Uncle Zhou is in a bad mood, he plans to find a punching bag.
real world.
new work time.
The so-called Times Square is nothing but the intersection of Broadway Avenue and several other streets. It is a square rather than a street corner. Because this place is too small, too messy, and there is a lot of people.
The buildings around the square are covered with neon billboards, flashing endlessly all day long. The original meaning of the name here is not'Times Square', but'Times Square'.
Because the "New York Times" Group established its headquarters here in 1904. Although the headquarters has been changed many times for hundreds of years, the New York Times has always stayed near the square.
It is Christmas Eve on December 24, 1993.
The wind and snow are invading southward from Canada, covering most of the United States. People have prepared ample food and gifts to spend a peaceful and peaceful day with their families.
But Mr. Bratton, the editor-in-chief of The Times, was still sitting in the gray building on the eighteenth floor of the headquarters, looking at the wind and snow and a small number of homeless people through the glass windows.
The secretary got off work half an hour ago. While sending Christmas Eve blessings, he also gave Bratton a gift. It was a big square box with a beautiful ribbon.
Bratton was feeling upset, and simply sat down to open the gift box. When the wrapping paper is opened, there is a very conspicuous logo of'Light at the bottom of the skirt' on the box.
"Oh, hell, this thing again."
The VCD from the other side of the ocean is still produced by the sanctioned "Holy Light" group.
"This thing is not legal at all!"
That's right, illegal, very illegal.
"Times" reporters are investigating this matter recently, investigating this incredible case-not long ago, a batch of VCDs appeared in major supermarkets in the United States and sold them publicly.
For ordinary people, no one cares about sanctions or sanctions, they only care about whether the goods meet their needs. I have to admit that VCD is a revolutionary advancement in audio-visual equipment. It is much better than a video recorder.
The Americans were skeptical of this product at first, but they soon began to shout "true fragrance"-the black people near the supermarket learned new livelihood skills and peddled pirated CDs.
This business is too profitable and very safe.
VCD sells for thousands of dollars in the United States, which is not cheaper than where it is produced. But people still flock to this, because although the machine is expensive, the disc is very cheap and the content is extremely rich.
As long as you buy a VCD, the promoter will point the customer where to buy the desired CD. Not to mention that foreigners are highly aware of copyright, and everyone is tempted to face the dazzling array of CDs.
Hollywood movies, TV episodes, concert videos, and even book materials—American books are extremely expensive, costing hundreds of dollars at every turn. As a result, the school's used book business is very prosperous.
'Shengguang' also produces'CD-ROM drives' for computers, specifically to provide technical personnel with cheap knowledge and information. The current hard disk capacity is too small, a CD can be stored in a small library, search convenience is too strong.
Relying on solving the various pain points of users, VCD is beginning to gain popularity all over the world. "Holy Light" is not only sold in the United States, it is being dumped all over the world, earning huge excess profits.
In Southeast Asia, Central Asia and South Asia, Eastern Europe and Southern Europe, and Africa and South America, where these laws and regulations are not sound, VCDs sell well.
Because it can earn foreign exchange, the factories of Shengguang Audiovisual in various provinces simply reduced the supply to the country and specialized export. Not only did this move not be blamed, it was greatly appreciated.
However, this thing encountered different things in Europe, America, Japan and other places. From the very beginning, it was attacked by law enforcement agencies, but the more investigation, the more it found that the water behind it was very deep.
All customs import documents provided by distributors are completely false. Unless you go to the customs to adjust the original files, no one can easily tell the difference.
At first, the US Customs believed that there was a ghost on its own side, and the maritime anti-personnel officers also tried every means to trace the smuggling route. However, investigators quickly discovered that the "Shengguang" was a smuggling group, and their smuggling routes could not be found alive or dead.
With professional sensitivity, Bratton believes that this is big news, and there must be inside stories behind it that can set off stormy waves. But after several months of investigation, the editor-in-chief of The Times did not make any breakthroughs.
By forging various import and transportation documents,'Holy Light' sold at least 100,000 VCDs and 5 million pirated CDs in the United States in 1993. And this is only the current capacity of the "Holy Light" for half a month.
The gift was half opened, and Bratton felt dull. He sat down and read the "Shengguang Economic Weekly" at hand. This publication has been published in multiple languages and its influence is growing.
The year-end sales forecast of "Shengguang Audiovisual" and the production outlook for the next year were published in the 12th issue of "Weekly" in 1993. This subsidiary has been building factories on the other side of the ocean very fast, building up a strong production capacity in a short period of time.
According to public reports,'Shengguang Audiovisual' sold one million VCDs in 1993 and has built twelve production lines with an annual production capacity of 1.5 million units. The company intends to increase its production capacity to five million units next year.
As for the output of VCD discs, the magazine didn't mention it. But Bratton himself estimated that the number of secret sales of "Holy Light" would soon exceed 500 million per month.
This figure comes from the recent increase in exports of polycarbonate in Japanese and Korean chemicals.
"Bypassing the supervision of various countries and selling the goods directly to the final market. How exactly is this done?"
Editor-in-Chief Bratton has arranged for a number of senior reporters to investigate this, seek clues within the police, and even bribe local gang members to act as informants.
As far as we know, "Shengguang" has a very efficient bottom sales channel. After being unable to sell publicly, it was very proficient in finding local gangs to sell.
One hundred thousand units are sold in one place in New York, which has not been fully distributed recently. According to the consumption power of Laomei, the annual sales of the entire United States will never be less than 5 million units.
Due to the extremely hot sales, local gangs can even fight for the supply of goods. But no one can tell exactly how the source of the goods came from.
Once an informant provided Bratton with a simple message that the goods appeared directly in the warehouse in New York Harbor, and the gang members would drive it directly.
When Bratton wants to know more, his informant has been publicly executed, and even he himself has received multiple phone calls and postal threats asking him to stop the investigation.
But Bratton sneered at these threats, he only considered the revenue of the "Shengguang" in the process of selling VCD-even if the gross profit of a unit is only 20%, it is enough to make the US sanctions against this group a joke. .
"There must be an unknown means of transportation behind this."
Editor-in-Chief Bratton recognized this. He put down the "Weekly" that he had read more than a dozen times, moved his numb butt after sitting for a long time, and decided to get up and go to the bathroom. Even squatting on the toilet, he was thinking.
Then..., suddenly there was a series of low and muffled noises under the toilet.
"Oh, God! This damn toilet is spraying manure."