Chapter 741: Five Hundred Thousand Dollars of Bread?

The proposal of the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Royal University of Technology was quickly approved by the cabinet meeting, and the Ministry of Finance also stated that it would allocate 8 million Australian dollars to build these two universities.

Because of the royal prefix, Arthur also specifically stated that he would attend the groundbreaking ceremony and the first opening ceremony of the two universities.

This also made the cabinet pay more attention to the two universities. Minister of Education Kellogg even designated the two universities as the most important projects in university construction and supervised them personally.

After the education issue was temporarily resolved, the medical problem was actually not a big problem.

Australasia currently has two medical universities and one medical school, and the number of medical students trained each year is still a large number.

You know, universities in Australasia attach the most importance to practical ability, and medical schools and medical universities are no exception.

Although most of these medical school students have graduated for only a few years, they have already interned several times in their college careers, and they are still fully capable of helping practicing doctors.

After several years of experience accumulation and skill training, they will also grow into qualified doctors in the hospital and then be transferred to other newly established hospitals.

At present, the number of large hospitals in Australasia far exceeds the number of universities, and the average number of large hospitals in each state has exceeded 5.

The most exaggerated ones are important cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Fort St. Arthur, where the number of large hospitals is more than 5.

In contrast, in the localized colonial regions such as Java and Sumatra, there are only 1-2 large hospitals at present.

One of the development plans of the medical sector is to increase the number of existing large hospitals.

In any case, large hospitals have more advanced medical standards, especially for highly demanding surgical operations.

Only when the number of large hospitals increases can more people be treated when they need treatment.

The second is to support pharmaceutical companies in large quantities.

It is not enough to have more hospitals, the corresponding medical manufacturing industry must also be adequately developed.

At present, the giant of the pharmaceutical industry in Australasia is undoubtedly the pharmaceutical group founded by Arthur.

As a pharmaceutical enterprise that Arthur attaches great importance to, the drugs currently produced by the pharmaceutical group are sold well throughout Australasia, occupying more than 75% of the Australasia pharmaceutical market.

In addition, the pharmaceutical group also cooperates with many countries, and the net profit from drug exports is at least 25 million Australian dollars each year.

Although it seems a lot, the profit from the sale of penicillin drugs accounts for most of it, and it is decreasing year by year.

This does not mean that the world's population's demand for penicillin is decreasing. In fact, with the growth of population and the wars around the world, the demand for penicillin cannot decrease, but will only increase year by year.

Even in later generations, the annual sales of penicillin drugs are a huge number, and this is a market that lasts for a long time.

It is precisely because of this that countries are very coveted for Australasia's penicillin drugs and have started to develop their own penicillin drugs very early.

The first is to break Australasia's monopoly on penicillin drugs.

Especially the monopoly worldwide, which is a big blow to other powers and all countries, and also represents a huge business opportunity after the monopoly is broken.

The second is to muddy the penicillin drug market.

As a good medicine to prevent wound infection, penicillin is definitely not worried about sales, and it also represents the huge profits brought by the production of penicillin drugs.

Since the sale of penicillin in 1924, the production of penicillin drugs has brought the pharmaceutical group more than 20 million Australian dollars in revenue every year, and even exceeded 35 million Australian dollars at its peak.

Although the revenue of the pharmaceutical group's penicillin sales has been reduced to about 20 million Australian dollars due to the participation of other countries, and it is 20 million Australian dollars after the currency depreciation.

But no one can deny that a stable annual income of 20 million Australian dollars is very attractive to any country and enterprise.

But no matter how successful the pharmaceutical group is, it still cannot cover up the current situation that the pharmaceutical industry in Australasia lags behind other powers.

In addition to the pharmaceutical group, there are almost no other internationally renowned pharmaceutical companies, except for a pharmaceutical company that moved to Australasia during the economic crisis.

In addition to building more large hospitals, the Ministry of Health has to encourage the private pharmaceutical field and cultivate more excellent pharmaceutical companies.

Only when a large number of pharmaceutical companies invest in the research and development of drugs can we hope to see world-leading pharmaceutical products such as penicillin born in Australasia.

The amount of money needed to invest in drug research and development is huge, which also means that the support for those pharmaceutical companies must be large, because this also concerns the livelihood of the people in Australasia.

For these, Arthur's attitude is that a large amount of support can be given, but the drugs developed by pharmaceutical companies must be produced and sold in Australasia first, and the drugs sold must be guaranteed to have sufficient efficacy.

Regarding pharmaceutical companies, Arthur has also heard that good drugs are not good products.

Although it is understandable for companies to make money, under the premise of strong support from the country, if these pharmaceutical companies do not have a little self-knowledge, then Arthur will decisively give up support and let them fend for themselves.

Anyway, the royal pharmaceutical group has already determined the top of the pyramid of drug research and development in Australasia, and can also ensure that Australasia people can enjoy the world's advanced drug system.

Only by firmly grasping the construction of large hospitals and encouraging pharmaceutical production and research and development can the medical field of Australasia usher in better development and catch up with the former United States.

Yes, although the former United States is no longer there, Arthur still aims at the United States at its peak.

In terms of industrial economy and population, if Australasia can reach the scale of the United States at that time, it will truly have the strength to covet the throne of world hegemony.

But before that, the throne of world hegemony must be left to the British, and by the way, let the British maintain the stability of the world situation and avoid too many accidents.

After solving the problems of education and medical care, this meeting has basically come to an end.

The initial solution to the problems of education and medical care is gratifying, but it also means that Australasia will have to pay tens of millions of Australian dollars for this.

Although it does not seem to be much, it is also a considerable burden on the government's finances when the accumulation of small amounts adds up.

So far, the purchasing power of each Australian dollar has been depreciated to about 42% of the pre-depreciation level.

In other words, it used to cost about 4 million Australian dollars to build a state-of-the-art battleship, but now the cost of building a state-of-the-art battleship has exceeded 11 million Australian dollars.

The current currency still maintains a certain value, but it is indeed not as valuable as the previous currency.

This is a huge change in data. For many years before, the per capita annual income of Australasians remained at around 60 Australian dollars.

Since the currency depreciated sharply, the per capita annual income has been increasing, and it is now close to 152 Australian dollars.

This is actually one of the reasons why European countries pursue currency depreciation. In any case, it seems that the actual income of the people and the fiscal revenue of the country have increased.

Fortunately, the currency of Australasia was still strong before. Although it experienced a period of lows after the depreciation, the value of the currency did not fall from the sky and was still in a stable state.

Especially after deepening the binding with the British pound, the British pound Australian dollar system has become the most popular world currency at present, and it is also the priority of various countries in transactions besides gold and important materials.

But how to say it? This is not how excellent the British pound and Australian dollar system is.

A closer look at the current world powers will show that, apart from the pound-Australian dollar system, other systems such as the franc system, the ruble system and the dollar system all have a lot of flaws, not to mention that after the split of the United States, the international influence of the dollar has been close to zero.

No one can be sure how long the value of the dollar can last, which has also led to the dollar being almost like waste paper in some large transactions, and no one chooses to accept a large amount of dollars.

The American people are also trying to exchange dollars for materials or other currencies, and the most popular ones are still the pound and the Australian dollar.

Except for the pound and the Australian dollar, the depreciation of other currencies is uncontrollable. The current world monetary system is already very chaotic, and the value of the franc may fluctuate significantly within a few days.

Of course, the worst is definitely not the French.

The concept of currency depreciation has been proposed for many years, and basically all countries have abandoned the gold standard.

Among all countries, the Germans should have the most depreciated currency. The outbreak of the economic crisis caused the Germans to suffer quite serious chaos, and also turned the German mark directly into waste paper.

Yes, it is waste paper.

In fact, the value of the mark at the beginning can also be stable. Although the depreciation of the mark was relatively large, it was not as exaggerated as imagined.

Arthur originally thought that Germany would not be as chaotic as in history, but unexpectedly, the chaos was only delayed.

Since the second half of 1929, the German mark has experienced a strange depreciation.

How strange is it? This is a depreciation that Arthur has never seen before, so exaggerated that it has attracted the attention of economists from various countries.

It was also from this time that the mark gradually became a waste paper that people could not accept.

As mentioned before, the exchange rate between the mark and the pound is about 1355 to 1.

Such an exchange rate seems very exaggerated, but it is already a relatively high exchange rate for now.

As of the latest news from Germany, the value of 1 Reichsmark has reached the lowest value.

There is no exchange rate between the pound and the mark at present, because no one is willing to exchange the pound in their hands for marks.

Looking at the actual prices in Germany, you can understand that 500,000 loaves of bread are really not exaggerated.

On the streets of Berlin, a pound of white bread that looks very ordinary has been sold for about 3,500 marks.

The black bread that looks like itching in the throat also costs 1,700 marks per pound.

Such data may not seem exaggerated. But you have to know that the price of bread two years ago was only a few tenths of what it is now.

What is the current per capita annual income of Germans?

Only counting the working Germans, their annual income barely reaches 100,000 marks per year.

An income of 100,000 marks seems high, but using most of the income to buy bread and other food is just enough to keep yourself alive.

But in addition to these working people, Germany still has a large number of unemployed people, which is one of the important reasons for the continuous depreciation of the mark and the continuous appreciation of bread.

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