Chapter 40: The Big Short (27)
In fact, Contini is deeply observing the trend of the entire market, the situation in Europe is actually worse than the United States, the United States at least has the foundation of the previous 8 years of prosperity, and there were problems in the economic recovery of Europe in the past few years, in addition to the Italian industrial level is under the leadership of the United Group by leaps and bounds, the economic growth of other countries, especially Britain and France, has been hovering at a low level, of course, Italy is in the best situation, after the United Group announced a donation of 100 million and passed the 9-year compulsory education program, the Italian stock market quickly stabilized.
When the reporter intentionally or unintentionally clichΓ©d the theory of "Italian exception", Contini's expression suddenly became very strange, he didn't know how to explain and pick up this sentence: Italy's industrial double-digit growth is by no means the credit of normal development, but the result of his investment of a large amount of American money, in other words, Italy's industrial boom is completely false fire, and it takes a long time to absorb before it can become the real strength of internalization, but he can't expose the secret of this topic, so he is very embarrassed, Fortunately, he later got into Schumpeter in a hurry.
Joseph Schumpeter was an important representative of the Austrian School, 10 years earlier he had served as the Minister of Finance of the Austrian Mixed Cabinet of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, and had published a monograph on the "Theory of Economic Development", which was published in 1926 and was substantially revised, adding a significant subtitle - "Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest and Economic Cycles of Enterprises", which clearly put forward the theory of innovation and summarized the "five innovations".
When talking about Italian exceptionalism, five innovation models are used: product innovation, process innovation, market innovation, resource allocation innovation and institutional innovation, such as the development of Bailang multi-interest and PVC is product innovation, and the use of natural gas instead of coal to achieve thermal power generation is process innovation, for example, Italy's overall layout of the whole European, American and Far East markets is market innovation, and the allocation of resources is simpler - the origin of the Algerian company is in Algeria, but the export delivery place is in Tripoli; Finally, there is a lot of talk about institutional innovation.
Schumpeter's system is a small system - refers to the reengineering of enterprises and business organizations, such as the flat matrix management of the United Group is a typical organizational innovation, but the president talks about the fascist and the organizational innovation of the three flags with a clear conscience, and teaches Americans a political lesson, believing that Mussolini "genius-like, comprehensively inaugurates" the fascist cause, and the three banners unite the 40 million Italian people, and the United States should also learn from this method, closely rally around the government with President Hoover as the core, and abandon partisan prejudices. Regional prejudices, class prejudices, going to national disasters together, not saying things that are not conducive to unity, not doing things that are not conducive to maintaining the image of the government, and working together to strive for a prosperous and powerful United States, heard President Hoover's tears and was moved, and took the lead in standing up and applauding the president......
The audience in the audience also responded enthusiastically, and the original "Theory of Economic Development" became a New York Times bestseller the next day, and the bookstore advertised with the slogan: Top Secret Recommended by President Ziano, Except for Italy; A classic economic masterpiece that you must read in your life; By reading this book, you will grasp the mystery of the rise and fall of the economy...... The limelight even overwhelmed John Maynard Keynes, who had always argued with Schumpeter, and even vaguely outperformed him in the academic worldβat least Keynes had not yet been able to write the General Theory.
Everyone reveled in the trap of self-fulfillment and self-prophecy, except for one below, who quietly listened to all the speeches and said to his wife, "This is a big liar......
"Winston, why do you say that?" The woman next to her covered her mouth and said in disbelief, "I think he's right!" The success of the United Group is indeed due to innovation, and if you look at their products, many of them have a good reputation......"
"Not at all, it's the reverse effect." The fat man who spoke just now shook his head and said, "I can see very clearly the secret of the success of the United Group, that is, he uses a variety of industries to package loans to Wall Street, and then on the one hand uses this loan to develop a part of the industry, on the other hand, he uses these funds to support other situations in Italy, and then continues to raise funds to Wall Street to package ......."
"So can Great Britain?"
"Great Britain can't, because Great Britain is a democracy, and it will not allow an enterprise group to span multiple economic fields, will not allow an enterprise to control the national economy and people's livelihood, and will not allow this enterprise group to get involved in state power, so our consortiums and enterprises are gang after gang, opposing each other and checking and balancing each other, which is an effective means of supervision." The fat man smiled, "His joint group doesn't even have a shareholders' meeting, and the board of directors doesn't exist, except that Ziano is an Antonio, who will supervise and restrain him?" β
"But he didn't make any mistakes......"
"How do you know he didn't make a mistake?" The fat man retorted, "With a system like Italy, even if he makes a mistake, will it be exposed?" He is completely covered by the regime, so he wants to boast vigorously about the superiority of the regime system and the wisdom of the three banners -- this is not a political viewpoint that he has invented himself, he is playing a trick to say that he is wise. β
At this point, the identities of these two people have been revealed: the fat man is named Winston Churchill, after the British family, after the British family, he served as the Secretary of the Navy in World War I, and later served as the Secretary of State for the Air Force, the Secretary of State for War, the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs and many other prominent positions, in May 1929, the British held another general election, in this election Churchill himself narrowly won, but the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party were defeated nationwide, and Ramsey MacDonald's Labour government returned to power. Churchill was forced to leave the government out of opposition, and apart from criticizing the government's proposal for Indian autonomy and deciding to negotiate with the Congress Party, he spent most of his time in parliament writing, including "World Crisis" and "My Early Life", which are already in serialization, as well as a biography of his ancestor, Duke I of Marlboro.
In order to seek all kinds of materials and experience, he took his wife Clemona to visit the United States, ready to visit people from all walks of life and political leaders in the United States, expand his influence, and his first public appearance in the United States was invited to listen to the second summit forum composed of Contini and a bunch of economists.
"My dear, I think you are being a bit alarmist, and while it is true that the United Group has a special position in Italy, it does not have that special status in the United States...... Isn't he still in the mix? β
"There are two tricks here, first, he moved a lot of money back to Italy, the latter has a very small economy, do you think Germany started to recover from the trough with the 3 billion dollars in the Dawes plan, Italy itself has a weaker economy than Germany, and the United Group got even more dollars, how can it not develop? Second, his joint group has never been profitable as a whole, and every time he talks about making a profit, he says that he is investing in new projects, and there will be better prospects, which is essentially an expansion of a Ponzi scheme, but people easily believe his explanation, because he is really expanding all kinds of industrial fields, but if you look closely, what else can he expand? Or is there any other field where there is a lot of room for him to enter? β
Clemena closed her eyes and thought about it carefully, as if there was really none, all the heavy industries that she had an impression of, the United Group was all involved, and the scale was very large.
So he started running trains again, what is the development of southern Italy, what is the upgrading of agricultural science and technology, what is the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in the Far East, what is the Pearl Belt around the Mediterranean, what is the Eurasian Economic Belt - all liars, how much money does it take to rely on these? Can it be played in a small Italy? Churchill laughed, "The reason why I drew this grand blueprint for you is to cheat more money out of you......"
"But there will always be a day when things will be revealed!"
"That's where his brilliance lies, he's not like a normal Ponzi scheme that ends up busting, he's pushing for the economic crisis and the stock market crash β blowing it up to raise money, fighting it down to pay off debts, and if you remember it well, he issued a whopping $1.5 billion in convertible bonds last year, all of which became shares of the United Group this year, and now it's down at least more than half." Churchill smiled, "He first took 1.5 billion from you, and then gave you something that is said to be worth 2 billion and will continue to rise, and then after a year it causes market turmoil, so that this thing suddenly depreciates to less than 1 billion or even lower, and then uses people's panic to buy it back, you see, what did he gain after such a magic trick?" β
"He took 500 million for nothing!" Clemena exclaimed, "Winston, how do you see that?" β
"I can't see anything else, but there are two things he missed: First, when the newspaper criticized him for using the Union Bank to lend 4 billion yuan to Europe, you and I are from Europe, if Europe suddenly has an extra $4 billion in funds, will it still face a lack of economic vitality? So I guess he used the 4 billion for speculation, or at least most of it was used for speculation; Second, he signed a contract worth $4.4 billion with great fanfare a year ago, so why did he suddenly break it? And it's such a neat, indiscriminate break, don't you think it's a little too crisp? Unless he makes other arrangements and other arrangements, it is enough to get back the 500 million. Now that I see the U.S. stock market crashing, and then I think he used to say that 300 points is the starting point of the U.S. stock market, there is only one conclusion, he is turning the clouds and rain......"
"It's just your guess, isn't it? You don't have any proof! β
"Yes, of course it's my guess, you know that people my age are used to intrigues, what kind of characters I haven't seen?" Churchill laughed, "If I'm not mistaken, there must be a huge force behind him manipulating all this, otherwise the American business community and Wall Street would be so cooperative?" β
"I kind of believe what you say, you're not going to expose him, are you?"
"Debunking?" Churchill laughed, "I'm not that stupid!" Who would dare to say this kind of thing until the last minute? And he's not alone, he has a gang, and if I dare to risk the condemnation of the world, I guarantee that I will die an ugly death, unless one day I can become prime minister, which is almost a bit of status...... Of course, it is even more difficult to count on the Labour government, MacDonald is still saying that he wants to learn from the advanced experience of Italy, I bah, what advanced experience does Italy have? β
"If you know that, why don't you give it a try?"
"First of all, this set of things has been played once, and the second person has played it unrealistically; secondly, Great Britain is too large to be brought by the United States, and the United States can also drive Italy; Third...... How could I be in this situation in the UK? Churchill said enviously, "He is so young, I didn't have such a good opportunity when I was young." β
"No, you have a good chance, otherwise how would you become the youngest minister in the cabinet?"
Churchill's old face flushed: "Madam, let's talk about it, we can't dig the bottom...... Who hasn't gone in the past? "Hegemon of the Mediterranean