Chapter 533 Debt is a knife
Chapter 533 Debt is a knife
”How is it possible?!”
Dawn City, conference room of the Alliance Internal Affairs Building.
President Melvin, sitting at the conference table, looked at the box full of black and white chips on the table, his eyes almost popped out.
As soon as the celebration was over, he couldn’t wait to find the manager of the Alliance, intending to negotiate with him about the principal and interest of the tens of millions of chips generated by the 510 million debt.
As the president of Boulder City Bank, every loan of the Alliance came from him. He had asked his most astute accountant to keep a close eye on every account expenditure of the Alliance, and even kept a close eye on Lister, Ditwei and other “insiders” who had close contacts with the Alliance. No one knew the “financial situation” of the Alliance better than him.
They definitely couldn’t pay the principal and interest of 10 million chips at the end of the year!
How could an organization that relied on borrowing to develop have a surplus of cash? Not to mention the huge trade deficit, the country bumpkins in the northern suburbs have been operating at a loss for a whole year!
In fact, this is a rotten house full of holes and holes in the debt and deficit. They have overdrawn too much of the future in order to win the war with the Legion. Melvin is sure of this, so he sat opposite Chu Guang with full confidence.
At present, shrinking the balance sheet to repay the debt is almost the only way out for the alliance. If they don’t reduce the debt scale to a reasonable range, they will wait for bankruptcy!
Melvin doesn’t think these guys with muscles in their brains know much about economics, but he won’t watch this house that was built with great difficulty collapse.
He will help the alliance pay back the money.
But the premise is that the alliance must agree to the additional conditions he proposed!
For example, open the free exchange of silver coins and chips, so that part of the bubble of the local currency can be squeezed into foreign currency.
It would be even better if the exchange of Cr could be further opened!
If Chu Guang agrees to let the chips be replaced from silver coins to Cr to pay off the debt, Melvin is even willing to use half of the debt of the alliance in exchange!
Those cattle and horses work hard for themselves, of course, but in the final analysis, isn’t it for them, the masters, to enjoy better?
Going to Ideal City is undoubtedly the ultimate enjoyment!
However, what he never expected was that the Alliance actually paid back this loan that was absolutely impossible to pay back? !
Even the principal and interest to be repaid next year were prepared…
”Do you want to count it?” Looking at the stunned Melvin, Chu Guang smiled faintly and said, “I heard that the chips are produced by something like a black box, so there should be no possibility of counterfeiting, right?”
”Ahem… I believe you will never do that kind of thing, but…” Melvin couldn’t help looking at Chu Guang, “I want to know where this chip came from.”
Looking at Melvin’s suspicious expression, Chu Guang smiled and said frankly.
”This is a reasonable request. If someone in the Alliance suddenly takes out a large sum of cash, we will also ask him to explain where the money came from.”
Melvin nodded.
”Then can you tell me?”
Chu Guang did not hide it and said frankly.
”Your shareholder lent it to me.”
Hearing this shameless answer, Melvin’s eyes widened, and he no longer cared about elegance and decency, and said angrily.
”How can you borrow new debt to repay old debt!”
Chu Guang said with a smile.
”Our loan agreement only stipulates that we cannot use the debt issued by Boulder City Bank to repay the loan of Boulder City Bank. It does not stipulate that we cannot raise funds through other issuance channels to repay existing loans.”
”But this does not solve any problems at all!” Melvin said angrily, “Do you know what you are doing? The scale of your debt will become larger and larger, and in the end the debt will crush you. Not only our money, but everyone’s money will go down the drain!”
He finally began to realize the problem of risk.
However, what made him angry was not that the alliance irresponsibly increased its own risks, but that he clearly had a better solution here!
However, the man in front of him chose the worst one on his own initiative!
”We have no choice,” Chu Guang said, looking at Melvin whose blood pressure was rising, and he slowed down his tone and comforted him, “Your consumption capacity is too weak. We also want to sell some good things to you, but your residents can’t afford it. And it is really difficult to fill the trade deficit by just selling some low-value-added basic resources to your factories… Anyone with a little common sense knows that sand can’t be more expensive than cement? And almost 90% of the cement you produce is sold to us, how can we fill this hole by just selling sand?”
Melvin said angrily.
”Then you… can’t use this method! What’s the saying of paying off old debts with new debts! This is the most irresponsible way!” The
reason he lent money to the alliance was that he believed that the alliance could pay back the money, but now the alliance’s actions have made him begin to doubt whether the alliance intends to pay back the money!
”But we have abided by everything we agreed on,” Chu Guang reminded Melvin calmly, smiling at him, “At the beginning, you asked us to import more of your things and reduce the trade deficit between us, and we did it.”
And it was done so thoroughly.
The alliance, which received a loan of 200 million chips, not only obediently turned its surplus into a deficit, but also shot itself in the foot by increasing its labor costs, making the cheap consumer goods in Boulder City increasingly competitive in the alliance market.
Melvin stared at Chu Guang with a gloomy look.
He really couldn’t accuse the alliance of not keeping its word. The alliance even put the principal and interest to be repaid next year in front of him, so the heaviest word he used from beginning to end was just irresponsible.
There is no doubt that this is immoral.
Even if there are ten thousand reasons, it can’t change one thing. The alliance is constantly dumping the inflation caused by its over-issuance of its own currency.
”What about the year after next? The year after that? Ten years later?”
Chu Guang said with a faint smile.
”By then, the alliance may already have ten or twenty survivor settlements. Will we need your money?”
Melvin’s brows relaxed a little, but they were still tightly knitted.
The size of a company and its dividends are two different things. The bigger the company, the more money the investors get. Until now, Chu Guang still has not given up on the most fundamental issue.
”You are worried about the risk of the chips, right?” Chu Guang keenly saw the concerns in his eyes and gently pointed them out.
”Yes,” Melvin did not hide it and simply admitted it, “but I am worried that if you continue to play like this, the bubble may burst before the cashing out. Now I understand your tricks. We are using our own credit to endorse your debts.”
”That’s too polite,” Chu Guang coughed lightly, and continued in a gentle tone, “Well, I have a suggestion that can solve your problem of ‘earning too much local currency’.”
Melvin’s hands unconsciously grasped the armrests of the chair, and his eyes were fixed on Chu Guang who was sitting opposite him.
”What’s the proposal?”
”We plan to issue something called bonds, which you can understand as monetizing debt to a certain extent.”
When he heard the word “bond”, Melvin stood up and was about to leave. However, Chu Guang’s next sentence made his butt, which had just left the cushion, sit back down again.
”Bonds that are redeemed at the price of chips… In fact, we have already issued them.”
”Why didn’t you tell me–” Melvin’s eyes suddenly narrowed, looking at the chips on the table, and then looking at Chu Guang, his eyes gradually became clear, “So that’s how you got the principal and interest in this way.”
Chu Guang smiled faintly.
”This is actually very reasonable, isn’t it? Sand can’t be more expensive than cement, but roads, railways, houses, and bridges are more expensive than cement. You don’t need to build those things anymore, but we do, so you can just use the local currency you earn to buy the bonds we issue.”
Melvin squinted and stared at Chu Guang.
The Alliance did provide him with a solution to the problem, which was to put the excess local currency in a pool that was denominated in local currency and would never depreciate.
However, this still did not solve any fundamental problems.
Seeing that Melvin was not tempted, Chu Guang sighed in his heart. This guy is indeed one of the few wise people among the inner city nobles.
Seeing that he was about to turn, others wanted to step on the accelerator to the bottom, but he realized that he had to step on the brakes and look at the road.
In terms of ability, neither Old Charlie nor Minister Sun Ruicai was his opponent. If the Alliance really took out the card of balance sheet reduction after the department meeting, then the Alliance would have lost from the beginning.
But this is not their fault.
People from humble backgrounds are natural radicals. Most of them support dramatic changes, but they are often limited by their own limitations and still use the old methods summarized from past experience, thus becoming conservative in action. Or they have some foresight and realize that the previous methods do not work, so they take an unimagined path and finally scare everyone. Fortunately,
Chu Guang comes from a civilized society, where there are many professional and non-professional players flooding the forums, and they discuss every day how to make the alliance better.
”Limitations” will not disappear because of loud voices and talking a lot, but they can be reduced through exchanges and communication.
Game guides are often born in this way.
”I promise to gradually open up the exchange of chips and silver coins in the future, and the exchange of silver coins and Cr is of course open to you.” Looking at Melvin who was thinking in his heart, Chu Guang further threw out the biggest bait.
Chu Guang could feel that when he said this, Melvin held his breath for a moment, and a hint of heat flashed in his calm eyes.
”I don’t just want a promise,” Melvin stared at Chu Guang intently, “You said you would keep your word, so write it down on paper.”
”No problem.”
Chu Guang nodded happily.
Seeing his relaxed statement, Melvin was stunned, thinking that there was something fishy, and quickly added a sentence.
”You have to sign your name on this paper!”
”Haha, that’s for sure! Such an important agreement, of course you have to sign my name.”
Chu Guang laughed happily, looking at Melvin who was completely relaxed, and continued.
”Five years, just within five years, we will fulfill all our promises! It just so happens that the minimum repayment period for the bonds we issued is also five years. In this way, you can put the bubbles in this barrel called bonds for five years, and wait until five years later to take them out at a time and exchange them for silver coins, or simply exchange them for Cr… How about this idea?”
Even though he consciously concealed his joy, Melvin couldn’t help but smile.
He stood up from the conference table and walked towards Chu Guang, who also stood up, and shook his hand with a relaxed brow.
”This is a great idea! As long as I see the specific documents, I will help you issue the bond immediately… Thank you for considering us so carefully!”
Although a satisfactory result was achieved, Melvin still kept a trace.
That was to hint to Chu Guang that he would not agree to Chu Guang’s help in issuing chips-denominated bonds until he saw that verbal promise become a legally binding document.
If the alliance really intends to become bigger and stronger, it will not joke with its own laws.
Chu Guang happily shook his hand and nodded with a smile.
”You’re welcome. Helping you solve the risk is also helping ourselves.”
”What we pursue has always been a win-win situation!”
…
Chu Guang was not joking with Melvin, and every word he said was the truth.
The alliance really didn’t want the bubble of Boulder City to be punctured so quickly.
Even if all bubbles will burst in the end, it will have to be after his plan is completed and the impact on the alliance is minimized!
So Chu Guang paid enough attention to Melvin.
On the same day, he drafted a plan for “free exchange of chips and silver coins” and signed his name on it openly.
As a side agreement, Boulder City Bank will serve as one of the alliance’s bond distribution channels, helping the alliance distribute chips-denominated bonds.
In addition, Boulder City Bank will guarantee that the alliance’s bond trading system can be successfully launched in Boulder City!
In this way, the nobles in the inner city can not only invest in chips-denominated bonds issued by the alliance more conveniently, but also freely sell the bonds on the trading platform.
Just move your fingers to complete the transaction!
This has become a highly circulated financial product!
People who buy bonds don’t have to worry about the five-year investment return cycle being too long. They can just sell the bonds in their hands when they need money.
Now there are so many wealthy people in Boulder City, there will always be bosses who have too much spare money to spend, and they are interested in the interest rate spread of a few points!
As the agent issuer of this “financial product”, Boulder City Bank can naturally benefit from it, and it doesn’t have to bear any risks like Lister.
Melvin returned to Boulder City excitedly that day with her baby daughter and a group of bodyguards, bringing back this great news.
He solved a problem that no previous Boulder City Bank had solved—
exchanging chips for Cr on a large scale!
”Send a written letter to our shareholders! Tell them that a shareholders’ meeting will be held at 9 a.m. tomorrow, at the same place… It’s not about dividends, but something more important than dividends! Tell them that we are about to witness history!”
In the ruins just a few streets away from Boulder City, Melvin called his secretary, his face flushed with excitement when he spoke.
He couldn’t wait to tell his shareholders the good news!
Alyssa, holding a rag doll, looked at her father with a worried look, a hint of sadness in her eyes.
She could only see a little bit of news from the newspaper after everything happened.
And her father almost never told her anything about work, so she didn’t know what agreement the Alliance and Boulder City had reached.
But Alyssa always had a bad feeling…
Will it really be so smooth?
…
It’s not just Alyssa who is completely out of the matter who has similar concerns, but also the big boss Weijia, who runs the largest business in Boulder City, who is a real figure.
And unlike the little girl’s blind worry, Weijia’s worry is not a castle in the air, but comes from the account books generated by the actual operation of the business!
And the problem he is worried about is much more specific than the president’s little daughter who can’t see anything.
Products exported by factories in Boulder City to the Alliance, or things imported by the Alliance from Boulder City, are mostly settled with chips.
This is not only the requirement of Boulder City, but also the basic demand that best meets the interests of most people here.
After all, no one wants to believe in a currency that is over-issued at will and has no anchor point.
However, now, Weijia found that he would rather the Alliance company settle the payment with silver coins and keep the silver coins in the Alliance’s account, even if he does not have a channel to directly exchange silver coins for chips.
The reason is simple.
The rate of chip inflation is too fast!
The raw materials that can be bought with 1 chip this month will become 2 chips next month. The supplier is not very willing to pay attention to him who pays with chips, and even asks him to pick up the goods at the Alliance train station himself, because the road from the Alliance to Boulder City is too difficult to walk.
Even if the Alliance has a 1:2 listed exchange rate, what does it matter?
99% of people cannot exchange 1 chip for 2 silver coins!
If you want to exchange currency, you can either go to the black market or buy some things from the alliance market that you don’t know when you can sell them, and then transport them to Boulder City to slowly trade.
Weijia himself didn’t expect that he, a person who mainly deals in food, would have a pile of copper ore bought with silver coins in his warehouse…
”Aaron, can you believe it? Sometimes I envy my competitors.” On
the third day after the end of the alliance celebration, and also the second day after the shareholders’ meeting of Boulder City Bank, Weijia, sitting in the office, was staring at the account book in his hand, pressing his brow with a headache.
Aaron is his secretary and one of his few confidants.
When the city hall was surrounded, it was this guy who contacted the captain of the factory security team, Alec, and planned everything behind the scenes.
Hearing the boss’s voice, Aaron was slightly stunned and asked in a low voice.
”You mean… Mr. Ditwei?”
Weijia sighed and nodded.
”Yeah.”
Didiwei Nutrition Paste.
There was a time when Didiwei Nutrition Paste relied on the cheap labor and raw material costs in the northern suburbs to squeeze out the market of Weijia Business in Boulder City. He therefore regarded Didiwei as a thorn in his side.
Fortunately, Didiwei was obviously not as smart as Lister, or he was a little stubborn. If the alliance had not praised him to a height that he should not have, that guy would have been a small businessman at most in his life.
Weijia knew very well that the shareholders behind him had actually given that guy a chance, but that guy was very disrespectful and never thought of getting a black card or taking out a part of the profit to make arrangements. So he just spent a little bit of trickery and cleared him out of Boulder City.
But now Weijia is a little envious of that guy.
I heard that Didiwei Food Processing Factory has completely transformed and started to process feed and agricultural fertilizers, and it is doing well in the agricultural market of Luoxia Province.
Maybe this is the so-called industrial upgrading?
On the contrary, although the factories under his Chamber of Commerce are also improving their production lines, the direction of improvement is completely different.
For example, the Good Taste Food Processing Factory.
In order to allow the survivors of Boulder City to consume the nutritional paste, he had to reduce the cost of the nutritional paste. Only in this way can the survivors of Boulder City, whose wages are not high, afford it. The other part of the slightly better quality is sold to the Alliance. Although the residents of the Alliance have long stopped eating that thing, Frostspear Ranch will buy some to mix with feed to feed cattle, sheep and pigs.
Ordinary people do not have foreign exchange quotas, but ranches engaged in business and production activities have foreign exchange quotas. As long as the purpose is declared through formal channels, the chips can be used to settle the payment.
However, even so, the problem of inflation is too serious. Even if the customer delays payment for only one week, the materials that can be bought with this payment will be reduced a little bit. It doesn’t matter if I can make more next month, but the problem is that the growth rate of profits is increasingly unable to keep up with inflation.
He really doesn’t know where all this money came from in the market? !
He was eager to urge his customers to pay, but he had to please them, because the Export Alliance had become the only hope for Weijia Commercial Bank to maintain its profits, and it was almost impossible to expect those poor people in the outer city to consume his products… Those malnourished people were mixing sawdust into the nutritional paste!
Weijia could feel that an invisible hand was constantly taking away his profits, but he was troubled by not knowing what to do?
Blame the Alliance for spending too much?
That was his top customer!
If the Alliance’s feed mills and ranches stopped importing his nutritional paste from tomorrow, he would have to shut down the entire nutritional paste production line!
Otherwise…
use silver coins to settle the payment next month.
This was not a solution.
Although it could solve some of the production problems, the profit line in the account book was reflected in a string of silver coins that could not be taken away. When his shareholders thought of the official exchange rate of 1:2, their faces would definitely fall.
Just when Weijia was having a headache over a pile of accounts receivable in the account book, the phone rang suddenly.
Weijia didn’t dare to neglect anything. He knew very well who could call him, so he answered the phone immediately.
”Hello?”
”It’s me.”
Hearing Sid’s voice, Weijia’s face was immediately full of smiles.
”Mr. Sid, what brings you here… What do you want?”
Sid didn’t waste time talking to him and said concisely.
”I have 500 million bonds here, at a favorable price, 490 million, you can buy them through the bank’s account.”
Weijia, who was originally worried about the tight cash flow, was shocked when he heard this and blurted out.
”…Five hundred million chips?! Where can I find so much money?”
Realizing that his tone might be a little disrespectful, Weijia quickly lowered his posture, bent over the phone, and said with a bitter face.
”… Dear Mr. Sid, I don’t mean to offend you, but the business of the Chamber of Commerce needs funds to buy raw materials. We can indeed use part of the money to buy bonds… but we have to keep the part for production and operation.”
The key is that a few days ago, he had already bought 500 million chips for Sid’s sake, and he really couldn’t take out another 500 million chips!
Sid was also very annoyed.
He never thought that his good brother Melvin would suddenly stab him.
He still had 500 million debts in his hand and had planned to sell them slowly, but the Boulder City Bank also set its sights on the business of selling alliance bonds.
How can he make a profit from the price difference?
When the price difference is not big, even a fool knows to go to Melvin to buy!
But Sid couldn’t say anything.
After all, he is also one of the shareholders of Boulder City Bank.
Melvin’s original intention was to let everyone earn more, and he also had a share of the money earned by Boulder City Bank.
Seeing that Weijia did not agree readily, Sid was unhappy, but still said patiently.
”Just lend me this money first, don’t worry about the liquidity. Boulder City Bank has launched a bond trading platform, which can be traded directly on it, and you can slowly cash out in the secondary market. If it doesn’t work, use those bonds as accounts payable!”
Weijia trembled and didn’t dare to ask Sid why he didn’t go to the secondary market to reduce his holdings, because he knew very well that those nobles would definitely not go to the secondary market to pick up rotten leaves to eat.
In the end, he would probably either have to go to the so-called bond trading platform and gamble with other fools, or he could only watch the money being locked in the account and unable to move.
He no longer cared whether the alliance paid interest or not.
Without working capital, if he didn’t want to go bankrupt, he could only think of ways to sell those bonds or sell the assets of the company…
”Hurry up, just say whether you want to buy or not. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll find someone else.” Sid, who said this, was actually a little impatient.
Does this guy think he has grown wings?
After all, the fact that Weijia Company can earn so many chips is also his own credit and ability. This bastard really thinks that he can make money with his little business acumen.
Let’s not talk about anything else.
If he hadn’t instructed the research institute in the inner city to re-establish the edible standards of the nutrient paste, how could the batch of mud from Weijia Company enter the trough of the pigs in the outer city?
Hearing the impatience in Sid’s tone, Weijia broke out in a cold sweat and said quickly.
”Buy! I’ll buy!”
What he feared most was Sid’s words to find someone else to do it.
Because he knew in his heart that what he did was really not a technical job, and the factories were basically opened in the industrial zone of Boulder City. Sid had to think twice before he could control Lister. It would only take a few minutes to control him, even if everyone had a black card.
”Why didn’t you agree earlier?” Seeing that his dog had given in, Sid snorted mockingly and hung up the phone.
He didn’t care how Weijia got the money.
If he knew how to do business, why would he keep the dog?
He would have killed it and eaten its meat long ago.
After putting down the phone, Weijia leaned back in the chair, feeling as if all the strength in his body had been drained.
Aaron looked at him worriedly.
”…Boss?”
Weijia rubbed his eyebrows.
”At least…we have to get through the difficulties in front of us.”
Aaron was silent for a while and said silently.
”But the nutritional paste…can no longer be diluted with water.”
”Are you a pig? When will you make 500 million with that thing?” Weijia cursed unsatisfied, stood up from the chair, and walked to the window.
He wanted to get some fresh air, but from the reflection on the window, he vaguely saw Ditwei’s stupid face looking at him with a half-smile.
Weijia felt angry, but it was not easy to vent his anger on the window, so he had to light a cigarette and smoke out of the window.
Aaron stared at the boss’s back and said in silence for a while.
”…Some merchants from the north asked us if we had extra production lines to sell. They were very interested in our mixers, filters, and synthesis furnaces, and the price they offered was not bad.”
Those equipment were bought during the honeymoon period of trade between the Alliance and Boulder City. In order to expand production, they borrowed money from Boulder City Bank to buy them.
Boulder City Bank not only lent money to the Alliance, but also to their factories. Otherwise, they would not have been able to develop so fast.
The loan for some equipment has been repaid. Selling that part of the equipment can at least solve part of the problem, and the remaining funds can be found later.
Weijia turned around and looked at him.
”They want to make nutrient paste?”
Aaron shook his head.
”No… they want to do feed processing. Recently, the price of corn in the alliance has fallen sharply, and many factories have switched to this. In fact, I think that there is not much profit in nutritional paste. Why don’t we switch to feed?”
Weijia sighed.
”It’s not that simple.”
As long as he still runs a factory in Boulder City and plans to do business in the silver coin pricing market, he can’t avoid the sickle anyway.
The first is tariffs, and the second is exchange rates. One cut for the import of raw materials, and another cut for the export of finished products.
This has nothing to do with what is produced. Unless they can produce something that the alliance cannot produce at all, there is no solution.
At least, he, the boss of a mere business, cannot solve it unless Boulder City unites from top to bottom to put pressure on the alliance.
Weijia suddenly had an illusion.
It was not an invisible hand that took away his profits.
Instead, countless invisible hands formed an invisible cage, coldly and ruthlessly putting everyone in this city in it.
The terrible thought flashed through his mind, and followed by a chill that penetrated deep into the bone marrow.
The coldness on his neck made Weijia shiver unconsciously. He took two deep puffs of the cigarette in his mouth, and threw the unfinished cigarette butt out of the window while cursing.
”Damn, this is so unlucky.”
Aaron looked at him silently.
”If you don’t sell the equipment, you can only borrow money from Boulder City Bank again.”
”Sell! Why not? What’s the point of producing so much garbage? No one will buy it!” Weijia took out another cigarette and put it in his mouth. He took a deep puff and suddenly came up with an idea. He looked at Aaron and said, “Wait, I got it! The alliance issued that bond, so we will issue it too!”
Aaron was stunned and hesitated.
”We? But… who will buy it?”
Who would buy the bonds issued by a factory?
You can’t ask Mr. Sid to buy it back…
that would be asking for death.
”Aren’t we going to pay wages?” Weijia laughed and said complacently, “Go to the finance department and ask them to make the IOUs – oh no, the bonds, and give them to those poor guys. When life gets better after a while, I will make up for them with interest!”
Aaron stared at the boss.
”But… will this work?”
Weijia Commercial Bank has more than 4,000 employees, with an average daily salary of 4 chips. Even if each person erases 120 chips of salary and bonus, they can only make up 480,000 chips.
This doesn’t even need to be calculated.
There must be at least three zeros missing, right? !
”I have no choice. I have to squeeze out as much as I can. At least I have to make up the money for the purchase. Those people outside only want cash, so we have to pay the important part first.”
Weijia also has his reasons. He paused and said slowly, “As for Mr. Sid’s 500 million… that’s another account. We will ask the president for a loan.”
First, he borrowed 500 million chips of bonds from Mr. Sid as collateral, and borrowed 500 million from the Boulder City Bank in the name of production, but in fact, the 500 million was not used to expand production. He will pay 490 million of them to Mr. Sid. In this way, Weijia Commercial Bank can still have a floating profit of 10 million.
This floating profit is real cash, and the interest generated by the mortgaged bonds is enough to pay the interest on the loan from Boulder City Bank.
Although it sounds like a confusing account, Weijia believes that President Melvin is a sensible person and it is impossible for him not to lend him the money.
You Boulder City Bank sells its own bonds on behalf of others, so you don’t have to recognize it yourself, right?
Actually, think about it.
No money?
Isn’t it okay to borrow it?
If you lend me, I will lend you too. If you are rotten, I am even rottener.
Weijia, who had figured out everything, felt relaxed, happy and clear-minded. Instead of being worried, he laughed out loud.
Of course, the equipment had to be sold. It was his own equipment, and he was free to dispose of it. There are
so many ways to make money now. You can make a fortune with just a few clicks. Only a fool would do the most thankless and stupid work.
Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to sell the factory and become a “market maker”?
Besides, the lighter the assets, the faster you can run.
Isn’t it because that cunning profiteer never wanted to move the factory into the city that Sid couldn’t control Lister?
But Weijia was a smart man after all. Looking at Aaron walking out the door, he suddenly thought of something and immediately called him.
”Wait a minute.”
Aaron stopped.
”Do you have any other instructions?”
Weijia threw the cigarette butt out of the window, walked to Aaron with a smile, and patted him on the shoulder.
”I almost forgot to say that your salary will be paid, including the salary of your colleagues and the salary of the security team… Don’t worry, follow me, I won’t let the truly capable people suffer.”
Aaron nodded.
He didn’t ask the boss about this at all.
After all, isn’t this a matter of course?
…
Night finally fell, and the bell for the shift change finally rang. The
work on hand was handed over to the half-grown children, and the day shift workers lined up to get last month’s wages from Alex.
At first, Sberg was still curious. Today, the moon came out from the west, and the security captain Alex personally went to pay everyone, and brought a group of villains who looked like they were not good people. When he received an IOU from Alex, he came to his senses. Wow, these profiteers are so cunning!
Everyone was very tired and had no energy. Some people wanted to complain, but no one was willing to step forward. Some people readily accepted the IOU, probably out of trust in the boss.
Sperger also honestly accepted the IOU called a bond, comforting himself in his heart that the other party was a wealthy family, and he would not really default on the debt. But life was getting weirder and weirder. Today, IOUs were used to pay wages, but what would they use next month?
IOUs for IOUs?
A group of poor people in tattered clothes walked out of the factory.
Kent, who was not far away, suddenly squatted down quickly. Just when Sperger thought he had found money, he saw him excitedly holding up a cigarette butt and stuffing it into his pocket.
”Lucky! Two cigarette butts!”
The short man walking beside Kent looked at the cigarette butt in his hand with envy, sipped his lips and said.
”I bet that it fell from Mr. Weijia’s office. Only that adult would waste it like this!”
This place is indeed not far from that adult’s office.
Sperger sighed and muttered.
”What’s lucky… The weather is getting colder and colder. It’s probably going to snow.”
Kent glanced at him impatiently.
”So?”
”So… we have to wear something thicker.”
”Then go ahead and put it on! You don’t even know how to put on clothes!” Kent stared with his eyes wide open, a cigarette butt in his mouth, his ferocious face looked very much like the security chief Alec who had been hungry for a few days.
”Yes…”
Not wanting to ruin his good mood, Sberg consciously shrank to one side, his face full of worry. Half of it was because of the weather that was about to get colder, and the other half was because of the increasingly cold environment.
The boss paid the salary.
But it was an IOU.
He didn’t know if this thing could be exchanged for dinner, and he didn’t know if the smart Lord Weijia would still recognize the loan if he resigned.
And just two days ago, the respected Mr. House announced another victory of Boulder City on the radio. The wise President Melvin forced the iron lump in the northern suburbs to make concessions and allowed Boulder City to purchase the alliance’s bonds.
This time, Mr. House spent a longer time explaining the ins and outs of this, mercifully revealing the secrets to these poor people who had neither culture nor knowledge, but Sperger was not happy at all.
After all, no matter how good the thing was, he could not afford it. Instead, his boss forced him to buy something else – the operating bonds of the Good Taste Food Processing Factory. With
such a long name, it sounded like something bad.
There was no doubt that the Alliance’s bonds were not good either.
Sberg couldn’t understand, especially why his bosses, who were already so rich, still borrowed from poor people like them? He
returned to the leaky house.
He sat at the table with some resentment, lit the candle that everyone helped him find with a broken match, picked up the pen that everyone had pooled money to buy, and wrote on the tattered old newspaper.
[…Boll got drunk that day after getting the black card, and he beat up Stephen, the boss who had bullied him before, who looked like a rat. Then he looked at Stephen’s beautiful wife and daughter with dissatisfaction, and untied the belt around his waist… Of course, this was to spank Stephen’s butt and make him lose face in front of his wife and daughter. Boll was as fierce as a wild beast in the jungle. He was an awakened person with a lot of strength, so of course he could do this, and no one could stop him.]
This didn’t make sense.
Anyway, no one cared about that thing.
However, as he wrote, Sberg frowned and couldn’t help but cross out the second half and started writing again, muttering to himself as he wrote.
”…But Bol knew in his heart that beating up Stephen wouldn’t solve any problems, not even if he unbuckled his belt and peed on him. Killing a rat would only add a corpse and some flies to the street. Boulder is still the same Boulder, and everything will be the same as before. Nothing will change. Only he, himself, has to roll out of the giant wall in disgrace and continue to vent his anger somewhere else.”
”So he found the unemployed editor Bill, the child laborer Rudy who had been humiliated by Stephen, and the female worker Kathy who had been bullied by the security captain and shareholders… He told everyone that one person could not defeat the Death Claws, but if it was a group of people, even the Mother of Death Claws would be defeated by us. We can follow the example of the Alliance and unite! One person is weak, but as long as we are united, Stephen will be afraid of us, and all Stephens will be!”
”Fuck the profiteers and the noble grandfathers!”
He wrote a very long title for
”Boll the Awakener: The story of a poor boy from the slums who accidentally picked up a tube of awakening elixir and beat down a power armor in the final battle.”
In fact, it could be longer, but there was not enough space at the beginning.
Because he had no money to print, Sperger could only copy two copies. He sent one copy to the Alliance’s “Survivor Daily” for submission, and attached a sincere note, hoping to give the manuscript to the original author for review… if that author was there. If
they are willing to publish it, perhaps they can sponsor him some royalties… He doesn’t want much, just enough to buy some daily necessities.
He kept the other copy for himself, he had to read it to the readers of “Workers’ Daily” – the guys in the Workers’ Union.
Thinking of those outrageous and ridiculous plots, and the way his fellow workers would look at him tomorrow, Sperger felt his cheeks getting a little hot.
But his heart was warm…
-
(Thanks to the leader of “Xuezhong” for the reward!!!)
(End of this chapter)
