New York, the largest city in the United States, became even more prosperous after the war. Since 1865, the US economy has begun to recover and everyone’s life seems to be getting better all of a sudden.

Of course, this is just an illusion. Only with contrast can you feel happiness. Compared with the war period, life now has indeed improved a lot.

The United States has abundant resources, and the population has been greatly reduced due to the war, especially the young and strong people have suffered the greatest losses.

Affected by the market supply and demand relationship, in order to obtain enough labor, capitalists have to introduce cheap black workers while increasing their wages and benefits to retain their original workers.

The increase in income has eased social conflicts. Today is the weekend, and Tom asked his girlfriend Elena to go out for fun.

"Tom, have you noticed that the recent products are much cheaper? The skirt I took last month has dropped in the lower price now."

Tom said distressedly: "Sorry, my dear. Our budget for this month has been spent. Should we wait for the salary to be paid next week?"

Influenced by American culture, young people do not have the habit of saving money. As a member of the Moonlight clan, Tom only cared about prices half a month after paying his salary.

In addition to leaving money to live, his salary only lasts half a month at most. This is because he is a good job and is a glorious employee of a securities company and can barely be regarded as a member of the middle class.

The city of New York is both a paradise and a hell.

This place is only suitable for rich people, and it is best for poor people not to go out. Otherwise, the more you see, the harder your life will be.

For Franklin's sake, Elena nodded. There was no way, if you had limited income, you would not be able to survive in the city of New York without careful calculations.

If you don’t want the best, but want the most expensive, it is New York in this era. The region with the highest prices in the United States, or the region with the highest prices in the world.

While wandering around, Tom's face gradually became gloomy. Discounts and promotions were everywhere, ranging from clothing, shoes and socks to mechanical equipment, almost all were sold out with tears.

As a top student who graduated from Columbia University and is engaged in finance, Tom is particularly sensitive to the economy.

This large-scale price reduction made him realize something was wrong. Don’t look at the fact that there are many people rushing to buy now, but the total market demand has not changed.

The current rush to buy is equivalent to pre-providing future purchasing power. Fortunately, the United States has the tradition of the moonlight clan and does not consume in advance, which means that credit cards have not been born.

It’s not that capitalists are kind, but that their technology is not up to standard. They can’t play with such high-end things, otherwise they would have advocated advanced consumption long ago.

Tom said with a wry smile: "Elena, it seems we are going to prepare for a hard life."

He can even detect the problem, but will the higher-level capitalists not discover it? Any economic crisis will be premonition.

Almost every economic crisis, the consortium standing at the peak of capital makes a big profit. If they lose, they will either be too stupid and be miserable by their opponents; or they will be too greedy and want to earn the last Franklin.

Elena asked in surprise: "What's going on? Are you unemployed?"

"No, but it's going to be soon." Tom replied

Elena comforted: "It doesn't matter. With your ability, it's easy to find another job. At worst, we'll cut expenses from next month."

...

Just as the two discussed, the market had already reported to the final production companies. Due to the impact of Austrian cheap goods, many companies could not sell their products.

The economic crisis in the UK is unknown to ordinary people, but it is not a secret in the capitalist circle.

...

At the Executive Meeting of Citibank, President James said: "Everyone, according to our intelligence gathering, the number of ships coming from Austria has increased dramatically recently, all of which are transporting industrial and commercial products.

From toothbrushes, screws, nails, to mechanical equipment, it involves almost all walks of life, and there is no doubt that this is a dumping.

Not only the Austrians were in action, but the British were not idle either. The number of ships coming to the United States increased by one-third.

The British are also dumping goods at us, which is not a good thing for us. Our customers are powerless to resist the price war they have started.

In other words, most American companies have no resistance. So we must take action, otherwise a large number of bad debts will appear soon."

Citibank is the oldest bank on Wall Street, and it is not the giant Citigroup in later generations. The bank's main business is not arms, but lending and financial securities.

In this era, the scale of the US military industry was very small, and the international weapons export market was monopolized by the European powers. In peacetime, these industries could not afford a bank.

Now the connection between Citibank and military-industrial enterprises, that is, commercial loans, has not yet been directly invested. Now that we are facing a crisis, banks naturally have to protect themselves first.

Shareholder Babno asked: "Mr. James, what are you going to do? It is probably too late to promote Congress legislation, raise tariffs, and restrict the entry of foreign goods."

Taking action is inevitable, and this is the sequelae of the civil war. While intervening in the American Civil War, Britain, France, Olympiad and Western countries also opened up the US market.

It is naturally not that simple to increase the tariff protection market. This is also the reason why Austrian goods can be quickly dumped in the United States. Without tariff restrictions, low prices will become unfavorable.

The most troublesome thing is that these industrial and commercial products are not only cheap, but also surpass American products in all aspects of performance.

In this era, American industrial and commercial products have always been a counterfeit and synonymous with inferior goods. Compared with imported goods, they can only seize the market by cheap prices.

Now it's a tragedy, Austrian goods are starting to sell out in tears, and the British are following behind to carry out discounts and promotions. The cold winter of American local manufacturing industry has arrived.

James shook his head and said, "Of course not, we are not saviors. The outbreak of an economic crisis is inevitable, even if tariffs are raised, the market will be protected.

What we need to do now is to stop losses and make a profit in this crisis. I want the board of directors to temporarily terminate the issuance of loans to the outside world.

For loans with high risk, I am also planning to send someone to collect them in advance. At the same time, I sell most of the securities and stocks in my hands, and banks draw professional traders to prepare to short the stock market."

This is not a rescue, but a detriment. But it is not the point, as long as you can make money.

A qualified capitalist always puts profits first. Just talk about these high-level words, such as conscience, social responsibility, and anyone who takes it seriously would be stupid.

Especially in the 19th century, in this bloodiest era of capital, every picture of Franklin was covered with blood and sweat.

There is nothing to discuss, and the time for a reshuffle is up again. Before resisting the invasion of European capital, you must ensure that you can survive.

Everyone is still vivid in their minds about what happened during the last economic crisis. He was not prepared enough and lacked enough cash in his hands. The United States was in a state of crazy money panic, and Citibank almost went bankrupt.

With the development of the capitalist economy, economic crises have become more and more common. At first, it was once every decade, but later it became once every ten years, and it was about to become once every few years.

There are many financial capitalists who make the same choice, but there is no warmth in the face of interests. In this era of the strong and strong prey on the weak, everyone must survive, and it is impossible not to be cruel.

Banks shrink their money quickly triggered a chain reaction. Many companies were in trouble, including some well-efficient companies, who were also in a life-and-death situation due to a broken capital chain.

Layouts and production cuts in an instant became the hottest words in American society. The streets and alleys were filled with people looking for jobs, but there were not many companies recruiting people. The economic prosperity that had just begun just died just now.

Not only the United States, but the same thing is happening in many parts of the world. Austria just took the lead in opening up the aristocratic family and diverted the economic crisis.

Immediately afterwards, the British's actions directly dragged the whole world down. The world's largest industrial country is also the country with the most serious commodity backlog in the world.

In order to survive, British capitalists dumped goods directly into the European continent.

The first thing that was affected was France. A large number of British textile products were imported at bargain prices, and the Paris government repeatedly raised tariffs could not stop it.

There is no way, this time Austria takes action first and dumps goods into countries with relatively backward economies. By the time the British reacted, the market purchasing power had almost been consumed.

These countries have no industry at all, and dumping industrial products cannot impact the agricultural economy. Many people are even glad to buy bargains.

European countries are different, everyone's industries have started. The dumping of British goods has seriously affected the economies of various countries. There is nothing to say, and they have all started tariff firewalls.

The crisis has expanded on the European continent. Everyone, including Austria, cannot survive. A large number of companies go bankrupt every day.

Under the influence of tariffs, our international market is shrinking sharply. The colonial empire is not bad, at least there are colonies that can relieve the crisis.

A country without colonies would be in trouble. For example, Belgium, this industrial strongman was hit hard. Without overseas markets, Belgium's industrial capacity was directly cut in 1868.

Poland, which had just escaped independence, was unable to escape. Without the large market of the Russian Empire, Poland's fragile industrial system fell in the first wave of impact.

Even the export of agricultural products has not escaped. Originally, due to the economic crisis, international food prices plummeted.

In addition, they have no seaports, which has increased tariff costs, which directly leads to Poland's agricultural products losing competitiveness.

This made the already contradictory Prussian relationship even more complicated. The Poles hated the Kingdom of Prussia and imposed tariffs on their agricultural products.

In fact, the Kingdom of Prussia is also unable to protect itself and does not care about the Poles at all. After the economic crisis broke out, the British did not let them go.

A large number of British goods swept over, the fragile industries of the Kingdom of Prussia were hit hard, a large number of enterprises went bankrupt, and the unemployed population increased sharply.

Industry has been severely damaged, and agriculture will naturally be preserved. The ruler of the Junker nobles, and the interests of the class must be maintained first.

After the Russian-Prussian War, the Prussian Kingdom obtained a large amount of land, and directly changed from a grain importer to a grain exporter.

In terms of food exports, Pubo and other countries have become competitors. Fortunately, they have just ended the war and grain production has not returned to their peak period. Before that, everyone's competition was not fierce.

This contradiction changed in the autumn harvest in 1868. It happened to be the most severe period of the economic crisis. People's purchasing power decreased and international food prices fell by 28%.

Major European grain exporters are living a hard life. In order to ensure their own interests, the Berlin government led by the Junker nobles had to use tariffs to restrict Polish grain exports.

This is not entirely due to the Berlin government, who asked the Polish capitalists to dump the grain directly into the Kingdom of Prussia?

Initially, the two governments agreed that Polish farm products could not be sold in Prussia. Such constraints between governments obviously could not limit capitalists.

Seeing that the food prices in the Kingdom of Prussia are high, capitalists naturally can't help it in the face of interests.

At first, they just secretly sold a little to the people along the way during transportation, but the number was small and it did not attract everyone's attention. Later, the business grew bigger and bigger until the lid could not be covered and broke out.
Chapter completed!