Hollywood Hunter

Stepping forward gently to help his boss button up his shirt, Angourie Davis couldn't help but glance at the two Miaoman figures under the thin blanket in the direction of the big bed with his slightly downcast eyes.

Inevitably weird.

In the past few years, Angorui found that the little man who became more and more superior in front of him was always able to put seemingly irrelevant women together on the big bed. Most of the women, single out, may be the goddess of dreams that many women want to kiss Fangze day and night.

Simon ignored the weird thoughts of the housekeeper who was clearly breathing rapidly, and hurried downstairs after getting dressed.

It's Thursday, August 20th.

The location is Simon's apartment at 68 on the Upper East Side.

Just last night, when Simon and two women who were quite different in appearance, temperament, style and even age, Celia Miller, who was gradually upgraded from the initial personal military assistant to Simon's East European and African affairs assistant He returned from Moscow in a hurry, and rushed directly to Simon's side after landing.

The thing is very simple, the Russian economic crisis that has been accumulated for more than half a year finally broke out.

This matter still has to start with the Asian financial turmoil last year. The precariousness of major emerging economies in Asia has caused countries around the world to withdraw funds in order to ensure the stability of their own economic situation. Eastern Europe, which has been attracting foreign capital for development in recent years, therefore Being robbed, the capital outflow that lasted for nearly a year has made the economies of Eastern European countries even worse, with Russia bearing the brunt.

Just talking about foreign debt, compared with other mini-economy, Russia's current total amount of various types of foreign debt has reached 150 billion US dollars, which is close to 60% of Russia's gdp.

If the economic situation is stable, although the scale of debt is huge, it will gradually increase.

The crux of the problem is that the current international economic situation does not allow Russia to pay back its debts slowly. The deteriorating domestic economy in Russia has made more and more people feel that Russia cannot afford to pay back. So capital has been fleeing since last year. The representatives are Soros, who was persuaded by Simon to evacuate Russia early this time.

In order to solve domestic economic problems, Yeltsin also under pressure in the first half of the year enabled the new Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, who is only 36 years old.

Sadly all to no avail.

Faced with the continued deterioration of the economic situation, just this morning local time, Russia had to adopt a strategy of overturning the table, directly abandoning the protection of the Russian ruble's exchange rate, and officially announced a sharp depreciation of 30%. In addition, the Moscow authorities also announced that Sergei Kiriyenko, who had been in office for less than half a year, would be revoked as prime minister, and that the former prime minister Chernomyrdin would temporarily serve concurrently.

The result of Russia turning the tables is wider financial turmoil.

With the Russian official announcement of a sharp depreciation of the ruble, first the stock markets in Asia near the end of the day generally took a sharp turn before the end of the day, then Europe, and then, it will soon be the turn of North America.

Sadness is everywhere.

"Before departure, I had breakfast with Yeltsin's daughter, Tatyana Diachenko. Tatiana expressed to me again that she hoped that the boss would help Russia in an emergency. The other party also said that if the situation continued to deteriorate, Russia would have to Initiate strict capital control measures. In addition..." Celia paused for a while when she said this, looked at the expression of her boss across the table, and then said: "...I don't know if my understanding is wrong, Tatyana It seems to imply that if the Yeltsin regime is loosened due to economic deterioration, some arrangements of the boss will also be affected and cannot be smoothly advanced.”

Inside the restaurant.

After listening to Celia's message, Simon just nodded slightly.

Girl a walked in at this time and handed a document to her boss.

Simon took it, flipped through it, and said, "Pass a copy of the relevant materials to James, and we will meet to discuss it in the morning. Well, call Xiaoqing and let her come with me. Also, help me contact the White House , take the time to make a phone call today."

Girl a quickly wrote down the memo, confirmed that her boss had no other orders, then turned and left.

"You eat first."

Seeing Celia's dazed look on the opposite side, Simon reminded her, then lowered his head and flipped through the progress materials of the rescue negotiations between Russia and IMF.

Like other Asian countries, Russia started contact with the IMF last year, and has been negotiating with the IMF on a rescue plan for the past six months. However, unlike South Korea, which completely gave up its economic sovereignty in negotiations with the imf, probably because it was repeatedly tricked by the west several times in the past few years, this time Russia has the backbone, even if the imf is willing to give a total of 50 billion U.S. dollar bailout loans, and will no longer fully agree to the various requirements of the imf.

So only now.

If history does not change, Simon still knows the follow-up.

The follow-up was that after Russia turned the table, it closed its doors and beat the dogs again. Like some countries and regions in Southeast Asia, it implemented compulsory foreign exchange controls and directly closed the bond market, re-stabilizing the domestic market with a means close to the planned economy.

Although Russia’s international reputation has been greatly lost by this approach, it has successfully stabilized the domestic economy without giving up its economic sovereignty, and has successfully waited for the economic downturn caused by a big boom in the international energy market after 2000. recovery.

In fact, one of the biggest impacts of the Asian financial turmoil in 1997 was that it made many countries realize that the so-called free market theory in the West was actually a fool. One reason was completely fooled by this theory, and the other ones turned the table and broke the rules.

Otherwise, not only has it defended its own economic sovereignty, but the consequences are far less serious than what mainstream Western public opinion has exaggerated.

Later, the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis and the intervention of the US government to save the market made even the most stupid people understand.

In a word: whoever believes in the free market theory is stupid.

This is actually like another set of theories in the West.

Western countries always associate their own prosperous economy with the institutional system, instilling in the world that your country’s poor economy and people’s poverty are the reasons for the system, and it has caused countless countries around the world to take the initiative after the 1990s Or passive system reform.

As a result, everyone saw it.

Because, in fact, the West has reversed the causal relationship between the two to a large extent.

In fact, most Western countries have completed the industrial revolution and accumulated a certain degree of economic accumulation before gradually promoting reforms at the institutional level that are becoming more and more open.

This probably corresponds to the Eastern saying, Canglan knows etiquette with facts.

When the material is rich enough, Western people begin to pursue more and more personal rights.

Just one, the right to vote

In Western countries, the realization of the right to vote for all citizens may be very early in the subconscious mind of many people. In fact, taking the United States as an example, women did not have the right to vote until 1920, and blacks did not get the right to vote until 1965. Others, the United Kingdom, subconsciously must be an old democratic country with hundreds of years. In fact, it was not until 1918 that the people achieved universal suffrage. Before that, only a small number of elites had the right to vote.

1918, 1920, 1965... Before any of these years, Western countries have actually completed the industrial revolution and completed the primitive accumulation of modern society.

Then came the rather slow institutional reforms.

Then, reverse the cause and effect, and start all kinds of flickering all over the world, one by one.

In fact, in Simon's view, the phrase "the economic base determines the superstructure" in the previous study is the most reasonable. When the economy develops to a certain level, the importance of ordinary people in the social and economic structure becomes stronger and stronger, and they will naturally get More social voice. Unless someone can completely overturn the table and make the country's economy go back a thousand miles, otherwise, certain trends cannot be changed.

Still know etiquette because of the warehouse.

The key is the word 'knowledge', knowing is not just etiquette.

This is off topic.

For Russia, Simon's ideas were loosened for a while, but generally he followed the original idea.

Brief summary, four words, raise the bandit's self-respect.

This is a fairly comprehensive general consideration, involving all aspects. The key is to prevent the federal government and the public from paying too much attention to the Westeros system, which is getting bigger and bigger and can easily affect the global economy. body.

There is no foreign invasion in the country, and internal struggles will inevitably arise.

Simon didn't want his business empire to become the target of the combined struggle of the federal government and the American people.

Out of this consideration, the United States, which is so powerful that it is the only one at the moment, still has some external enemies, at least competitors.

Russia counts as one.

Economically, Russia, whose GDP this year may not even reach 300 billion US dollars, certainly does not have any potential to compete with the United States. However, Russia still has a strong military background, which is enough to pose a threat.

There must also be a threat.

In order to prevent this 'threat' from disappearing due to the complete collapse of the economy, and even completely change the development trend of the world in Simon's memory, Simon must not let Russia completely collapse.

On Thursday, with the ups and downs of the global stock market, Simon is also urgently contacting all parties. Including Wall Street, including Washington, and even the Yeltsin administration in Moscow.

After all, ensuring that Russia continues to maintain is actually in the interests of many parties.

Like the U.S. military.

If Russia collapses further, there will be no need for NATO to exist at all. To whom will the US military-industrial complex sell hundreds of billions of arms every year?

This is only one aspect.

If Russia is gone, the biggest variable is that Europe, which no longer needs the protection of the United States, is likely to truly move towards integration and become the biggest competitor of the United States. This is something that the United States absolutely does not want to see. thing.

Therefore, Simon took the initiative to contact all parties this time, put aside his preoccupation with short-term interests, and initiated a rescue for Russia.

This can actually prevent Russia from turning the tables.

In the past, Russia turned the table, and Western capitals withdrew one after another because Moscow broke the rules. Another result was that they voluntarily gave up the continuous penetration of the Russian economy. Then, without the support of Western capitals, Russia’s domestic oligarchs were powerful. As a result, a certain emperor successfully eliminated the major oligarchy groups and regained control of the domestic economy.

After all the calculations, in the final analysis, it is the result of the West's own abandonment.

Simon is very fond of a statement about the relationship between major powers in his memory, fighting without breaking.

Competition is certain, but there is no need to completely tear faces.

Torn apart, it seemed that the opponent had received a heavy blow in a short period of time and suffered a loss. Looking back, the one who suffered the biggest loss was himself. Because you have voluntarily given up the relationship with the other party, and given up the influence and control that you once had, which can be said to be quite advantageous. After realizing it, it is almost impossible to continue these things.

Simon's

People's influence is here, and under this influence, lobbying will naturally get twice the result with half the effort.

Therefore, in the afternoon, the parties quickly reached a tacit agreement.

Determined to launch a rescue for Russia.

Then, after a night of close consultations, the next day, the news became public that the Russian government and the imf reached a temporary rescue agreement, and the imf provided Russia with an emergency loan of 10 billion US dollars to stabilize the domestic economic situation.

In exchange, the Russian government must promise not to let the ruble continue to depreciate.

In fact, the subtext is that Russia must ensure that it does not turn the tables and break international financial rules.

If there is only this 10 billion US dollars in cash, it will not help.

The current problems in Russia are similar to those in Southeast Asia. The key lies in the financial panic. Everyone lost confidence in the Russian economy, so they ran out one-sidedly, causing a stampede effect.

Therefore, besides direct financial support, confidence is more important.

Confidence is such an illusory thing. Whether it is Yeltsin or Clinton who jumps out to express their views, it is not very effective. If Soros, who has dominated the financial circles in the past year, jumps out to express his views, it is more likely to backfire.

However, it just so happened that Simon could give it.

With Russia's current GDP of less than 300 billion US dollars, the name Simon Westeros is indeed enough to easily support the confidence of international capital in Russia.

Therefore, right after the IMF reached a provisional agreement with the Russian government, Raymond Smith, chairman and CEO of Verizon Telecom, paid a surprise visit to Moscow and signed a deal with Russia's largest telecommunications group, Russia Telecom Investment Joint Stock Company, with great fanfare. An investment agreement with a total value of 2.5 billion US dollars.

Regarding Russia Telecom Investment Joint Stock Company, this is also a project that Simon has been in contact with a few years ago.

The first time I had a secret meeting with Yeltsin's daughter in private, the other party wanted to give this project to Simon as a favor, but Simon didn't want it at the time, because it was a piece of fat that several major oligarchs in Russia were fighting for. Even though Simon is confident in his own strength as a cross-river dragon, he doesn't bother to fight with a group of local snakes.

Then, 25% of the shares of Russia Telecom were transferred, and Potanin, a Russian oligarch supported by Soros, won it for 2 billion US dollars.

Now, this can be regarded as a union between the Westeros system, Soros and the local Russian oligarchs. Simon did not take away the interests belonging to the latter two, but invested an additional 2.5 billion US dollars to obtain another 30% of the shares. And the result of this transaction is an expression of the Westeros system's position and confidence in the Russian economy.

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