1858 Step by Step
Financial investment and physical investment are two different things.
Financial investment is the purest financial game, including stocks, funds, and gambling contracts. It can actually be regarded as a form of gambling.
I bet it will rise tomorrow, so I will buy this financial product today.
I bet that it will fall tomorrow, so I will short-sell this financial product.
In fact, pure financial investment does not have much benefit to the real economy. On the contrary, it will completely disrupt the market order due to excessive financial investment behavior.
But physical investment is another story.
What is physical investment?
The simplest example, building a factory is a physical investment. Investment, production and construction activities with specific tangible assets are all physical investments.
To build a factory, workers are needed to build it, and after it is built, workers are also needed to produce.
The raw materials required for production need to be purchased from the society, and the products produced will also be sold to the market.
What physical investment brings is a broadening of the social living environment, which financial investment cannot bring.
Financial investment only requires a few traders to complete a series of purchases and sales that may involve hundreds of thousands or millions.
The flow of funds does not produce more valuable benefits to society.
Physical investment can drive market activity in the upstream and downstream industries, provide more jobs for the society, and stabilize a solid economic level.
People in the Financial Supervisory Commission and the Security Council have always considered how to prevent this international hot money from causing damage to the federal finance when it leaves. They have not considered that this money can actually bring more benefits!
The chairman of the Financial Management Committee showed some interest, "Mr. Lynch, please elaborate."
"My ideas may not be mature enough. Please forgive me if there are any inappropriate points."
"First of all, I think we should relax the standards for foreign capital to enter the real industry, and at the same time provide certain policy incentives for the listing of foreign capital in the real industry."
"On the one hand, there are stronger controls on the financial market, and on the other hand, there is a more relaxed economic environment, coupled with necessary guidance and policy tilt. As long as the money lands, they will not be able to leave!"
In fact, to put it bluntly, this is to encourage investment and promote the implementation of funds.
Of course, this is only a general direction, a relatively ideal idea at present.
If a large amount of international hot money is really introduced into the federation for physical investment, the first ones to be affected will definitely be the federation's capitalists.
There are more big players in the market, and the competition becomes more intense.
It is difficult for foreign capital to enter some relatively traditional and closed monopoly profit-making industries, such as the military industry.
The federal government and the military will not allow foreign capital to lead the design and production of federal standard weapons. Who knows if there are hostile forces behind these funds?
So this is just an idea. Lynch talked about it very broadly and not in detail. This kind of content requires a higher-level decision, and cannot be determined by the Financial Supervisory Committee and the Security Council.
After talking about this, Lynch added another idea, which is to add a new tax——
Departure tax.
All funds entering Hong Kong must be declared, and applications must be made in advance when leaving Hong Kong. This is a newly promoted federal law after the outbreak of the last Great Recession.
The purpose is to prevent these international hot money from suddenly withdrawing all at once, but this is not enough.
These people are really determined to leave. Even if they are asked to declare in advance, they will not stay.
Instead of doing this, it would be better to give top priority to what was previously discussed by the Financial Supervisory Committee and the Security Council, and add a departure tax.
If you want to leave, it's not impossible.
When the outbound funds are proportionally higher than the inbound funds, a departure tax will be levied.
Assuming that one million enters Hong Kong and one million leaves Hong Kong, the departure tax may only be 3% or 5%, which is a very small part.
But if you leave Hong Kong for two million, three million, five million or even ten million, the departure tax rate will rise rapidly.
Maybe 10 million funds have to leave Hong Kong, and the departure tax alone will be levied at 50%!
This part of the tax only applies to the income generated from financial investment. If it is an investment in industry, it can be relatively exempted and reduced.
To be honest, this idea is a bit immoral and unreasonable.
It's like a casino, you can count the money, but you can't take away all the winnings, but it is a little different from the casino because all the rules are for foreign investors.
The Chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission believes that this departure tax is very promising. In conjunction with Lynch's previous talk of providing more opportunities and policies to encourage the implementation of funds for industrial use, it may produce some good chemical reactions.
The meeting did not last long. After the meeting, the minutes were quickly sent to the presidential palace. Mr. Trueman briefly read them during lunch.
He also felt that what Lynch said actually had more practical significance.
The federal military strength now leads the world, and it is qualified to formulate rules belonging to the federation.
Since this money is going to come to the Federation to make money, it must follow the rules of the Federation, otherwise it will not come in.
Among them, Lynch mentioned the investment behavior of promoting the real industry, which won the favor of Mr. Trueman. The construction of the real economy will make society more prosperous and the people's happiness will be further improved.
He then called and convened an impromptu cabinet meeting to discuss whether these things were feasible and how to implement them.
After a day's work, Mr. Trueman returned tiredly to the study in the rest area.
Joanna was not at home, having gone to some party with the ladies, and now he was alone.
He poured himself a glass of wine, ordered a grilled lamb chop, listened to soothing music, and enjoyed his leisure time after a long day of intense work.
After thinking about it, he called Lynch.
The call was quickly answered.
"I have seen the minutes of today's meeting. I think what you said is very good. You may need to follow up later. Someone will call you then."
Lynch then said yes and said he would cooperate with the action.
As he spoke, Mr. Trueman lowered his voice slightly. "The matter you were asked to investigate last time...has there been any results?"
He was referring to Joanna's matter. He actually didn't have too many doubts. After all, he was the president of the federation and Joanna was the first lady.
At this point, if you really feel emotionally empty and want to develop a new relationship, you have to wait until his term ends so that you can get together and part ways.
At that time, whether they were divorced or cheating, it was just a matter of emotional disharmony between them. Now cheating would be an international scandal!
In his heart, he was actually not willing to believe that his wife would cheat on her. After getting along with her for so many years, he knew very well what kind of woman she was.
Lack of passion, step-by-step, life is a bit poor and boring!
She wouldn't cheat in such a "fashionable" way, that's not her style.
Lynch's answer was exactly what he thought.
"We investigated for a long time and didn't find that she met anyone she shouldn't have met or... you know, didn't find anything out of the ordinary."
Mr. Trueman breathed a sigh of relief. "Pull the man back. I hope it won't be mentioned."
After hanging up the phone, Mr. Trueman was in a good mood, humming a tune, and turned on the TV to watch a TV series he had not watched before.
On the other side, after Lynch hung up the phone, he called Noel, arranged some things, and hung up in a hurry.
Ten minutes later, the doctor who was watching TV with his wife and daughter suddenly looked at the phone station in the corner, and the phone rang.
In the Commonwealth, senior family physicians earn much more than the average physician.
They specialize in serving the upper class of society and may involve some privacy matters.
A significant portion of these high medical bills spent by wealthy people is to silence doctors.
If you have money, you will naturally enjoy better services. This is the purpose of federal people.
It must be unusual to call so late.
He released his arms around his wife and daughter, walked to the corner, and picked up the phone.
The person on the other end of the phone was the security guard at the community gate. The security guard first apologized for calling the doctor at this time, and then said that someone wanted to visit the doctor.
Since I am not a community resident and cannot provide any valuable information, I can only contact the doctor himself first.
He first thought it might be a patient or something else, and he was a little impatient.
People in the Federation were very angry about being interrupted during non-working hours, and he was no exception.
"Tell him if he has anything to do, go to the clinic to make an appointment tomorrow during the day..."
Just as he was about to hang up the phone, he faintly heard some conversation on the other side of the receiver, and then the security guard said, "...Sir, he wants to say a word to you, and you will see him after he says it."
The doctor found it a bit interesting. All his clients had his personal phone number. Those without his personal phone number meant they were not his clients.
Maybe he heard about his patient from other places, or something, but his cautious character still allowed him to give the other party a chance.
The next second, a name he was very familiar with came over the phone——
"Joanna!"
"I go out for a while."
The doctor put on his clothes for going out. He thought for a while, and then ran upstairs in a panic under the gaze of his wife and daughter.
He ran into the study room, pulled out a hardcover book called "Modern Basic Medical Surgery" from the bookcase, opened it, and found a revolver inside.
He was a little uneasy, and the pistol could bring him some spiritual help.
He opened the magazine, looked at the bullets inside, put them in his pocket, and left in a hurry.
Three minutes later, he saw the person who called him outside the community gate.
A very ordinary looking young man.
"Did you call me?" The doctor was a little wary, standing next to the guard box.
If something happened, he would scream for help.
Noel spread his hands to show his innocence, "Are you sure we want to talk about that here?"
The doctor swallowed, clenched the pistol in his hand, and walked towards Noel with his head lowered. The two of them walked along the community wall and strolled on the roadside...