Friday, 28 November 1997, Lanfang City.

The ringgit has been falling for three full weeks. All over Lanfang, 90,000 people have mixed joys and sorrows, and they look like all beings.

From the very beginning, many people believed in the persuasion offensive of the monarch Zhu Youdong and the big capitalist Gu Kun, and converted all the cash and savings they had into renminbi, and escaped the catastrophe.

At this moment, the mentality of this part of the people is very stable, and some even have a sense of intellectual superiority.

When they look at their neighbors who refuse to believe and disobey, they are as happy as smart people gloating when they see ignorant old people who have been deceived by health care product sales.

And those who are pinching the ringgit still hold on to a glimmer of hope.

Thoughts such as "Anyway, I am also in the country to earn my own money, and I don't go abroad, it is my business to temporarily depreciate a little bit, anyway, I can't do anything in this life, I don't do anything, and the less I move, the less chance I will have to be deceived".

On the other hand, they also fantasize that the depreciation of the ringgit is temporary, and as long as the Malaysian authorities take it seriously and launch a counterattack, they will be relieved.

It's a pity that this kind of self-paralyzing obscenity doesn't last long, and the Lanfang people feel the pain of exchange rate changes even faster than people from other countries.

Because the Lan side is different from any neighboring country, the Lan side is a country with a mix of two currencies!

Even on the other side of the river, in Sarawak, Kuching, after the depreciation of the ringgit, the price did not go up because everything there was denominated in the ringgit. The depreciation will only increase the price of imported goods, and will have no impact on self-production and self-consumption.

Usually, if an item is sold for 10 yuan, the price in the store is "RM10/24 yuan".

After the sudden depreciation of the ringgit, merchants generally learned that the price tag of "24 yuan" for a 10 yuan item was still hanging there, and the "10 ringgit" label was secretly removed.

In this way, the merchant does not have to say that he has raised the price, he only needs to say that he is trading according to the RMB price.

If there is the kind of person who firmly believes in the ringgit and has to buy something with the ringgit, the merchant will not refuse to accept it. But I will take out a calculator and calculate it at the current exchange rate, and tell you that RM10 is only equivalent to 18 RMB, and to buy this item with a price tag of 24 RMB, you have to pay 13 yuan for RM5.

Love to buy or not to buy.

Therefore, those who don't believe in Gu Kun have felt the change of cold and warm quickly within a week or two.

At the moment when people's hearts were bright, on the "Lanfang Daily" that day, as well as on the public broadcast of Lanfang Radio, there was finally some good news, which made people's hearts settle down.

As mentioned earlier, Lan Fang is too small to have a television station, only a newspaper and a radio station. Although the radio thing is too backward in 97, it also has a wonderful use, that is, the transmission rate of this thing is relatively efficient:

In Lanfang, where there is only one core of the main urban area, some super-powerful loudspeakers are hung outside several high-rise buildings, just like air defense sirens, and when the monarch makes an announcement on a major event, they can be directly broadcast to the whole people. There is no need for the audience to be idle or at home with the machine on and be able to hear it when they walk on the road.

“…… In order to cope with the recent financial crisis in Southeast Asia and save the people, His Royal Highness decrees the following: ......"

IN THE BROADCAST, BLABLA SAID A BUNCH OF OUTLINES OF THE SUBSIDY POLICY FOR THE PEOPLE, WHICH IS ROUGHLY SIMILAR TO THE CONTENT OF GU KUN'S ADVICE TO ZHU YOUDONG, SO I WON'T REPEAT IT.

Anyway, at the end of the broadcast, let everyone see the detailed manuscript in the "Lanfang Daily" of the day.

All the people were in a stir at once.

"Your Highness and Boss Gu are so merciful, and they actually give subsidies to those fools who refuse to abandon the ringgit? It's a pity that it's a bit of a good person. ”

"It's not necessary to be a good person, let's look at the details. ”

In the tea restaurants and restaurants, there are also entertainment and leisure places where various crowds of people gather, and they have been discussed as soon as the radio announcement came out.

In these places, newspapers are usually sold, or there is a newsstand at the door, and the common people have to pay for it: "Boss, a copy of Lanfang Daily." ”

"I want two. ”

After a while, the Lanfang Daily finally sold a total of 30,000 copies, four times more than the usual thousands of copies, more than one per household.

Everyone is eagerly beginning to understand the details of the subsidy policy.

……

A small fishing village not far west of Lanfang Port was not far from the former residence of Gu Kun at the beginning of his rebirth.

Liu Min's family, the shipwrights and sailors hired by their family, and the relatives of the sailors are also gathering together at this moment, listening to the radio, watching the news, and learning about the policy.

This Liu Min is, of course, Gu Kun's neighbor a few years ago. Under normal circumstances, his men would not have gathered like this, mainly because today happened to be the day when the ship returned after half a month at sea, and the families of the sailors were worried, so they would gather here to pick up the ship.

In the past few years, Liu Min has not taken the ladder of Gu Kun before, so he can only rely on himself to snowball, so the development is not fast, and after three or four years of hard work and exploitation, the family property has barely risen to one million ringgit.

According to the custom, Liu Min would invite all the sailors' families to a light meal on the return day, which was regarded as a courtesy for the fisherman's family.

When they got ashore, they just heard the radio and bought a newspaper to find out.

Among these sailors, a few of them did not exchange their ringgit for RMB because the young people had gone to sea in the past half a month, and there were only uneducated old people at home, and they were closed and conservative and did not dare to believe in the government, and now the loss is not small, so of course they are particularly concerned about these policies.

"Ah Da, look at what the newspaper said, what is the method for the subsidy for the elderly? We have no culture and can't understand wow, in the days when you are not there, your father and I are afraid that the government is a liar, the state has called for the ringgit to exchange the yuan several times, we have not dared to change it, how can it be good now, buy things with the ringgit on the street, the price has risen by three percent! The money is worthless!"

The person who asked this was the mother of one of Liu Min's sailors.

This situation is actually quite common in Lanfang, mainly because there is only one child in the family, and a little bit of culture usually has to take ideas, but because it is normal to go to sea for half a month and no news, if there are only old people at home, everyone thinks they are liars, and the government does not respond to anything called, so they miss the exchange period.

If there are two children in the family, the work will generally be staggered, and there will be no young people at home for half a month, and this problem is not obvious.

The sailor, who is also at the level of Chinese at the beginning and is coarse in writing, heard about his parents' troubles, and quickly checked the relevant terms, and then actually breathed a sigh of relief:

"The newspaper said that considering that a large number of people who have not converted the renminbi are middle-aged and elderly people who are closed to information, and a considerable part of the losses are the pensions accumulated by the people throughout their lives. Therefore, the Gu Kun Security Fund is willing to provide a unified subsidy to the middle-aged and elderly citizens over 50 years old.

However, because there is no commercial insurance company to provide pension business in Lanfang, Gu Kun Security Fund is willing to pay a one-time Malay commercial pension insurance equivalent to a 10-year premium to this part of the people, and the policyholder needs to pay for the remaining 5 years...... However, this kind of insurance can only be used by Malay nationality, Lanfang people can't use it, you have to enjoy it, you have to become Malay. ”

Those people immediately made a bitter face: "Of course, it is best to go to Malay to have a pension, but Malay doesn't want waste immigrants like us." ”

Lan Fang has only been in the country for 14 years, so most of the people do not have old-age security, and they mainly rely on their children to earn money to support the elderly.

The people do not feel that the state owes them, because pensions are reserved for workers and clerks. Originally, fishing and agriculture were the main focus here, and farmers and fishermen have long felt that it was natural to have no pension.

And when it was colonized as a "protectorate", the colonial dog was even more bone-sucking and never said anything about pension. The older generation is used to being enslaved by colonial dogs, and they feel that the welfare of Zhu Youdong in the past ten years after he became in power has been much better than the original cloth era, and they are very satisfied.

Now the state is still helping to buy commercial insurance from neighboring countries to hedge risks for the depreciation of everyone's pension savings, which is too benevolent.

Liu Min is the most well-read and knowledgeable in this group of people, so he said something to solve everyone's doubts: "If you really want to immigrate, it is still easy to go to Kuching, just pay an insurance and buy a house - now the financial crisis, Malay is also facing a shortage of hot money, they have a lot of commercial insurance, and there is also a risk of breaking the capital chain, so now to take over those Ponzi plates in Malaysia, there will be special discounts."

As for house prices, the subsidies given by His Royal Highness are all denominated in US dollars or RMB, and the house prices in Kuching are in ringgit, which is equivalent to a direct drop of 25% in house prices. In addition, I see that the current Kuching house prices have fallen sharply, the newspaper said that by the beginning of next year, after the Spring Festival, the house prices will fall by 30%, and the exchange rate will be at most half the price, maybe it will fall even more. ”

The house that Gu Kun bought for his sister when she was in high school in Kuching at the end of 94 is equivalent to nearly 5,001 square meters in Kuching City.

In 94, Gu Kun bought a house in Nanhai Port District, Guangdong, which was only one or two thousand, and the city center spent four thousand. It can be seen that at that time, N-tier cities like Kuching were more valuable than first-tier cities in China like Guangdong.

However, after the Southeast Asian financial crisis, the dollar/renminbi denominated price of those houses has been cut in half.

Now if I go to Kuching to buy a house in the core city, it will only cost more than 2,000 yuan per square meter. If you don't consider the children going to school, they are willing to buy the suburbs, and there are more than 1,000 square meters, which is equivalent to only 200 yuan per square meter in US dollars.

In this way, the subsidy of US$5,000 from the Lanfang Charity Foundation to each household is enough to redeem a 25-square-meter one-bedroom mini apartment in the suburbs of Kuching during this trough period. Although it is very cramped to live in, it can reach the bottom investment limit of the immigration policy.

Who made the Malays themselves desperately find hot money during the crisis? You have immigrated in the past, and you will have consumption and labor in the future.

Those who had suffered losses from stubborn occlusion before breathed a sigh of relief.

However, there are also a few other sailors who have no elderly people at home and have always listened to the call of the government and the big capitalists, and they are not happy to hear this: "Isn't this bullying honest people? Those who don't listen to persuasion are subsidized, and we like us, who have been responding to the call, have not made any money?"

Liu Min was afraid of causing a split among his sailors, so he hurriedly dissuaded: "You can't say that, you have changed the renminbi in advance, and there is no loss in the first place! Besides, after reading the policy in the newspaper, is it good or not?" Later, it was clearly stated that for other nationals, there is always the benefit of taking into account fairness, but in order to be famous, it is not called a subsidy. ”

Hearing this, the young sailors who were not alive with their elders balanced a little: "What are the benefits? ”

Liu Min glanced at it, pointed to a piece and said: "Isn't this written like this? In view of the fact that the beneficiaries of preferential A will no longer retain the nationality of the Lan side, preferential B is specially provided, and Pratt & Whitney insists on holding the nationality of the Lan side.

With effect from 1 January 1998, the personal income tax threshold was raised from the fixed rate of US$300 on 1 January 1984 to RM1,000 per month. You still have to pay income tax, and you don't have to pay it when it goes up! Isn't that a discount?

Besides, there's more to come, it's not over yet......"

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