Chapter 317 The “Bankers”’ Counterattack (Part 1)

Austria Vienna.

A financial storm is brewing in the imperial capital. Since the long-term plan for the second phase of the Imperial Railway was released, the stock prices of some of its sections have been on a rising trend.

Soon the price rose from 5 florins when it was first issued to 15 florins. Neither this stock issuance pattern nor the stock price growth is normal.

Excessive speed and over-hyping are expected in the eyes of experts, so when it exceeded 120% of the issue price, Adjani and her men began to suppress the stock price.

Of course, the specific operations must have been arrived at after discussion by specialized traders and economists, but the experts hired by Franz soon discovered a problem, that is, they could not suppress the rising trend of the stock price at all; therefore, it was very difficult to It is easy to cross the 120% red line, and it is only a matter of time before it crosses 200%.

Unlike in the past, this time the stock rise was not led by a few bankers or a few families, but was a nationwide follow-up investment.

Experts feel that since this overheating cannot be stopped, it is better to choose to sell at a high point and buy back at a low point, following the example of Archduke Franz.

Theoretically, there is no problem with this. The royal family is not the loser anyway. After all, the characteristic of the capital market is that the strong always get stronger; even in terms of their ability to bear risks, the royal family with a large amount of capital is far stronger than other speculators.

Almost all experts assured Adjani that this would be a profitable business, but she was still a little worried, and her intuition told her that this would be a crisis.

In a conference room on the third floor of the Caesar Hotel, Solomon Rothschild watched intently as his most admired junior was boasting. The financial crisis that would sweep across Central Europe came from this man who was less than twenty years old. young hands.

"Please rest assured that this time we and the royal families and nobles of various countries will all retreat. From now on, Central Europe will be our Jewish world. Those princes, generals and ministers will only become more and more dependent on us. What will they do without us?" neither…

We can rely on our ingenuity to conquer Europe. There is no need to go all the way to the Middle East to fight for that poor desert with the damn Ottomans! "

(On February 5, 1840, Eid al-Adha of the Tianfang Church, several Ottoman sects carried out a large-scale massacre of Jewish immigrants near Jerusalem, causing tens of thousands of casualties.)

At the same time, in another place, a young man in Arab attire was talking to the audience in front; under the audience sat a group of financial giants from Austria, Germany, and Italy, and of course they had another The common characteristic is that they all have loan sharking business.

As a result of a financial innovation policy introduced by Franz and his economists after consultation, the advent of installment payments greatly hit the loan sharking industry in Central Europe.

This epoch-making measure solved the urgent needs of many people and brought positive energy to the empire's economy, allowing it to continue to develop along a healthy track. It also gave groups of different classes a glimmer of light and hope.

The number of people who choose to take risks and drink poison to quench their thirst is greatly reduced. Most of them choose a predictable tomorrow.

Although the empire still did not legislate the illegal limit of usury at this time, the effect of "pass it to ten, spread it to a hundred" made more ordinary people begin to understand that it was an unreasonable financial product.

After all, the royal family’s annual installment payment interest rate does not exceed 5%. Who would choose a loan shark with an annual interest rate of more than 40% or even 50%?

Even the interest rates set by several large families such as the Rothschilds, who are "conscientious" loan sharks who are good at public relations and packaging, usually remain above 25%.

The advent of the new financial model of installment payment was a weapon against these greedy financiers. It immediately beat these loan sharks to death, and their business volume and profits fell off a cliff.

Although they have the power behind them to back them up, who dares to show off as a hero in front of the royal family? What's ridiculous is that their support to the bureaucrats and evil forces cannot be cut off at all.

As a result, loan sharks often sold their sons and daughters, or even committed suicide by drowning themselves in rivers.

Although some less-sighted people tried to put pressure on the royal family and the government to submit by spending a lot of money and buying headlines in newspapers to demonstrate the rationality and benefits of usury.

However, Franz's offensive always refutes the so-called financial experts, and directly characterizes them as those who cause harm to the country and the people from the moral high ground.

The arguments supporting loan sharks are as follows.

First, borrow and distort Hegel's "existence is reasonable" to defend yourself.

The description of usury in the Old Testament of the Bible is: "If a poor person among my people goes with you, if you lend him money, you must not charge interest like a moneylender."

Second, link usury to charity.

From the personal property or expected income provided by the bank or the royal family as a guarantee for installment payment, the argument can be made that no one will lend money to the poor to show his image of "thinking about the poor".

On the other hand, he cleverly points out that those who really need money may not necessarily meet the conditions proposed by the royal family; this is the main reason why everyone hates usury, but they all need it.

Third, it is not the people who provide usury or the people who cannot pay it back who are wrong; it is because those stupid people do not understand the internal laws of economic operation and misjudge their ability to repay.

And those "kind" usurers should not be punished, because they just did bad things with "good intentions".

Fourth, borrowing usury can improve people's creativity and promote the healthy development of social economy; the large amount of interest it generates will give the group of people who owe money a good opportunity to make the most money, which will help those lazy people break through their own limits.

The pockets of merchants who have also received a lot of income are bulging, and they will take the initiative to buy more products, which can also stimulate consumption and promote the development of commodity economy. This is the most market-oriented approach and should be praised, not belittled.

Fifth, optimize resource allocation and let funds go where they should go.

The poor only know how to eat and drink, and know nothing about making money. The concentration of a large amount of capital in the hands of bankers means more factories, major public works and railway construction, which is beneficial to the country.

And those who have no money can just serve as a demographic dividend to continue to stimulate economic development in turn.

Sixth, powers like Britain and France have very advanced financial and banking industries, so they can be among the world's powers.

The writers hired by the other party wrote dozens of "benefits" in a lavish manner, but the core is three points: first, existence is reasonable, second, it conforms to economic laws, and third, people who cannot pay back the money are of poor quality (lazy, stupid, ignorant, and too narrow-minded).

The way to deal with these people's arguments is also very simple, that is, to take out 1 million florins as a bonus.

As long as any financier can work in any factory or dock in London, Liverpool, Manchester for a full year and earn 50 pounds, he can take away the 1 million.

Of course, you can also take out the corresponding collateral and then invest. As long as the money earned after 3 years can repay the interest plus the principal, you can get the bonus.

The result is of course zero success.

Among the 32 financial experts who chose to try their luck, 15 withdrew within a week, 10 of the remaining 17 withdrew within a month, and six of the remaining 7 died in the factory, and one was admitted to a mental hospital.

The casualties were completely within Franz's expectations. After all, given the safety conditions and work intensity of British factories at that time, it would be abnormal if no one died.

Five very wealthy financial experts chose to prove themselves in the second way. Two of them lost their principal in the first year of investment and had to sell their mortgaged property in the end.

Another expert cheated and directly enjoyed the generous package treatment of the Vienna version of "West Ice Hotel".

The remaining two borrowed usury because they wanted to turn over, and finally had to go to the "rooftop".

Personally, I think Lan Fang wrote well and the plot design is also exquisite. Now it's so incoherent that I feel uncomfortable watching it myself.

Next, the protagonist will return to Europe, and I will write about how the protagonist sailed here on the way, so as not to be said to be super-time and space movement again.

But it is probably just this time. After all, I am writing a historical article, not a travel log or a diary.

I am now shaken in my original intention of writing a book. So far, I have designed six main plots for this book, but in the end I had to cut five of them.

The only thing I have finished writing is the much-criticized Turkish-Egyptian war.

I don't like to complain, but the huge amount of negative energy makes me very gloomy, making me say a lot of irrational things and do a lot of meaningless things.

After I finish writing today, I will probably choose to take a day off tomorrow.

That's it, I wish you all good luck in martial arts and a smile on your face