"Lord Duke, I'm having a hard time, do you have any good advice?" said Benjamin with a wry smile.

Solomon smiled silently, and it was not until Benjamin wanted to speak again that Solomon said, "Dear Prime Minister, some of the previous disasters have indeed caused you great trouble, but I am not the one who caused it. ”

"It's the reaction of the will of order, right? Some people have observed that the sky above the Emerald Continent was once shrouded in the shadow of a big tree, and some people say that it is the legendary World Tree, the embodiment of the will of order, don't say you don't know. ”

"Doing things always has to pay a little bit to get rewarded, and I think that the next time if there is a floating city in the sky, the will of order will not have such a big reaction, because he will also get used to it. Solomon laughed, "Because in his eyes, we are all 'our own people.'" ”

"I hope so. Benjamin said, "But you know, that's not what I actually mean. ”

"Oh, so what are you trying to say?"

"The stock market is falling, some people have gone bankrupt, the banks can't get back what they lent, and thirteen small and medium-sized banks have announced their closure in the past two months, and if this continues, I can't imagine the consequences. Benjamin stared at Solomon.

"Isn't that the lovely place in our world that people go bankrupt every day, and that makes them rich? I'm not the savior, Prime Minister, as if I can't solve this problem for you, and you shouldn't ask me for help. ”

"You know the consequences, if this continues, it will cause a chain of reactions, our goods will not sell, and a lot of businesses will go out of business. We need you, we need you to come out and help stabilize the situation. ”

"It is. This is the inevitable result. Benjamin. I can't change anything. Or if I stand up and help you, maybe I can delay it a little, but then it will still explode, and it will be more powerful, even God can't stop it, unless he can brainwash his followers so that they don't need to eat, drink, or money. Solomon sighed.

"So why is this happening? The floating city you built has been lifted, and our production capacity will become more and more developed. Solomon, if you don't tell me why, and help me, if there is a wave of closures that I fear, I have to declare that it is all caused by the catastrophe that caused the Floating City to rise into the air, which caused the violent reaction of the will of order. Benjamin's eyes widened.

"These are two events of a completely different nature. Solomon frowned, "The signs you said are already there, and if the Treasury personnel hadn't eaten their meals, there was a good chance that their predictions would have happened, and if they did, they would have been as out of control as dominoes." But that's the root cause of our problem. It's not a deliberate attempt by anyone, or a common result of almost all of them unintentionally. ”

Solomon casually picked up a box of matches in front of him. I tore open the box and grabbed a handful out of it, about twenty of them, "If our society produces a total of twenty matches, after which this income is distributed in this way." ”

He put aside ten of them, indicating that this is the cost of basic materials for social production, and then took seven more and shook them at Benjamin and said: "These seven are the profits of the owners of the company's assets, and the remaining three are the labor costs, that is, they are issued to those producers." Some bosses will pursue higher profits, so they may get eight or nine, while the producer only gets two, or even one. ”

"How do the bosses use the profits that belong to the owners of the assets, of course there are extravagant guys among them, but the more ambitious people will invest in reproduction, and the more conservative ones will be deposited in the bank, and the bank will not just collect deposits and not lend them out, and the bank is not a charity. ”

"You're trying to say that even the part of the bank is actually put into reproduction, and it's all for the sake of ......," Benjamin said.

"In order to make more matches, the boss can get more profit in the next profit distribution. "But have you ever noticed a problem? That is, to whom is the newly produced commodity finally sold? A boss may have hundreds or thousands of workers, and he gets seventy percent of them, and even if he consumes it, it is limited, and it will be lent out indirectly if it is deposited in the bank; ”

Benjamin's face became extremely difficult to see, although the Ministry of Finance gave him a detailed report, predicting that the situation would worsen based on some of the phenomena that had emerged, but the root cause was not as clear as Solomon in front of him. In the distribution of social income, the owners of assets get most of the profits, but they are always a minority, no matter how extravagant, there will be a large amount of surplus, more people will choose to invest in the reproduction link, in order to obtain more profits, but after reproduction, the profits are transformed into capital, and the capital has to be sold if it wants to generate profits again, and those producers who work for the owners of the assets, they are also consumers, but the income is divided into their share of the cake is very small, and their purchasing power cannot support the new goods after reproduction。 Of course, it doesn't matter if it's just one or two, like a drop of water in the sea, a piece of sand in the desert. But if this relative surplus is very severe, it will create a crisis, and the situation that Benjamin is now fearing when he gets the report from the Treasury Department enters the crisis he describes.

"That sucks. If the goods cannot be sold, the enterprises fail, and then the banks cannot collect the loans, the banks will also fail, forming a vicious circle, and the unemployed workers will also make trouble. Benjamin said.

"Yes, but when it happens, it may also start with the stock market, because the stock market is supposed to play a regulating role, and once the role is not played, it may be reflected first like a barometer, and then affect some financial institutions directly related to it, and then enter the vicious circle you just mentioned. "So sometimes crises are the first to manifest themselves in money and finance." ”

"Arcane Skynet is useless, he can only make production capacity grow faster, but it can't solve the contradiction between the two. No. There could have been hope. Benjamin said suddenly. "If the Arcane Skynet were only available to Asturias. If other countries can't use it, the goods we produce can have a clear competitive advantage at a better price-performance ratio, so that even if there is still a crisis, but the crisis is holistic, and we can benefit as individuals in it, just like the story goes, the bear is coming, you don't necessarily have to outrun the bear. You just need to outrun your little buddy. Damn, Solomon, you can't quibble this time, Arcane Skynet could have saved Asturias, but you gave others a chance to get their hands on it, giving someone else the opportunity that belonged to Asturias. ”

"No, no, Jebenming, the arcane Skynet would not have been built so quickly without the participation of other countries, and besides, this thing can also be imitated by others. When the time comes, you have a net, and I have a net, how boring it is. To be the first to be accepted is to have others accept your standards, which is not a bad thing. ”

Benjamin said arrogantly: "I don't care so much, now it's up to you to find a way to stop the crisis." ”

"As I said, there's no way to solve or stop it. The relative surplus between the growth of productive capacity and the underconsumption is the root cause of the crisis, or rather it is a problem of redistribution of profits, which is unsolvable. In addition, our individual company is organized in production, and it can even be said that compared with a single similar company, whoever is more organized and who is more advanced in technology will be more likely to succeed and will make greater profits; As a result, repeated production and vicious competition will appear, and a bear you just said will be produced behind their butts to chase after them, and only the one with the most competitive advantage is the fastest one to survive. And if there are too many people who run slowly and are eaten by bears, it will also cause the outbreak of the crisis, or exacerbate the consequences of the outbreak. ”

"The way, what I want to hear is the way, Solomon, I understand what you said, now you have to think of a way, at least not to break out during my tenure, and not to erupt during my term of office. ”

"There is no absolute way for this to happen, only to find a way to sell more goods. But you are unlikely to force the Titanians, Auroras, Saxons to buy unless Asturias fights them, but this is definitely not a good idea. So the only way to get them to buy things is to give them hope and make them think that they can also sell us things, because we will have a crisis, and they may have it now or in the future. ”

"You mean?"

"Although there is no way to cure the root cause, if you treat the symptoms, it is nothing more than opening up sources and reducing expenditure. That's what you need to do on your own, and the cabinet should try to negotiate with other countries, build long-term alliances, open the market to each other, and whoever can sell more depends on their ability. If you can establish a relationship that reassures everyone, then the countries can reduce their military spending and reduce internal friction on the Azure Continent. And externally, of course, to open up more markets, don't you think you can cooperate again as you did last time? You see, we are competing in disorder in Yugudral, and on the continent of Falmalik, we are also dragging each other back, and as a result, the Free Alliance has developed into an empire, which has harmed our long-term interests, in Langlisa, in Oga, in Arcanea, in Valencia, in Ereb....... If we unite and distribute the benefits internally, there will be no aborigines as our opponents, and what we can get and control will be more than what we have now, and these places can develop more markets. ”

Benjamin's eyes finally showed a hint of relaxation, and the prescription that Solomon had prescribed for him, if it could be realized, would not solve the root cause, but it could cure the symptoms.

"But there are still some problems, such as the workers, and the people who are so poor that they don't have a place to sleep. You know there are factories in many places where they employ the dwarves of Black Rock, and the Farucion, and the Yugudral, who are not our citizens, but who are working for us. The methods you said will take time, and once the situation deteriorates, these people are the poorest and the easiest to live, and they will make trouble and demand **** power, and the Fury Party will support them to a certain extent, because the expansion of votes will be beneficial to them. ”

"When such a situation happens, of course, it is repression. Solomon said unhurriedly, "Don't let them spoil the overall situation." ”

"Resolutely suppressed?" said Benjamin, stroking his head.

"Resolute repression. Don't worry, it won't be long before I give you a separate gift that might help you. Solomon said.

"What kind of gift, tell me now, so that I can have a bottom in my heart. Benjamin said busily.

Solomon had no choice but to say, "I am still waiting for news." This news originated from some of the High Elves of the Emerald Continent before, and I mean the guerrillas in the north, who implicitly offered us to establish trade relations through intermediaries to support them in resisting the combined attack of the Orc Court and the Centaurs there. ”

Before Solomon finished speaking, Benjamin had already clenched his fists and said: "Sell to them, anything, why don't you sell it, we are not their main enemy now, great, what do they need?"

"Wait, listen to me. Solomon reluctantly said, "Their purchase is part of what I want to say, but it is impossible to expect this part to solve the crisis in Asturias." The key point was that I agreed to trade and sell them all kinds of things they needed, and on the other hand, of course, I was trying to find a way to scout their situation, so I found that this elven guerrilla force of the Northern Liberation Front seemed to have built an interdimensional teleportation channel. ”

"Aren't elves very averse to creating long-standing teleportation channels?" asked Benjamin.

"Nothing is set in stone. Now, according to the information that has been reported, the alien plane connected to the teleportation channel established by the elves is a very large plane. Solomon said slowly.

Benjamin's eyes lit up suddenly, and he asked tentatively, "If our goods can also be sold to this plane." ”

"Then your life will definitely be better, maybe in the future it will be Austin and his companions who will be the trouble you are experiencing. Solomon said, "Say, is this a very good gift?"

"Of course it is, of course it is. Benjamin rubbed his hands and said, "Solomon, when the Fury Party took advantage of that incident before, I knew we had gone a little too far, but I hope you can understand that I didn't mean to, and I really succumbed to the opinion of the majority of the party members, who thought that they should take the opportunity to get more Skynet equity from you." ”

"It doesn't matter. Solomon said with a smile.

"Then I'll wait for your good news. Benjamin concluded, ending his visit to Solomon.

After sending Benjamin away, Solomon sat for a while longer, until one of his secretaries handed him some small notes, which usually contained messages that needed to be reminded of him in various ways.

He flipped through it, and the general view in front of him stopped at the penultimate one, which said that today, Skynet Management Company had detected another abnormal fluctuation, the last time it appeared was three months ago, during the shipwreck of the Titanic.

There is nothing strange about this kind of fluctuation, but the strangeness lies in the fact that no matter how you trace it, you can't find the original source, which is the strangest thing, because no matter how you disguise and pass it on the Skynet, as long as you use it, as long as you have enough time, you can still find the original source, but it may not be timely, and when you can find it, the other party is no longer in the original position, just like the old Jimenez used the authority of the shareholder to ask the Skynet Management Company to determine the location of the last connection to Skynet by Rand.

"Give me as much information as I can about the Titanic shipwreck. Solomon gave the secretary a thoughtful command, and then turned the page and looked down.

The last one is the latest news from the "Mole" from the Northern Liberation Front, who has come into contact with the Xenoplane, which the High Elves call Besda, and the area that the High Elves are now exploring is an island known as the Summer Twilight Islands.

"At all costs, we have to resolve a spatial coordinate there. Solomon said. (To be continued.) )