……

To Tang Huan's surprise, Warren Buffett quickly followed.

So, the world's richest man and the world's second richest man stood next to the car and chatted.

Tang Huan quipped: "When I sold the shares of IT companies such as Yuan and Zheru Software before, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch were both trustees and made a lot of money, but I didn't see Henry Paulson and David Komansky send me out;

"I'm not like those people. Warren Buffett replied bluntly: "I'm the boss, and they're like the manager of your team, and they'll eventually leave because of retirement, poor performance, and so on." Of course I care about you for a long time. ”

"Thank you for believing in me. The richest man laughed loudly, and at the same time muttered to himself that the other party could understand.

Indeed, for the next eight years, the CEOs who sit dog-like in the tenth-floor conference room of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will be lucky to retire in their entirety.

Seeing that Tang Huan's posture at this time was not as strong as he had shown when he was besieged by Wall Street bigwigs before, Warren Buffett continued to confess: "I think you need an intermediary between the two of you, and I am willing to play this role." ”

"I believe in you. Mr. The richest man nodded approvingly, "However, they can't continue to lie on their backs and doze off until the next negotiation comes." ”

Warren Buffett, who has a lot of interests with Tang Huan, seriously reminded: "Since last year, the operation of California high-speed rail has been seriously affected by local negative factors such as California's power crisis and California's strict environmental protection laws. You have to see the subtlety of this. ”

"Don't worry, the first one who can't stand it will definitely not be me. Tang Huan waved his hand confidently, "Compared to these upright and upright schemes, I am more interested in those possible small means. As you saw just now, someone brought out the old-fashioned things like 'Fu Manchu' and 'Yellow Peril' to attack me. If this kind of trouble continues, there may really be no room for maneuver in the future. ”

Warren Buffett took off his glasses and wiped them to hide his distress, and finally sighed: "I will remind these daring guys not to touch such a sensitive bottom line." ”

"Let's hope I don't end up dying. Tang Huan squinted his eyes at the Federal Reserve Bank building in New York, waved goodbye to Warren Buffett, and got in the car to go to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where he often stays in New York.

……

Wall Street, who has been playing the game of "raising pigs and killing pigs" for I don't know how many years, is greedy and mean, and it has gone deep into the bone marrow.

Take Merrill Lynch as an example, the richest man has taken care of its business, but its performance today is like that of passers-by, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a white-eyed wolf that cannot be fed.

Tang Huan's step-by-step pressure on Wall Street, of course, has been prepared for a long time, but he still needs to assess the timing of throwing the bomb.

For example, during the bursting of the bubble, many investors who were fooled by securities companies not to sell Internet stocks needed time to accumulate resentment against Wall Street.

For this reason, Mr. the richest man met with several media people who were concerned about this aspect of the situation in the hotel, and he could be regarded as finding out to what extent the "public discontent is boiling".

After Tang Huan fell asleep, he was woken up by his assistant and asked him if he would return to the West Coast of the United States in the afternoon.

"The itinerary remains the same. Mr. The richest man nodded, "Since yesterday, this has been someone else's home field." ”

The assistant hurriedly went to inform Silicon Valley Unit 1, and Tang Huan hurried to wash.

When he returned to the living room, the richest man couldn't help frowning, only to see a waitress cleaning.

found that Tang Huan walked out, and the other party hurriedly apologized: "I'm sorry, sir, I thought this place had been checked out, so I came in to clean it." ”

The richest man said gently: "Then you can go to other places to get busy first, I will use this room for a while." ”

The waitress raised her head, unexpectedly revealing a pair of peach blossom eyes, and looked at Tang Huan boldly, "Sir, do you need special services?"

"Don't insult my wisdom. The richest man raised his hand and pointed to the door, and said lightly: "Go out." ”

The waitress turned around, but did not move her steps, but shook her hips slightly, showed off her electric hip dance, and teased: "Sir, I am really good......

Tang Huan, who was harassed and lost his patience, raised his foot and looked at the trembling **.

The waitress who rolled to the door got up in embarrassment, scolded "castration" in annoyance, and fled.

……

In the traditional box office off-season in the United States in March this year, there was a big hit, that is, "Never Compromise" starring Hollywood's highest-paid actress Julia Roberts.

The indie film topped the North American weekend box office charts for more than $30 million in its first weekend of release and held that position for four weeks in a row, even in May.

As a feature film that does not use special effects as a selling point and focuses on pure storytelling, the reason why "Never Compromise" can achieve such fame and fortune is naturally inseparable from the special social background.

First of all, the main reason is that last year's large-scale power outages around the world were really impressive, especially in the United States, and the power outages in Canada made Americans empathize, and then made everyone curious about the topic of electricity.

And the main reason for this is that the power crisis in California is getting worse and worse, and people are suffering.

Who would have thought that such an economically developed state comparable to a large country would be tormented by a lack of electricity.

Of course, the frustration should be vented, criticizing California Governor Gray Davis for his incompetence, accusing Enron of hoarding, and scolding local energy companies such as Pacific Watt Power for playing tricks......

In this way, in "Never Compromise", the Pacific Watt Electricity, which led to the hexavalent chromium water pollution incident, was defeated by a single mother and a rookie in the legal profession, how is it not very happy?

What's more, in terms of the production level, artistic connotation, starring performance and other qualities of the movie itself, "Never Compromise" is also excellent.

These praises are not limited to the traditional film critics, but also the platforms that have developed in the bubble, such as Amazon's Internet movie database, the Rotten Tomatoes website where "Son of Tang" plays tickets, and other platforms have also given positive reviews.

It can be said that in the invisible avenue, "Never Compromise" played the role of a "weapon" entrusted to it by Tang tycoon, and widely aroused people's disgust with the lack of social morality of energy companies.

At this time, compared with the limited interaction that traditional media can provide, the advantages of online media are further revealed.

People who do not vomit or feel unhappy can easily find like-minded people in cyberspace and express their opinions heartily. A single blog post analyzing the pros and cons of California's electricity reform could easily receive hundreds or thousands of likes.

It has to be said that the bubble burst, but the blog has been proven to be a successful application of technology. The most telling example of this is the increasing shift in traditional business marketing to blogging platforms.

It's just that blogging, which is an innate feature that anyone can become a media publisher, is also a double-edged sword. It is both good and evil, and it all depends on how it is used.

Take Mr. The richest man, the chief promoter of the blog, on the other hand, has been subjected to all kinds of bizarre and specious attacks in the emerging media environment he has created, and there is quite a posture of "don't stop if you don't make a stink", so that the traditional media, which has always been "steady", have also begun to pay attention to the dynamics in this regard.

Professional black media outlets like the New York Post have even taken such nonsense, excerpted and summarized such nonsense, and then put it on newspapers that have long formed cognitive inertia and are considered to be more "authoritative".

Its more and more sensational views can be summed up as follows: there are such as the richest man in Tang, Tang IT, Tang tycoon, Tang Wenhao, Tang Jinzhou, Tang Shanren, Tang Dr., Tang Shi, Tang Sheng...... and so on, Tang Huan is more terrifying than the "Fu Manchu" described in movies and comics, and it won't take a few years to control the United States and even rule the world.

seems to be adding fuel to the fire, and recently a major incident broke out that may seriously hurt Tang Huan's "undefeated golden body". A waitress accused Mr. The richest man, a careerist who was portrayed as an attempt to conspire to control the United States and even rule the world, sexually assaulted her when she entered the hotel room to clean up.

As soon as this news came out, it suddenly stirred up a thousand waves.

The doubter laughed: Don't be funny, for so many years, Tang Tycoon has never seen anything in Hollywood, and the possibility of getting tired of playing and becoming crooked is hundreds of times greater than forcing such a vulgar fan......

The crusader was dismissive: what was there to be a man like Don who cared about freshness, and perhaps a woman of good family was more exciting for him.

seems to be a kind of evidence of the lack of reasoning, Tang Huan only through the office spokesman, painlessly stated the sentence "Those who are clear are self-purifying, and those who are turbid are self-turbid", and then he stopped speaking.

Almost overnight, the "hotel door" of Mr. the richest man overshadowed the "zipper door" before US President Bill Clinton.

The paparazzi were like crazy, chasing and intercepting Tang Huan everywhere, hoping to get the news, but it wasn't until the California high-speed rail held a media briefing that they were able to meet Mr. the richest man.

Due to the California power crisis, Enron robbery, civil aviation industry counteroffensive, California environmental protection pressure and other negative factors, California high-speed rail seems to have a sign of decline, even some California high-speed rail employees have said that their confidence, only hope that the richest man with strong financial resources, will unconditionally support California high-speed rail.

Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that the atmosphere of this media briefing was a bit heavy.

Jerry Brown, chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, clarified what the rumored California high-speed rail may take to raise fares, take large-scale employee rotations, and even lay off employees.

Originally, Tang Huan, who was sitting calmly and helping the California high-speed rail stabilize his position, didn't want to participate, but he couldn't stand the reporter's repeated disruption of the rhythm of the media briefing, so he reluctantly agreed.

However, Mr. The richest man was directly outraged by the first throw-out trap problem around the so-called "hotel door".

"Are you too stupid to see that this is a series of despicable plots against me?"

"You really don't have the patience to wait until the truth is revealed to the world at the court session the day after tomorrow?"

Tang Huan said with a gloomy face: "If people don't offend me, I won't offend people;

The reporters in the audience watched cheekily as the richest man brushed his sleeves away, while recording intensively.

Next, I couldn't wait until the next day, and there were reports that "Tang was angry because of the 'hotel door'" on the same day, and they rushed to pop up.

Soon, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, one of the most influential and one of the largest cases in the United States, opened the "Hotel Door" trial.

Tang Huan disdained to be there, but many media interpreted this as: I feel sorry for myself and avoid embarrassment. After all, who wants to be tortured until now if the relationship can be cleared up earlier.

The lawyer on the side of the richest man is George Conway, who once represented US President Bill Collinton in "zippergate".

Now with the "hotel door", it is self-evident how George Conway shines brightly.

However, George Conway did not respond to any questions from the reporters who flocked to him, and walked straight to the court with a serious face, but the plaintiff was rightly put down his harsh words, and demanded justice, etc.

The ensuing developments exceeded all expectations.

This lawsuit, which was supposed to be pushed back and forth for several rounds, took only one morning, and there was no need to waste any more time.

According to the media's summary, George Conway didn't bother to talk nonsense, and quickly took out a video to refute all the accusations.

This evidence illustrates three key points to the outside world:

First, the richest man's security protection is so thorough that it is estimated that even the president of a country is not comparable, and he has installed surveillance in the suite he lives in.

Second, the waitress who sued, who was very problematic, just entered the suite, and took out a bottle of what seemed to be a perfume and sprayed it.

Third, the richest man really had a "violation" move, kicked the waitress to the door, and after the other party cursed a few words, he left stupidly.

George Conway said with a serious face: If the other party has a problem with bruises, his client is willing to pay compensation, but this kind of slander, as well as the conspiracy that may be hidden behind, will never be tolerated.

The waitress who pretended to be a pitiful victim at the beginning, cried and begged for mercy in court, and it was only because she was facing bankruptcy and desperate that she had a bad idea and wanted to blackmail Tang Huan for a windfall.

The most unscrupulous media, seeing that this incident was not a hot celebrity sexual assault case, quickly turned to the bottom of the behind-the-scenes conspiracy after being disappointed.

As a result, the unthinkable happened.

A few days later, the waitress who was rumored to want to write a book about the experience so that she could sell it for a sum of money to pay off her debts was found dead in her rented apartment.

The New York police concluded that it was probably too much stress, which led to a nervous breakdown and finally hanged himself.

The media, which was originally chasing after each other, was like a deflated ball, and they all looked left and right to talk about other things.

……

Fortunately, another big event that happened immediately gave these people the opportunity to use their expertise.

WorldCom, which is trying to merge with Sprint, the third-largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, in a $129 billion merger to remove AT&T from its throne, but is temporarily stuck in the United States and the European Union's regulators, has been found guilty of egregious financial fraud.

The cause of the turmoil was Bernard Ebers, the CEO of WorldCom. This old man's personal investment failed, and his financial situation was on the verge of bankruptcy, so he asked the board of directors of WorldCom to help him get a loan of 400 million US dollars, but it collapsed and infighting.

Among the chicken feathers, some people disclosed two pieces of news on the increasingly lively blog: one is that in the past two years, WorldCom has falsely reported its operating income of several billion US dollars; the other is that after WorldCom successfully acquired MCI, the book value of its fixed assets was reduced from $14.1 billion to $10.7 billion, and this difference of $3.4 billion was used by WorldCom to fill other holes.

Furthermore, WorldCom's top management, from the CEO to the chief financial officer, auditor, chief accountant, and so on, were aware of and involved in this systematic financial fraud.

In this regard, WorldCom's first reaction was to flatly deny it: Don't believe it, everyone! We have acquired many companies along the way, including MCI, to achieve today's achievements, and now we are talking about merger with Sprint, so there are many people who have offended, maybe who is spreading rumors with malicious intentions.

As soon as the words of the WorldCom Company landed, Arthur Andersen, the world's largest accounting firm, hurriedly withdrew the audit report of the WorldCom Company.

This move was so meaningful that all investors were suddenly suspicious, and the stock market, dragged down by the bursting of the bubble, made waves again.

You must know that WorldCom is also the "darling" of Wall Street, often calling itself a "star" in the securities market, and its stock price is more than $64, with a market value of $180 billion.

It was precisely because of this aura that WorldCom was able to raise $37 billion, forcing out the richest man and snatching MCI.

But now, the marriage between WorldCom and Sprint is basically going to be empty.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission immediately launched an investigation into WorldCom, and KPMG, another of the world's Big Four accounting firms, took over Arthur Andersen's audit.

Before these two companies could reach their outcome, WorldCom's stock was sold off like crazy, and its stock price went straight to the single digits.

At this time, there are no securities analysts who are clever and confusing, what market is correcting normally.

Gain, the investor who suffered from the crackdown, is no longer willing to be fooled.

What's more, Wall Street itself is cocooned.

In the case of banks, Morgan and Citigroup have not lent less to WorldStone, and the latter alone has given nearly $400 million, with the result that their stock prices and creditworthiness have fallen.

The bad luck was followed by pension funds in various states in the United States, such as the New York State Pension Fund lost $300 million, the Michigan Pension Fund lost $116 million, and the Florida Pension Fund lost $90 million.

……

Warren Buffett, who came to "Chang'an City" to spread the word, said with palpitations: "I finally understand, why they were staring at you before, it turned out that they had long known that they wanted to take real high-quality assets to offset their mistakes." ”

The richest man asked calmly: "Old friend, have you been affected?"

Warren Buffett happily replied: "I have never touched technology stocks, even IBM, which was the most stable performance at the beginning. ”

"That's good. Tang Huan nodded, "The scandal of WorldCom will have a bad impact beyond the scope of the United States and cause the collapse of the global telecommunications industry." ”

Upon hearing this, Warren Buffett was taken aback, "It's not going to be so bad, is it?.COM How long has the bubble bursted, and the telecommunications industry is going to collapse with it?"

"What's so strange about this?" the richest man analyzed as a matter of course, ".COM bubble encouraged the telecom industry to build lines like crazy, and now that the bubble has burst, it has led to an oversupply, and of course the market has to 'correct'." ”

"I'm afraid that this 'correction' is also because of you, so it came so lively. Warren Buffett smiled wryly: "Now, Wall Street's credit is in an unprecedented crisis. The meaning over there, that's the end of it, even if everyone is tied. ”

"They say to fight, just fight?" they say stop, just stop?" Tang Huan, who did not deny that he had done anything about it, sneered: "I'm sorry, my punch only hit half the distance, and I really can't hold it!"

Warren Buffett was stunned and asked, "What else is there about the collapse of the telecommunications industry caused by the bursting of the bubble?"

Mr. The richest man shrugged his shoulders, "I'm only responsible for lighting the fuse, as for where it will burn and explode earth-shattering, it's up to fate." ”

Looking at the strange light in Tang Huan's eyes, Warren Buffett muttered to himself, "You mean, I can't stop it?"

……

As the richest man said, the outbreak of the WorldCom scandal triggered the collapse of the global telecommunications industry.

Alcatel, Vivendi, Vodafone, BT, Deutsche Telekom in Europe...... No one was spared.

To cite one of the most representative examples, Deutsche Telekom's share price, from more than 100 euros, slipped "gracefully".

The Germans, who have always been conservative, did not like to speculate in stocks, and it was only after the wave of technology stocks that swept the global capital market in recent years aroused their interest, but now the cruel truth tells them that it is better to abide by their own traditions and live honestly.

In short, the bursting of the .COM bubble and the collapse of the telecom industry marked the end of the great bull market.

Those who are the latter can only consider themselves unlucky, but those who have mistakenly believed Wall Street intelligence must be full of complaints.

……

Just as the people were struggling to go up and down, another major earthquake struck.

Arthur Andersen, the world's largest accounting firm that helped the Ministry of Justice in the accounts audit of the United States of America, was also exposed after retracting its audit report on WorldCom that there were also major problems with the audit of Enron.

Investors, who have become frightened birds, immediately fled without asking what was going on.

You must know that Enron, which controls the price of electricity in California, has already been praised by Wall Street at this time to more than $90, and its top management has further promised investors that the stock price will rise to $140 a share.

As a result, Enron itself has now been harvested.

In fact, as early as March this year, an expert in the field of economics published an article analyzing that there were problems with Enron's profit model, which was not as clear as it advocated.

But this voice of skepticism was quickly drowned out by the sound of analysts reading the report.

If a person drinks water, he knows whether he is warm or cold.

Similar to the investigation process of WorldCom, before the US regulators have reached the official results of the investigation of Enron, certain phenomena have been told to the outside world, don't leave anything to chance.

For example, Arthur Andersen itself disintegrated first.

The reason for this is, on the one hand, it is rumored that the US Department of Justice will prosecute the "habitual offender" Arthur Andersen accounting firm in the name of obstructing justice, so that Arthur Andersen can no longer conduct audits for other companies according to the provisions of federal law;

To put it bluntly, Arthur Andersen's brand is hopeless, so let's hurry up and find a way out.

As a result, other accounting firms that were originally ranked behind Arthur Andersen began to frantically carve up Arthur Andersen's resources. After the Justice Department officially launched the indictment, Arthur Andersen was left with a shell.

Investors are crying and grabbing the ground: Liars! All special codes are liars! World-class star enterprises cannot be trusted! The world's No. 1 accounting firm cannot be believed!

Invisibly, this resentment has also affected the US election.

It is clear that US President Bill Collinton's performance in the "zipper door" is an outright liar.

In this context, voters are increasingly looking for the next president of the United States to put morality first.

No wonder the people have such simple thoughts, the Enron scandal is more complicated than the WorldCom scandal, because this energy company has also been involved in the political arena, providing millions of political ~ governance donations for politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom.

It is no exaggeration to say that those who have been involved with Enron have no good results.

Those who took out their coffins and bought Enron shares were the most pitiful and doomed to lose all their money, and the institutions that had an affair with Enron would also pay an unimaginable price.

Morgan of the Wall Street Journal, accusing them of being an accomplice behind the "Enron affair," now deserves it.

This deserved sin is not only about the loss of savings, the imminent sky-high fines and compensation, but also the loss of credit.

In the face of media questions, Sanford Weir, the chairman and chief executive of Citigroup, finally said, "I would rather never know that there was such a company as Enron." ”

This meaningful sentence shows the subtle mentality of Wall Street bigwigs at this stage.

At this moment, there was another strange scene.

Kenneth Lay, the former CEO of Enron, who resigned, died suddenly while on vacation in Snowmass, Colorado.

Pitkin's police, given the conclusion that heart failure.

Four days later, Kenneth Lay's ashes were buried in an undisclosed location on the local mountain.

Such a once dominant business tycoon is not comparable to the waitress who can't be blackmailed and doesn't even bother to ask for his name.

Fortunately, the media has experience this time, so they will not lose their voices collectively in an instant, and they have turned to more representative topics, ignoring everything else.

?