In
Joseph Heller's Catch 22,
Milo Minderbinder -- the
Assistant Governor-General of
Malta,
Mayor of
Palermo,
Vice Shah of
Oran,
Caliph of
Baghdad,
Imam of
Damascus, and
Sheik of Araby -- runs
Yossarian's mess hall on
Pianosa as the resident
capitalist genius.
Aside from the incident involving a package of pitted dates and half a stolen bedsheet, the best example of Milo's economic prowess is his syndicate's process for selling seven-cent Maltese eggs to the mess halls at a price of only five cents an egg while still making a profit.
How?
Seven-cent Maltese eggs cost the sellers in Malta four and one-quarter cents each to procure. Milo is actually buying the eggs from himself in Malta, which means that as a seller there he is making two and three-quarter cents each egg. After he resells the seven-cent eggs to the mess halls for five cents each, he is still making a three-quarter cent profit per egg.
However, it turns out that Milo's Maltese eggs are actually one-cent Sicilian eggs which he has secretly shipped to Malta to drive up their value, yielding him another three and one-quarter cents profit per egg.
In short: in all these dealings, where Milo is the producer, consumer, and middleman (twice), he can afford a two cent per-egg loss, because overall the syndicate is making six cents revenue per egg. And everyone has a share.