The joint-stock system is indeed a great creation, it makes it possible to drive very large capital with a fairly small amount of capital, and before the emergence of a large number of joint-stock companies limited by shares, the enterprises that a rich boss could control were very limited, because these enterprises occupied too much of his capital. With a joint-stock company limited by shares, after raising shares from the public, a small capital is enough to control a fairly large enterprise. For example, now, many of the companies under the MacDonald consortium, MacDonald's real investment in assets is not large. For example, a European steel company, Macdonald controls it through an investment company controlled by MacDonald Ventures. The investment firm owns 30 percent of the company's share capital, which is not the majority. However, because the rest of the share capital is scattered throughout the stock market, the second largest shareholder owns less than 10 percent of the share capital, the third largest shareholder has less than 5 percent of the share capital, and the rest are all small and no smaller shareholders.

Therefore, at the shareholders' meeting, 30% of the equity is enough to make all decisions. Because most of those who have dispersed equity will not spend a huge amount of time to participate in the so-called shareholders' meeting for the sake of this equity in their hands. In this way, 30 percent of the equity is almost equal to 70 or 80 percent of the equity in the past. But this is not the end, because the investment company controlled by MacDonald Ventures is not the only shareholder of MacDonald Ventures, and even MacDonald Ventures only holds more than 40% of the shares, and a lot of McDonald Ventures' money actually comes from deposits or something, and it is not all the money of the MacDonald family, and the ratio of bank capital to assets is not even 10%. So all things considered, the MacDonalds actually used less than 2 percent of the total assets of the steel company to gain near-absolute control over it.

Similarly, this economic system makes it easier for big capital to withdraw money from a certain area. If it was in the days of private companies a few decades ago, if you wanted to monetize a business, you could only auction off the entire business, and if you were a joint venture, you could only sell it to a partner or other interested acquirer. In any case, you can't do it secretly, and it can be quite difficult to find a buyer, especially one to use to carry the blame. But under the system of a company limited by shares, things are much simpler. You can sell your stocks in the stock market quietly and little by little. And those who have bought the shares you sold are likely to not know much about what your company is really doing right now. And in the original era of private companies, it is impossible for the little money in his hand to carry your pot. Now you can easily throw a super-large black pot at them silently before the crisis comes. (This kind of thing, friends who have sold the stocks of China's god car all understand)

Now, with the good news of the successful development of oil in Alaska, the stocks of steel shipbuilding are once again generally optimistic, although the price-earnings ratio of these stocks has been too high to see, but all kinds of media, whether it is newspapers, magazines, broadcasts are optimistic about these companies, and the analysis of swears that the prospects of such enterprises are the sea of stars. Hardly any media outlet would jump out and say that the stock prices of these industries are too high.

……

"It seems that we are not the only ones who feel that the stock price is about to have problems." Greystone said to himself. He started out in the media line, and he naturally knows what this phenomenon of all media alignment means. This means that the forces behind these media are expecting these stocks to appreciate quickly, and this expectation is not actually for long-term holding, but for quick profit exit. Therefore, the emergence of this phenomenon means that big capital is generally not optimistic about the prospects.

"Are our funds coming out as planned?" Gladstone asked the secretary.

"Mr. MacDonald, we started early, and we have already withdrawn from what we planned to do." The secretary replied.

"Good." Greystone said. The stock price has not yet reached a significant peak, but Greystone does not seek to ship at the highest point. It's not realistic. Because the highest point is followed by a plunge, the closer you are to the highest point, the more dangerous it is, and the more conspicuous all the actions are. In addition, their shipments are so large, they may not be able to go out in a short time. Therefore, Greystone will not pursue any highest-point shipments. Moreover, the money earned from this kind of highest-point shipment is only a small amount of money compared to him. Although it is a small amount of money, it is really sweet. But no matter how sweet it is, it is not as sweet as big money. At a certain moment, it is the most important thing to grasp the general trend and promote the development of the general trend.

……

"Dad, according to all the information we have got, the MacDonald consortium is already selling their shares in steel and shipbuilding. I think they probably think that the current economic situation is not optimistic. Morgan Jr. said to his father, "Also, I noticed that their divestment in Europe was more pronounced. So I have a guess about what they do. ”

"Tell me about it." Morgan continued to lie in the rocking chair, raised his eyes to look at his son, and closed his eyes again.

"I wondered, does that mean that MacDonald thinks war is near?" Morgan Jr. said.

Morgan opened his eyes suddenly, his body swayed in the rocking chair, and he sat up straight.

"Dad, you think, if they are just going to take advantage of the possible new crisis in the future, then it is understandable that they are quietly selling some assets that are sure to plummet in the future, but there are indications that they are even moving some of the bank assets in Europe back home. This is not normal. Morgan Jr. continued, "Normally, when a depression bottoms out, they should start buying heavily undervalued companies, whether in the U.S. or in Europe." There will be a lot of such opportunities, so under normal circumstances, they should not throw so many things in Europe, because if they throw too much now, their influence on the European government will be relatively reduced, so that when they are at the bottom of the depression, there will be a lot of disadvantages. MacDonald must have had other considerations in making such a decision. ”

Speaking of this, little Morgan looked at his father a little nervously.

"Go on." Morgan said.

"Yes, Daddy." Morgan Jr. said, "I think there are only two possible considerations for McDonald and they are pumping money back from Europe to the United States, one is efficiency and the other is security." First, in general, Europe will always be more depressed than the United States, which means that by that time, those companies will be more undervalued than in the United States. So buying them at that time should be slightly more efficient than acquiring a business in the United States. Of course, in terms of security, in Europe will face restrictions from established European consortia such as Rothschild, which is naturally inferior to that at home. But considering Rothschild's mistake of rashly abandoning the United States, and even leaving an unreliable way back, he should not have withdrawn so much capital in Europe at this time. So, I think, the only possible explanation is the same: MacDonald judged that in this round of depression, there would be a war in Europe, and the scale of the war would be very large, so big that it would get completely out of control. ”

"You come and tell me this." Morgan said, "You and your secretarial team should have more analysis, right?" Such suspicions alone are not enough. ”

"Yes, once we had this suspicion, we tried to collect more data and combine it and study it. Dad, you told me that in this day and age, most of the secrets can be studied from the flow of money. So we took a hard look at the dynamics of the companies that we had gathered from McDonald, and we came to some conclusions.

First of all, although this round of prosperity is inevitable of the general situation, if we pay attention to it, we will find that this boom began with MacDonald's lease of oil fields to the Germans. And this deal, just in terms of the deal itself, is not particularly beneficial to MacDonald. Although this can obviously promote the emergence of the boom, the emergence of the boom is inevitable, a little faster and a little slower, is it really worth MacDonald sacrificing his own interests to serve the public? ”

Speaking of this, little Morgan smiled, the MacDonald family specializes in hypocrites, don't look at what they say is very good, but they will never do anything to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the public.

"And what are the results of your research?" Morgan asked.

"The MacDonald family controlled the excitement of this boom and controlled the direction of the flow of money through this incident. In this respect, although they did not make much money on the deal with the Germans, they still took advantage of it as a whole. Not only that, but we also found that there was a large-scale flow of funds in the two directions of shipbuilding and steel. And we all know how strong MacDonald is in these two directions. In this boom, too many shipbuilding companies have appeared in the United States, especially those that build those container ships. Too many steel companies, especially those that produce ordinary crude steel. When something goes wrong with the economy, the value of these businesses falls below cost almost immediately. And if war really breaks out, Europe will definitely order us in large quantities, and shipping, shipbuilding, and steel will be very profitable at that time. Before the outbreak of the war, MacDonald took most of the enterprises in one fell swoop, and then after the outbreak of the war, he did not know how much money he would make on this. So we suspect that MacDonald may be preparing for a large-scale war in Europe. ”