The meeting place was chosen at the White House.

Simon arrived in Washington at 2 o'clock in the afternoon in a low-key manner, and the White House side of the welcome battle can be described as grand, with the Clintons, Vice President Al Gore, the new Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and the new House Speaker Newt Gingrich appearing together.

With the identity of several people who came forward, Simon also saw the Republican Party's intention to woo him.

Otherwise, because of the position of important supporters of Simon's Democratic Party, the Republican Party will definitely send representatives to participate in this meeting, but it is unlikely that the two congressional leaders who have just held power will attend together.

The Clintons and Vice President Al Gore need no more words.

Bob Dole is a rival in Simon's memory of the 1996 U.S. presidential election against Clinton.

This 71-year-old veteran Republican politician has been paving the way for his presidential campaign since Clinton took office, and for this reason he did not hesitate to put Clinton on the same side, promising in advance that an agreement could be reached, but when the vote was suddenly reversed, he directly stirred up the health care reform bill that the Clinton and his wife tried to promote in every possible way.

The Democratic Party's fiasco in this midterm election and the failure of health care reform are very critical factors.

The Clintons have been using the health care reform bill as an important political capital to carry out large-scale propaganda among voters, but the result has ended in failure, which inevitably has the serious negative effect of standing higher and falling harder.

Of course, the reasons for the Democrats' fiasco in this midterm election are much more than that. To make it completely clear, you may need to write a tome.

As for Bob Dole, it happens to be the type Simon likes.

Standard neoconservative politicians, advocating tax cuts and deregulation of corporate giants, are slick enough to be selfish enough to be influenced.

Unlike Bob Doerr's sophistication, the new House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a very aggressive personality.

The 51-year-old Republican congressman, who is in the prime of life but is also a veteran politician, has frequently used confrontational methods to provoke disputes between the two parties since he entered Congress in the 70s, and in the past two years, he has almost indiscriminately blocked Clinton's efforts to fulfill the promises he made to voters during the election campaign.

Instead of going to the famous Oval Office of the White House, the crowd came to an ordinary reception room in the West Wing of the White House.

The waiter quietly withdrew after bringing tea and snacks, and only six Simon were left in the reception room in a blink of an eye.

To Simon's surprise, it was Hillary Clinton who first provoked the topic.

"Simon, before you came, we were still discussing the upcoming outsourcing platform of Egret, Newt does not believe that this platform can provide tens of millions of jobs every year, I have read the information on the official website in advance, and I don't understand it either, can you explain it to everyone?"

Simon casually held a cup of coffee as he heard Hillary speak and look at the other four men without a trace.

Clinton's face was as usual, Gore seemed to be unheard, Bob Dole was smiling, and only Newt Gingrich, who was named by Hillary, frowned slightly.

Hillary Clinton is notoriously aggressive.

Most of the contents of the failed health care reform bill were drafted by Hillary Clinton's team, and according to Simon's information, the failure of the health care reform bill also caused a rift between the couple to a large extent.

Right now.

It is conceivable that the four Washington bigwigs obviously do not want Hillary Clinton to be involved in such an occasion.

The first lady not only ignored the pressure of the four bigwigs and insisted on staying, but also took the lead in stirring up the topic. By the way, he quietly dug a hole for Newt Gingrich.

Sure enough, it's strong enough.

Thinking so, Simon took a sip of coffee and said frankly with a smile: "In fact, this description is a bit of a change of concept, tens of millions of jobs are definitely impossible, and the outsourcing platform can provide relatively short-term part-time jobs, which may be completed in one or two hours." According to this calculation method, there will be more than 10 million job opportunities per year in the future. ”

Clinton continued to ignore the men around her, asking, "Can there be a million jobs based on standard working hours?"

Simon shook his head directly: "No, Hillary, the Igrete outsourcing platform is essentially a part-time platform, just to make up for the lack of human resources in Silicon Valley, and at the same time outsource relatively low-end work in order to save costs." Therefore, this platform is actually more suitable for school students who need to earn living expenses and housewives who can earn money to support their families in their spare time. If someone wants to rely on this platform to live exclusively, that's fine, but it requires a certain amount of expertise. ”

Simon is not one of these Washington bigwigs, he needs to pay attention to domestic employment at all times, and he will definitely not slap a swollen face in front of these people, so he will tell the truth.

1 million jobs, how can it be so easy?

Walmart at its peak, in my memory, had only 2 million employees worldwide.

However, although it will not provide 1 million jobs, it is not a big problem for the number of registered members of the Igrete outsourcing platform to exceed one million in the coming years, but as Simon and Hillary Clinton said, these are only part-time jobs after all. With millions of registered members, one in ten active users is considered good on a day-to-day basis.

That's almost the equivalent of a very impressive 100,000 jobs.

Glancing at Hillary's slightly disappointed expression, Newt Gingrich said to Simon in a slightly scathing tone, "It seems that this is really just a gimmick." ”

Simon's smile shrugged slightly, "If Newt you have to think so." ”

Bob Dole sensed some of Newt Gingrich's signs of targeting and said, "Simon, I still don't understand this...... Outsourcing platform, but since it is said that anyone in the federation can find a job on the platform, it must be a good thing, can you tell me more about it?"

Simon said, "Amazon, Bob, you should know, right?"

Bob Dole nodded.

Simon said: "Amazon has recently expanded its product range, in addition to books, video tapes and movie merchandise, and will also include clothing, cosmetics and other genres. All of these products require a dedicated introductory page. The current state of the art is not yet able to automatically generate millions of product catalogs, so it needs to be filled out manually. In addition, there are image classification, web page tagging, etc., similar to the most basic outsourcing tasks, anyone with an Internet computer and can understand English can take a work order. ”

Bob Dole waited for Simon to finish and smiled, "Sounds good, it's really suitable for everyone." ”

Vice President Al Gore asked, "Simon, what is the approximate hourly wage?"

Simon turned to Gore and said, "It depends on the proficiency of the operator and the level of the outsourced task, and the most basic filling, marking or classification I just mentioned is definitely not a high hourly rate." If a part-time worker is willing to take the time to teach himself some professional skills such as programming, he or she will definitely earn more than working as a waiter in a restaurant. ”

Simon did not give an exact figure, and one can probably guess that the average must not meet the federal minimum wage.

Bill Clinton, who had been silent just now, finally interjected at this time: "Simon, many of these job opportunities on the outsourcing platform should be taken away by overseas part-timers, right?"

Simon didn't expect Mr. President to get straight to the point.

The Egrett team has assessed in advance that the most basic outsourced tasks are only paid about $1 to $3 per hour, which is shabby for American part-time workers, but if it is an overseas part-time worker in an economically underdeveloped region, the exchange rate may be higher than the formal income.

Take China, for example.

If someone in China can connect to the Internet at this stage and sign up for a member of the Igrete outsourcing platform, even if they take on the most basic tasks and work 10 hours a day according to the minimum hourly wage of 1 US dollar, the exchange rate may be equivalent to the salary of many people in China at this stage for ten days and half a month.

In fact, most of the tasks of the Egrett outsourcing platform are mainly for part-time workers in underdeveloped overseas areas.

It's just that this point will definitely not appear in the official press release.

Simon will not be as honest about this question as he was just now, saying: "There will definitely be some, because the Internet is global. However, due to factors such as language barriers and salary settlements, the outsourcing platform is mainly for part-time workers in the federal territory. ”

The reception room is full of smart people.

Simon's answer was obviously untrue, but several people did not pursue it.

The topic paused slightly, but the other five people in the reception room were not in a hurry to provoke a certain topic, and finally saw the young man in front of him who had created a series of business miracles, and it was definitely only beneficial to communicate with each other more.

Al Gore was quick to continue: "Simon, a lot of people think that investment in new technology is overheated, what do you think about that?"

"Overheating is inevitable, just like when the federal government built a national highway network, and there must have been people at the time who commented that it was over-investing. In the end, it turned out that it was the costly network of federal highways that contributed to the continued rapid development of the postwar economy in the United States. ”

The highway network launched in the United States in the fifties was proposed by Al Gore's father, Gore Sr., and the Gore family also accumulated strong political capital because of this plan.

Hearing Simon implicitly complimenting his father's exploits back then, Al Gore couldn't help but smile, and his affection for the young man suddenly increased.

Hillary Clinton didn't give Simon a chance to get around the topic easily, and asked, "Simon, do you think there's a serious bubble in the new tech market right now?"

The information superhighway plan is also an important achievement promoted by the White House team after taking office.

Since Franklin D. Roosevelt in the forties, no Democratic-born president has been re-elected for half a century, and this has been hanging like a cloud over the White House since Clinton took office.

Now, having lost this midterm election, Clinton's chances of re-election have plummeted.

If the bubble in the new tech industry does not survive the election in two years' time, it will be an even more fatal blow to the Clintons.

Simon didn't really want to discuss that.

In the face of a group of old foxes, he didn't want to be too forward-looking.

Moreover, for the new technology industry that is now being turned beyond recognition by his big butterfly, Simon actually can't see the future clearly.

It's a whole new era.

Taking into account various factors, the development of the new technology industry in the United States at this stage can roughly be equivalent to the level of 1997, that is, about three years ahead of schedule.

However, under the large-scale propaganda and agitation of the Westeros system for several consecutive years, the number of personal computers and Internet access users in the Federation is significantly higher than the level of 1997 in memory, and the development of software and hardware technology is not as blooming as in 1997 in memory.

In any case, if we follow the timeline in memory, the new wave of technology can continue for another three years.

If nothing else, the 1996 election coincided with the height of the dot-com bubble, and it would be very easy for Clinton to be re-elected.

Of course, things are not absolute.

Simon glanced at the two Dole, who were also concerned about this issue, of course, they hoped that the new technology bubble would burst as soon as possible, which would be of great benefit to Dole's seizure of the presidency, and as for the US economy, which was hit hard in the process, qualified politicians probably couldn't care so much.

Therefore, it is difficult to say whether the Republican Party will get in the way and burst the bubble in advance.

After thinking about it for a moment, Simon said in the overt or implicit anticipation of several people around him: "There is definitely a bubble, and there is no way to avoid this in the emerging industries, and it is bound to burst one day in the future." However, in my opinion, compared to the cyclical recession of the federal economy in the past, the bursting of the new technology bubble will only trigger a short-term correction, and after squeezing out the water, the industry will continue to develop at a high speed, because the transition from the electric age to the information age is a major trend. ”

In fact, there are many things that are well known to those who are not lacking in experience.

It's just that no one will take lightly the judgment of the young man in front of him.

Simon did not give an accurate time limit, which was also expected by Clinton and others, and no one could accurately predict such a thing as the economic cycle, otherwise there would not be many speculators with heads and faces who would go bankrupt because of betting in the wrong direction.

After Simon finished speaking, the Clintons looked at each other, mixed feelings.

The couple also realized that when the new tech bubble bursts, it will definitely be closely related to the White House's in-house actions in the next two years, and even to the political game at the top of Washington.

Newt Gingrich finally asked another question: "Simon, how can you be sure that the electric age is a megatrend to the information age?"

Simon looked at the Republican bigwig, with a harmless young smile on his face: "Because many core industries in the information age have been formed, such as personal computers, broadband networks, online websites, mobile communications, etc., these are now hundreds of billions of industries, and will further reach the trillion dollar level in the future." At the same time, related industries will change people's lives in all aspects. I think when all of this develops, humanity enters a new era, doesn't it?"

Newt Gingrich was questioning the extent of the bubble in the new tech industry.

If it's all a bunch of bubbles, there's no future, and the information superhighway plan that Bill Clinton has promoted since taking office is a joke.

Now, after a moment's thought, Gingrich realizes that Westeros is not bluffing at all.

The foundation of an era must be a series of new industries of sufficient size, such as the power and oil industries since the beginning of the electric age in the nineteenth century, as well as the derived fields of automobiles, steel, and chemicals. Not to mention anything else, just the three giants of 'Cisco-AOL-Igret' controlled by the Westeros system have formed a huge emerging industry with a volume of hundreds of billions of dollars.

There is no doubt about the arrival of a new era.

Al Gore, who was sitting on the other side, obviously thought of the same thing as Newt Gingrich, and asked a slightly sensitive question at the right time: "Simon, don't you think that grasping the entire emerging industrial chain of the information age has hindered the development of the new technology industry in the federal government? You must know that only with competition can there be progress and further stimulate the development of the industry." ”

Al Gore was apparently referring to the federal Department of Justice's ongoing antitrust investigation into the Cisco-AOL-Igrett triumvirate, and it was clear that Simon would back down.

Before coming to Washington, he heard that the White House was using the topic of the new technology industry as a cover, and Simon knew that this meeting could not avoid the Justice Department's antitrust investigation.

Simon did not hesitate this time, shook his head decisively, looked at several other people in the reception room, and said: "With the establishment of the WTO, the European Union and other organizations, and the Internet optical fiber began to connect the whole world, globalization has become an inevitable trend, I don't think you have any objection to this, right?"

The five people in the reception room didn't know why Simon suddenly mentioned globalization, and they all nodded slightly, waiting for the following.

Simon continued, "Unlike brick-and-mortar industries that can easily be spaced out, new tech companies that rely on internet platforms around the world will be very easy to expand globally. Take Igrete as an example, we have launched portal business in many overseas countries outside the United States, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, etc., but the layout of these overseas countries is still very rudimentary, and we need to continue to cultivate these overseas markets to reach the point of gaining a firm foothold. For this to happen, our new tech companies must be as strong as our country itself. ”

At this point, the five people in the reception room already understood.

Simon didn't stop there, and continued, "Several of you here are key to the future of the Federation, and I don't need to shy away from it. In fact, we have lagged behind Japan and Germany, the core industries of the electric age. Now, we are about to enter a new era, and if the Federation wants to maintain its economic strength in this era, it must abandon the strict antitrust strategy that has restricted the development of large enterprises in the past, because we need very large new technology companies to conquer the world, and only if we are strong enough, we can completely lose the initiative in the field of new technology industries in those countries in Europe and Asia before they can react. On the other hand, if you continue to focus on the so-called promotion of fair competition and dismantle the industrial giants in which we have a huge advantage, we may be able to repeat the same mistakes as we failed in the fields of automobiles and semiconductors. ”