Chapter 3 The First Pot of Gold

  Once the goal was determined, Zhong Shi began to formulate a plan.

  The Latin American debt crisis that broke out in 1982 has already happened, and it may be too late to make a fortune out of it. However, the "Plaza Agreement" in 1985 and the subsequent appreciation of the yen, the unprecedented prosperity of the RB capital market, the "Black Monday" that occurred in 1987, and the bursting of the RB stock market bubble in 1989, etc. will be his chance.

The Latin American debt crisis in the 1980s can be traced back to the two oil crises in the 1970s: In 1973, the fourth Middle East war broke out, in order to attack Israel and the United States behind it, the Arab countries in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) The country announced an oil embargo and suspended exports, which caused a sharp rise in oil prices around the world. As a result, oil rose rapidly from less than US$3 per barrel to US$13. The Arab countries that started the oil wars rapidly increased their economic power, and hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth flowed into these countries.

The second oil crisis occurred in 1978. The cause was the political turmoil in Iran and the subsequent "Iran-Iraq War". Iran's oil production dropped sharply, breaking the balance of supply and demand in the global crude oil market. The price of $13 per barrel soared to $34 per barrel in 1981, and OPEC countries once again made a lot of money.

However, while earning soft hands, these countries also have troubles. OPEC countries generally have small domestic economies. After removing the US dollars used for domestic economic development, there are still a large amount of "petrodollars". These capitals must find suitable investments. channel. If you don't continue to flow and appreciate, it will undoubtedly be a huge waste.

   These U.S. dollars eventually flowed into the "Eurodollar market" and the U.S. capital market, turning into bank deposits and securities assets such as stocks and bonds. With the entry of a large number of "petrodollars", American financial institutions began to expand aggressively, and banks such as Citigroup, Manhattan Chase, and Bank of America all became giants at this time.

Out of national strategic considerations, the United States began to vigorously support the pro-American Latin American developing countries in the 1970s. Seeing the opportunity, American financial institutions issued loans to these countries and purchased national bonds at extremely low interest rates. Foreign exchange reserves and fiscal taxes are used as collateral, and these American financial institutions are also unscrupulous. And in the short term, the rapid economic development of these Latin American countries has also allowed them to taste the sweetness.

  Citibank executive Walter at the time. Reston has a famous saying that "the country will never go bankrupt". It is under the guidance of this idea that the large financial institutions in the United States have intensified their efforts and issued huge loans one after another to European and American countries.

If you walk too much at night, you will always encounter ghosts. The international trade of Latin American countries, which mainly export primary products, has severely hit the foreign exchange earnings of these countries due to market price fluctuations. In order to balance the balance of international payments, Latin American countries The only way to continue borrowing is to increase the debt burden.

  With the increase of interest rates, the deterioration of terms of trade, and the erroneous monetary policies of Latin American countries, the debt crisis finally broke out in 1982. Mexican Finance Minister Herzog asked the United States for help, which opened the curtain of the outbreak of the Latin American debt crisis.

  The country may be going bankrupt!

  Zhong Shi silently recalled the situation of the Latin American debt crisis in his heart, and sighed softly, feeling a kind of helplessness at an untimely time. But fortunately, there will be opportunities in the future. Thinking about it this way, he feels better again.

  Now there is a real problem before his eyes, and that is that he has no money!

  In the countryside in the 1980s, how much money could an average family have? It has not been a few years since the reform and opening up, and the rural people have just got rid of hunger and have enough food, and they don't have much money left. At this time, in the southern part of Jiangzhong Province, township enterprises were in full swing, giving birth to a group of people who got rich first, but in the northern part of Jiangzhong Province, it was still like a pool of stagnant water, with no improvement in economic development.

  The first bucket of gold has always been a problem for entrepreneurs, and Zhong Shi is no exception. If he obtains it through illegal means, he will be charged with original sin, and he will not be able to wash it clean for a lifetime. Zhong Shi naturally does not want to do this.

   It's just that in this place that is almost primitive agricultural society, it's too difficult to make money. Zhong Shi has been thinking about it for half a month, but he still has no idea.

   On this day, when Zhong Shi was eating, he unconsciously lost his mind again, staring blankly at the sweet potatoes in the bowl. When Mother Zhong saw her, she couldn't help showing a sad expression on her face. She kicked her husband's leg quietly under the table, signaling that Father Zhong, who was still gorging, should pay more attention to the strangeness of Little Zhongshi.

With his wife's cue, Father Zhong noticed Zhong Shi's weirdness. He gave Zhong Shi a scrambled egg with a chopstick, touched his youngest son's head, and said dotingly: "Eat more good things, so that you can eat more quickly." Get better!"

  In the countryside in the 1980s, eggs were undoubtedly a very nutritious food, and most people were reluctant to eat them, so they were sold in the market. Eggs and meat can only be seen on the dinner table of ordinary people only during the holidays.

Zhong Shi stuffed the egg into his mouth with a bitter face, swallowed it in two or three, and then replied in a low voice: "Dad, Mom, you can eat too!" His words immediately made the Zhong family smile and praised their son repeatedly Sensible, but their chopsticks did not reach for the plate of scrambled eggs.

After Zhong's father finished eating a bowl of sorghum rice, he handed the bowl to Zhong's mother, and said, "My wife, give me another bowl of rice. I'm too tired today and I don't want to move!" After finishing speaking, he stretched out his hand to another bowl Tortillas. It seemed that he was really tired and hungry, and his appetite was much larger than usual. Mother Zhong took the rice bowl and was about to fill it with rice.

   "Wait!" Zhong Shi yelled suddenly, startling the others, and Mother Zhong's hand trembled, almost dropping the bowl in her hand to the ground.

   "Mom, show me the bowl in your hand!" Zhong Shi was also taken aback, he quickly stood up, staggered to Mother Zhong, held the bowl firmly in his hand, and ran out quickly.

   "What is Little Shitou doing?" Zhong's father and Zhong's mother were amazed, they all stopped their chopsticks and followed them out. The two had just left the main room when they found Zhong Shi squatting by the well, carefully cleaning the bowl.

   "Dad, where did this bowl come from?" Zhong Shi cleaned the bowl, looked at it carefully for a long time, and then asked the bewildered Father Zhong who was squatting in front of him.

"What's wrong with this bowl? It's a gift!" Father Zhong didn't understand why his son asked this. He often eats with this white porcelain bowl. Apart from feeling that this bowl is smoother than the bowls bought on the street, there is nothing else. Nothing special.

   "Who sent it? Did you send anything else?" Zhong Shi carefully put down the white porcelain bowl and asked anxiously.

  After he said this, Zhong's father and Zhong's mother realized his abnormality, and their faces became serious. Father Zhong thought about it carefully, and then said in an unsure tone: "This bowl seems to be given by the educated youth. It is said that there were a group of educated youth who jumped in the queue here, working hard every day, and couldn't get enough to eat. Look at your grandfather. They were pitiful, so they often gave them some cornmeal, and then one of them gave this bowl, saying that it was his family heirloom, and then your grandfather gave it to me."

   "What happened next? What about the educated youth?" Zhong Shi continued to ask.

   "Dead!" Father Zhong sighed and said regretfully.

   "Dead?" Zhong Shi couldn't help being a little surprised when he heard this answer.

   "Why do you know this, kid? Hurry up and eat!" Father Zhong tapped Zhong Shi on the head, then stood up, and went back into the house without looking back.

The reason why Zhong's father was unwilling to say it was because a sensational incident happened to that educated youth. It was in 1977, when the country had just resumed the college entrance examination, and many educated youths who jumped in the queue and went to the countryside were given a way to return to the city. The educated youths picked up their books one after another and reviewed them day and night, hoping to get good grades in the college entrance examination that year and escape the bitterness of the countryside. However, when the college entrance examination was approaching, the village party secretary suddenly informed the educated youth that he would not be allowed to take the college entrance examination.

   When the news came, it was like a thunderbolt in the clear sky, which immediately shattered the dream of that educated youth. In fact, everyone knew that the village party secretary's son was pursuing a female educated youth, and that female educated youth liked the male educated youth, so naturally she dismissed the village party secretary's son. The village party secretary is obviously taking personal revenge, but all the places to take the college entrance examination are in the hands of the village party secretary, and the educated youth dare not speak out.

  On a dark and stormy night, this male educated youth pried open the warehouse of the militia, stole a shotgun and dozens of bullets, sneaked into the house of the village party secretary, and shot everyone in his house. He himself knew that this kind of thing happened, and heaven and earth were bound to escape, so he shot himself in a remote cornfield.

   This incident was a sensation, but in that era when information transmission was difficult, the transmission was limited to the nearby ten villages and eight villages. This incident happened less than ten years ago, and Zhong's father was already a young man in his twenties at that time, so naturally he remembered it clearly.

   Although Zhong Shi didn't know what happened, it was enough to know that the educated youth had passed away, so that the original owner would never come back to ask for the bowl again.

  Although he is not completely sure, Zhong Shi is also 80-90% sure that the white porcelain bowl in front of him was produced by Ding Kiln, one of the five famous kilns in Song Dynasty.

  The five famous kilns in the Song Dynasty are Ru, Guan, Ge, Jun, and Ding. They are named after the location of the kiln, and they are a pinnacle of ancient Chinese porcelain. The five famous kilns, Ru Kiln as the head, each piece is unique and rarely survived; the most mysterious is the official kiln, whose ruins cannot be found; the Ge kiln is flawed; The kilns are mainly white porcelain and celadon.

  In the Song Dynasty, the development of Huaxia porcelain reached its peak, and neither the blue and white flowers of the Yuan Dynasty, the Chengcai of the Ming Dynasty, or the pastels of the Qing Dynasty could compare with it. Zhong Shi also had a little research on these antique collections in his previous life, and knew a thing or two. At that time, Huaxia's antiques repeatedly hit new highs in auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's, and the prices made him, a fund manager, speechless.

Take Qing pastel as an example. On November 11, 2010, a Chinese buyer bought a Qianlong famille rose hollow porcelain vase at a price of 51.6 million pounds (including commission, about 550 million yuan, the exchange rate at that time). Become the most expensive Chinese and Asian works of art.

  In fact, few of those collectors are for the art, just to get a higher price in the next resale, and to gain benefits in the activity of "passing flowers with drums". In order to cater to these boring rich people and raise more funds for his own fund, Zhong Shi in his previous life could only put down his figure and study these antiques wholeheartedly, hoping to find common topics in the conversation with them.

   Unexpectedly, the skills learned in the previous life to please others will come in handy now, and it is very possible to dig the first pot of gold for yourself!

  (end of this chapter)