"Rise up, slaves who are suffering from hunger and cold. Rise up, all the suffering people in the world. Their blood is already boiling. They must fight for the truth."
Outside the residence of Prime Minister Zuo of the Ming Dynasty, there were many bankrupt farmers and unemployed workers singing the "National Anthem of the New Ming Dynasty" while holding signs saying "Take a walk".
Of course, these people have reasons for their dissatisfaction. It is clear that things are getting better and better. Why did the stock market crash, the bond market crash, bank runs, and factories suddenly collapse?
How did this happen? What's the problem? Why is it that it has been more than a year or almost two years since the crisis occurred, but the Ming court is still worried about it?
In fact, Zhuge Weidao responded to the crisis in a very timely manner. After the Shanghai securities market plummeted due to the inability to pay some due bank bonds and the serious losses of several agricultural companies that specialized in serving small farmers, he immediately let the people below him. Economic officials and think tanks funded by the Zhuge family should conduct careful investigations and analysis to see where the problem lies?
However, the answer obtained after investigation and analysis left Prime Minister Zhuge very speechless!
The root of the problem turned out to be that we "won too much" in the last world war. We won too much, so we were in crisis!
These words don't sound like human words, but if you analyze it carefully, you can see what's going on!
It turns out that this wave of economic crisis in the Ming Dynasty is a typical example of overproduction. Capitalism will always have excess. It seems that the most serious surplus is not industrial products, but agricultural products!
In other words, there are too many delicious things to eat!
This is not a joke, it is a real thing. In fact, when Zhuge Weidao looked at the world map with great satisfaction every day, he should have thought that this day would come.
Because the Ming Dynasty gained so much from the last war!
Let’s not talk about the bits and pieces, let’s talk about the big chunks that are suitable for large-scale agriculture. There is an entire Oceania, including Australia and New Zealand, and they are all packed up! The British Oregon Territory, including all of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming in the other timeline, were also eaten.
In addition, California and Texas, which were under the name of the Mexican Empire, also became a paradise for the Ming expatriates and the Ming vassal Kingdom of Japan to develop farms, pan for gold, and dig for oil.
There is also the Pampas Plateau, which was "unowned" at the end of World War I in 1833, and was easily taken over by the Ming Dynasty.
Almost all of the above lands are good places to develop large-scale agriculture! Even the Central Basin of California, where floods and droughts are unpredictable, has turned into fertile soil rich in wheat, rice, fruits and vegetables because of the dam invested and built by the "Longzhong Water Conservancy" (an industry of the Zhuge family).
The fertile soil in the above places is difficult to develop by a single family farm. These places are most suitable for the development of mechanized agriculture and large ranches! Of course, the Ming court also encouraged domestic small farmers to go to those places to acquire land for development.
But for small farmers who travel thousands of miles to those places with their families and their families, the Ming court would be too embarrassed to just give them one or two hundred acres, right? Given this number of people, they have no motivation to go! Therefore, the Ming court not only allocated large tracts of land to them, but also provided low-interest or even interest-free development loans to help them purchase agricultural machinery. Therefore, after migrating to these "new territories", most small farmers in the Ming Dynasty became farmers with large tracts of land.
At the same time, Ming Dynasty's big capital was also encouraged to engage in various developments in the "new territories". Of course, when these big capitals went to the new territories, they had to take the path of mechanized large farms.
The production costs of mechanized large farms in these new territories are incomparable to the costs of small farmers in the Ming Dynasty!
As more and more fertile soil in the new territories was developed, starting about ten years ago, low-cost agricultural products produced in the new territories began to hit the local market of the Ming Dynasty. And the lives of the local small farmers of the Ming Dynasty began to become increasingly difficult. However, the Ming court at that time did not think this was a problem. Small farmers had a hard time, so they moved to new territories to become large farmers! Large farms are more efficient in production and can provide more cheap agricultural products to the local area. Food is the most important thing for the people. This must be a good thing!
As for the bankrupt small farms in the country and the debts attached to these small farms, it seems that it is not a big problem. The worst case scenario would be to allow the transfer of land-divided farms and use the proceeds from the transfer to repay debts.
As a result, mechanized large farms with high production efficiency also began to appear in many places in the Ming Dynasty!
At this time, the financial situation of those small farmers who were still struggling to support themselves began to increase rapidly, and they gradually embarked on the path of debt, bankruptcy, and emigration (going overseas or working in cities).
The process of bankruptcy of local small farmers in the Ming Dynasty went from slow to fast, getting faster and faster. It didn't seem to be a big problem at the beginning, but as the number of large farms increased, the profits of small farmers became thinner and thinner, the wave of bankruptcies became more and more intense, and the output of agricultural products increased. As a result, the surplus crisis and The debt crisis began in agriculture and individual small farms throughout the Ming Dynasty, and soon spread to some large agricultural companies that were not very competitive.
The concentrated bankruptcy of a large number of farmers has inevitably affected the consumption of industrial products, and the crisis encountered by large agricultural companies in new overseas territories has temporarily "frozen" a large number of construction and investment projects - steel bars, cement, ships, The demand for vehicles and agricultural machinery has plummeted again!
And Daming Industrial's production capacity has been expanding rapidly in the past few decades! Production capacity was already somewhat excessive, and consumption and investment had shrunk rapidly. Of course, the industry was also experiencing an excess crisis.
The oversupply crisis in agriculture and industry will inevitably affect the financial industry. Stocks, bonds, and mortgages all have problems!
Now that you have discovered the problem, let’s solve it!
When he just "clarified" the problem, Zhuge Weidao was not in a hurry at all - it was just an economic crisis! Isn't it just agricultural surplus, industrial surplus, stock collapse, bond collapse, bank failure? How can this be so difficult to defeat Prime Minister Zhuge? Prime Minister Zhuge understands economic crises best. Enter "Keynesianism"! Lower interest rates, increase national debt, increase government spending, issue agricultural subsidies, and vigorously stimulate the economy!
After a quick operation, the economy has been stimulated to pick up a bit, the stock market that collapsed has also risen a bit, and the banks that broke out in the debt crisis have also relaxed a little. However, the effect is still unsatisfactory. Non-performing loans in the entire banking system are still growing, and the market is also somewhat stagnant.
At this time, an unexpected situation occurred - under Zhuge Weidao's stimulus policy, Ming Dynasty actually had a trade deficit! Moreover, the deficit is caused by cheap industrial products from the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom!
It turns out that this economic crisis is actually global, caused by the continuous expansion of production capacity in industrialized countries around the world in the past few decades. Or, to be more precise, it is due to the temporary decline in production efficiency after the second industrial revolution. It cannot grow, but the inefficient production capacity accumulated by various countries is released in large quantities, resulting in a surplus crisis.
The production capacity of the world's major industrial countries, such as the Ming Dynasty, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire, has generally maintained continuous growth. Although the United States and the United Kingdom experienced a decline in industrial production capacity for a period of time due to the difficulties they faced after the defeat of the last war. However, this decline did not form a long-term trend, but began to grow rapidly after overcoming difficulties.
Behind this growth in production capacity is the continued growth of corporate, national and household debt!
If these production capacities cannot be effectively utilized, the overproduction crisis will inevitably spread to the financial industry. In this case, of course, countries must try their best to expand exports to alleviate the domestic overproduction crisis and avoid financial collapse. Always crashed!”
By the way, the finances of various countries are not "free" now because they are still implementing "redeemable banknotes", so no one has the ability to print unlimited money, not even the Ming Dynasty.
This "real banknote" from redeemable banknotes to non-cashable banknotes cannot be changed overnight.
If you are not careful, the currency will always collapse!
Therefore, the Zhuge Weidao government had no choice but to take immediate measures to significantly increase tariffs to block foreign goods from the "Chinese Economic Circle." Other industrial countries immediately followed suit, closing their doors and engaging in trade protection.
As a result, the relatively free international trade order after World War I suddenly disappeared, and the trade barriers of various countries interrupted international complementarity, making the industry and agriculture of various countries even more depressed, and international trade-related industries went bankrupt. The frenzy. And the Ming Dynasty’s economy, which had initially improved due to stimulus policies, fell into depression again!
After looking away from the street outside, Zhuge Weidao closed the curtains of his office and whispered: "How can I be Hoover? I must be Roosevelt!"