed as tangled as spaghetti. Thorby learned that he owned (through his parents) an interest in a company called "Honace Bros., Pty." through a chain of six companies -- 18% of 31% of 43% of 19% of 44% of 27%, a share so microscopic that he lost track. But his parents owned directly seven per cent of Honace Brothers -- with the result that his indirect interest of one-twentieth of one per cent controlled it utterly but paid little return, whereas seven per cent owned directly did not control -- but paid one hundred and forty times as much.
It began to dawn on him that control and ownership were only slightly related; he had always thought of "ownership" and "control" as being the same thing; you owned a thing, a begging bowl, or a uniform jacket -- of course you controlled it!
The converging, diverging, and crossing of corporations and companies confused and disgusted him
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