Dume Point Estate.
After dinner, Jennifer directed the waitresses to clean up the restaurant, and then looked at the six little ones at home, before taking a document and going to the study on the basement floor of Shell Villa.
Having been Simon's assistant for a long time, Jennifer was familiar with these things.
Simon and Janet were standing together in front of a large world map on the wall of the study, discussing something, occasionally raising their pens to draw on the map.
After standing nearby and looking at it for a moment, Jennifer gestured to the document in her hand: "This is the guest list for Thursday's luncheon. Simon, do you think there is anything that needs to be adjusted?"
"Just do what you want," Simon said. He didn't take the document. Instead, he put his arm around the female assistant, gestured to the world map in front of him, changed to Chinese, and said with a smile: "Look, I give this to you." The country we conquered.”
After all these years, Jennifer's Chinese is not much worse than Janet's, but she obviously still can't understand the jokes Simon blurted out. She thought the man was being funny and rolled her eyes at him, but she still leaned next to the man and continued to look at him.
On weekdays, Jennifer and a few confidant maids are personally responsible for the cleaning and organization of this private study. She naturally knows about the world map in the study that has been scribbled and drawn by men for a long time, and can quickly distinguish the contents of it. Some changes, pointing to some additional annotations on several routes extending in the direction of Africa: "Battery, what do you mean?"
"This was inspired by my chat with Paulson of Goldman Sachs at a cocktail party in New York a few days ago," Simon said with a smile: "You know, I have paid a lot of attention to rechargeable batteries in recent years. However, after Paulson Sen’s unexpected reminder made me realize that my layout was not enough.”
At last week's cocktail party, Simon and Paulson accidentally talked about the future of the automobile industry. Paulson came to the conclusion that "whoever gets the battery will win the world." After that short conversation, Simon actually came to the same conclusion. in conclusion.
Before that, frankly speaking, Simon's focus on the rechargeable battery industry was more for the electronic product business of the Westeros system, such as Tinker Bayer's series of flagship products, such as Nokia's mobile phones, and so on.
Simon really hasn't thought too far about other things.
After that conversation, Simon, who was unexpectedly awakened, suddenly felt that it was indeed possible to make more arrangements in advance.
The opportunities brought by the spread of the Asian financial crisis around the world are also very suitable for layout.
Hearing the man's words, Jennifer asked: "What does this have to do with Africa?"
Simon pointed to the Congolese region in central Africa: "According to current exploration results, there are large amounts of important mineral deposits such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt that are necessary for future rechargeable batteries."
With that said, without waiting for Jennifer to ask again, Simon took the initiative to add, indicating the three routes extending from Africa on the map, which mainly point to the east coast of the United States, Ukraine in the hinterland of Europe, and China: "Africa provides raw materials, and after primary refining, It's shipped to North America, Eastern Europe and China, refined, and then, even further, processed into the batteries we need, lots and lots of batteries."
Jennifer curled up her lips and said, "Why do we need so many batteries?"
"Building cars," Simon said, "Imagine if all the billions of internal combustion vehicles in the world are replaced by electric vehicles, how many batteries will be needed?"
Even after being a housewife for several years, the movement of Jennifer's head did not slow down at all, and her mouth soon grew slightly.
Of course she could imagine it.
If the scenario described by Simon comes true, the role of batteries in the future is likely to be equivalent to that of oil today. And mastering the lifeblood of the international battery industry is equivalent to mastering the lifeblood of global 'energy'.
At this time, Janet was also very excited on the other side of Simon: "Maybe in the future, there will be competition around the core industries related to batteries, and there will be some wars. The first battery war, the second battery war, haha."
Jennifer felt Janet's excitement when talking about the war, and rolled her eyes: "The third world war will be, and everyone will be destroyed together."
"I've been looking forward to it."
Jennifer didn't have that much time to spend with the two guys talking crazy here, so she said, "I'll go up first, so don't be too late."
After saying that, she kissed the man, turned around and left the study.
Without waiting for the female assistant to disappear, Janet held Simon's arm, raised the pen she had been holding in her hand, and made a mark on the Latin American region, saying: "I will talk more with my eldest brother recently. In this case, In Australia, not just in Africa, we should increase the exploration and mergers and acquisitions of core material deposits related to the battery industry on a global scale."
Simon nodded and added: "There is no need to make it too obvious to avoid arousing other people's vigilance. We can spend ten years slowly laying out the plan."
"Ten years, so long?"
Simon smiled: "In the next ten years, we need to continue to consolidate our current advantages in the Internet and other technology fields, and also explore emerging markets such as China. Once we have done this, we will need a new growth point, the electric vehicle plan. It can then be implemented.”
Janet thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.
The two discussed the map for a few more words, and then came to the big desk by the window. Simon sat down on the leather chair. Janet did not pull out another chair, but sat directly on Simon's lap. , let’s take a look at today’s financial situation briefing in Asia.
Janet thought of another thing and tilted her head back slightly: "Dear, in this case, I think we should make some arrangements in the automotive field in advance. It can be regarded as technology accumulation, isn't it?"
Simon kissed the woman's fair face and said with a smile: "Not only can't you do this, but you must reduce the related arrangements as much as possible."
Janet blinked.
Simon reminded: "Think about it in North America, why is it so difficult to develop a cheaper and more efficient railway system?"
After Janet thought about it for a moment, she understood.
Profit driven.
There is certainly no shortage of railroads in North America, but compared to aviation and highway systems, the U.S. rail system appears backward and dilapidated.
Why
Because the huge aviation and highway interest system does not allow it.
Boeing won’t allow it, the aviation union won’t allow it, GM and Ford won’t allow it, the Teamsters union won’t allow it…
To extend it a little further, why are the public transportation systems in big cities in the United States lacking? In some world-class metropolises, subways have not been repaired for decades. It is the same reason. Public transportation is too developed, and there are fewer people buying cars.
Therefore, it is not that there is no money, but that too many people do not want to see this result.
Because it will affect their interests.
Let’s talk about the Westeros system. If the investment in traditional internal combustion engine cars is too large and electric cars are developed in the future, even if Simon is willing to sacrifice the interests of the traditional car business to eliminate himself, there will be too many interests involved to prevent Simon from doing so.
Even if the Westeros system develops controllable nuclear fusion, it will definitely encounter all kinds of conceivable obstacles, and these obstacles must come from traditional fossil energy interest groups.
In any case, at least in order to minimize possible obstacles within its own system, Simon will not get too involved in the traditional automobile industry.
Janet wanted to understand this and stopped pursuing it. She and the man looked at the briefing in front of them.
After the New Taiwan dollar abandoned its defense last week and the Korean won gave up its exchange rate limit, Asian stock, bond and foreign exchange markets continued to be turbulent on Monday.
Under the tacit control of everyone, Hong Kong stocks once again bear the brunt. The Hang Seng Index plunged 7.3% in a single day, falling directly from 11,392 points last Friday to 10,561 points at the close. Except for a few informed groups who secretly planned it, almost no ignorant bystanders did not believe that the Hang Seng Index was bound to fall. to within 10,000 points.
Since there are no takers for short contracts on the Hang Seng Index with targets above 10,000 points, a large amount of speculative capital can only place bets within 10,000 points, and these short positions are almost all taken.
In the next two days, to be precise, it will be one and a half trading days before a press conference is released at 2:00 pm local time on Wednesday. As expected, the Hang Seng Index will be tacitly entered into the 9,000-point range. To be precise, it is Near 9500 points, it attracted the last wave of short speculators who threw themselves into the trap.
Then close the net.
After reading the relevant data in Hong Kong, Janet raised her head again: "The Hong Kong government has prepared 15 billion US dollars of funds to actively support the market. This is tantamount to giving up the free market rules of non-interference in financial floating. I wonder if other countries will Will they follow suit, such as South Korea? If they do the same, some of our plans will not be so easy to implement?"
Simon was somewhat impressed by Janet's insight.
Historically, in August 1998, Hong Kong gave up the principle of non-interference in the market and actively invested funds to support the Hang Seng Index. This was a very risky move because it might damage the reputation of Hong Kong's free market. However, the results proved that The correctness of this move.
After the financial defense war in Hong Kong, international speculators finally stopped, causing Hong Kong and even the entire mainland behind it to return to calm.
Seeing the positive effects of Hong Kong's active intervention in the market, a month later, Malaysia also began to actively intervene. Even Russia later went even more ruthless and directly acted as a culprit. While avoiding the complete destruction of its own financial system, it also cheated A leading hedging company in the United States called Long-Term Capital Management was directly liquidated. Because Long-Term Capital Management's position was so large that it almost caused a systemic financial crisis in the United States, the Federal Reserve was forced to intervene proactively.
Therefore, it can be said that Hong Kong's proactive market intervention was the first bucket of cold water to dampen the Asian financial crisis that lasted for two years and spread to the world.
This time, the Chinese authorities made a certain decision a year in advance, which obviously has the potential to trigger imitation.
Simon thought about it and said: "At least South Korea has no chance, because the situations in South Korea and Hong Kong are completely different. Hong Kong has sufficient foreign exchange reserves, a good economic structure, and almost no foreign debt. Although the operating methods this time have some bad rules, they are also It’s a game within financial rules. South Korea is different. South Korea’s main problem is foreign debt. If the South Korean government wants to intervene, all it can do is completely ignore the rules, enforce foreign exchange controls, specify exchange rates, and even ban capital outflows. For an export-oriented country, by doing this, it may have stopped the bleeding for a while, but at the same time, it means that South Korea has completely given up on its own country's economic future."
After hearing what Simon said, Janet narrowed her eyes: "I don't think so, this world is always forgetful."
Simon thought about it for a moment, but still had to admit that Janet's judgment was still correct.
Although Russia once cheated, it later returned to the ranks of the world's top ten economies with global GDP rankings after internal changes and the sharp rise in oil prices in the early new century.
There are also other countries or regions that have adopted regulatory measures during the Asian financial crisis, such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Although they have been criticized by various economists for a long time and how their actions at that time had long-term negative effects, if we go Looking at the GDP rankings of these countries, except for the short-term trough after the storm, if the timeline is stretched out, there is almost no change in 1997, 2007, and 2017, and some even rise instead of falling.
The world is very forgetful indeed.
However, Simon quickly said: "I don't care about anything else. At least, if South Korea dares to let my plan fail, I will make them have no future forever."
This time Janet didn't refute again, nodded her head hummingly, and turned her face to rub Simon's chin.
In fact, Janet was a little confused at first as to why her man wanted to hold on to the little South Korea.
Of course it is clear now.
The core is still semiconductor.
Simon has long wanted to get involved in the semiconductor industry, but he has never had a suitable opportunity before.
This time is an opportunity.
In fact, after suppressing Japanese semiconductors, the U.S. semiconductor industry is not weak. The problem lies in the production process. The U.S. semiconductor industry has been rapidly transforming into a waferless system in recent years. As time goes by, the shortcomings in production become more serious. With Simon's foresight, it is clear that the production of the semiconductor industry will increasingly shift to Asia.
In Asia, Japan will just rest on its laurels for a long time in the future. Taiwan only needs to win one TSMC, while South Korea is very comprehensive. Moreover, Japan, which has a huge economy and also has protectionism, is taking advantage of this financial crisis. The opportunity, South Korea, which is the weakest, just has the feasibility of eating it all.
So of course we have to act decisively.
In addition to semiconductors, there are of course LCD screens.
Simon will also take advantage of this and balance it appropriately to prevent one company from becoming dominant in South Korea in the future.
Then there are Korean construction, machinery, shipbuilding and other aspects.
In short, it's all fat.
What's more, this behind the scenes also means control of an entire country.
As for South Korea's entertainment industry, it seems to be the most prosperous and prosperous, but in terms of size, it is actually just an addition. After all, the scale is limited, and it is just easy to play with after taking over.
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