Chapter 161 Liberators and Predators (Second update, please subscribe)
Reconstruction of Europe!
Could it be that the reconstruction of Europe was called a miracle in another world? Li Yian raised his eyebrows and fell into deep thought.
Until now, my post-war planning has been focused on Borneo, rather than a broader world.
The vision is too narrow and completely ignores the whole world.
Borneo is just a small part of the world that is not worth mentioning.
In contrast, Europe was the most important region that should not be ignored in the first decades after the war.
What was Europe like after the war?
Countries are generally devastated by wars, lacking materials and funds, making it difficult for the economy to recover for a while, and people are starving.
It was under this circumstance that the United States launched the "Marshall Plan", and European countries carried out post-war reconstruction with the assistance of the United States. The United States used Europe's post-war reconstruction to alleviate its post-war economic crisis.
The period from 1948 to 1952 was the period of fastest economic development in European history. Industrial production increased by 35%, and agricultural production actually exceeded pre-war levels. The poverty and hunger of the first postwar years no longer existed, and Western Europe's economy began two decades of unprecedented economic development.
It was also during this period that the lights that had been extinguished once again shined again in Europe.
And all this is unknown to people of this era. Thinking of this, Li Yian looked at Alberto and asked.
“Alberto, when we were in Italy last year, why didn’t anyone buy those boats?”
“Because there were too many boats,”
Alberto replied without thinking:
"Several Liberty ships are launched every day in American shipyards. Thousands of Liberty ships can be built a year. Those are 10,000-ton ships. They build Liberty ships. The speed of the ship not only exceeds the speed at which German submarines were sunk, but also far exceeds the total tonnage before the war. By the end of the war, the United States alone will have tens of millions of tons of merchant ships, and the officials will surely sell them off at extremely low prices. For those merchant ships, at least for more than ten years, the sea will be flooded with a large number of cheap freeships, but no matter how cheap they are, not many people will buy them. After all, Europe..."
Pointing to the window. New York, Alberto said with a shrug.
“The United States made a fortune during the war, but Europe depleted its wealth during the war. They simply did not have the funds to purchase various supplies from all over the world as they did before the war. Many people believe that Europe It will take at least 20 years for the economy to return to pre-war levels, and these 20 years will definitely be a dark age for the shipping industry. By then, whether it is Liberty ships or Italian merchant ships, they will have long become a pile of rubbish. Scrap iron."
Looking at the bustling New York outside the window, thinking of the poverty and hunger all over Italy, Alberto said again:
"Eight years ago, Greek shipping king Onassis bought six cargo ships from Canada for US$120,000. They were worth US$2 million when they were built. During the Great Depression, each ship was only worth US$20,000. It only took four years. He has been waiting for the war, but when will the next war break out?"
Taking a sip of coffee, Alberto said.
“In the next ten or twenty years, merchant ships will be scrap metal. After all, there are too many merchant ships in the world, so no one will buy that pile of scrap metal!”
Hey, this is the limitation of the times!
Now facing the tragic situation of Europe being devastated by war, almost everyone will think that Europe will definitely fall into an unfair situation, but the facts are often beyond people's expectations.
No one could have expected that Western Europe, which had been destroyed by the war, would recover so quickly, and who could have imagined that in just a few years, Western European countries, including Germany, which was completely destroyed by the war, would rise from the rubble. , with the improvement of living standards, their demand for supplies far exceeded that before the war.
This is definitely against people’s common sense, but it is what actually happens.
And who benefits from all this?
The United States is certainly indispensable, but besides the United States, who else benefits from this?
Among them are Greek shipowners represented by Greek shipping king Onassis!
When Onassis's Greek shippers were shipping goods to Europe after the war, they discovered that the shipyards in Germany, France, Italy and other Western European countries had been destroyed to varying degrees during World War II, and the reconstruction of the shipyards required large sums of money. . Moreover, their merchant fleet also suffered heavy losses, so Greek shipowners lobbied the government to use American loans to purchase Liberty ships while investing in Western European shipyards.
In just a few years, the Greek merchant fleet has become the largest merchant fleet in the world, with a large number of commodities, including agricultural and forestry products, petroleum, iron and other ores, coal, chemical products, fertilizers, etc. Shipped worldwide via Greek merchant ships.
The golden age of the shipping industry was captured by the Greeks! Of course, they have only seized on the renaissance of the shipping industry. Thanks to the Greek shipping tycoon married by the imaginative Mrs. Kennedy, Li Yi'an learned about Onassis's experience and learned how prosperous the shipping industry was after the war.
The opportunity hidden in this is not the prosperity of the shipping industry, but the opportunity for the entire Western European world to rise again. If you seize this opportunity, the benefits will be Unimaginable.
The Greek shipping kings just got rich returns on shipping. It has not fully utilized its shipping advantages and is just satisfied as a transporter.
For Li Yian from the 21st century, there were too many successful cases in that era for him to learn from. If you want to make huge profits, the most important link is to diversify your operations and make full use of them. Advantage in one's own hands.
You can completely use the transportation advantages and the information advantages of multinational companies to carry out logistics deployment and directly participate in market sales. In this way, you can naturally obtain more generous profits.
By making some arrangements in Europe in advance, you can definitely take advantage of the European revival and obtain huge returns.
The profits gained in Europe are the funds needed for the rise of Borneo, and will even form a certain cycle - the more developed Western Europe is, the more lucrative the profits will be, and the more prosperous Borneo will be.
Just like...just like America! The Marshall Plan was actually a sugar-coated bullet sent by the United States to Europe.
"So it's like this..."
Suddenly, Li Yian seemed to have figured everything out. It was already dark by this time, and Alberto had already left the office.
“My God, these guys on Wall Street are really not simple!”
Stand up from the big desk, cross the room, walk to the window, and the two Gazing downstairs at the Manhattan business district, although one cannot see the people and vehicles crawling on the street from a high-rise building, the river of lights moving on the road shows the prosperity of the city.
Over there is Wall Street, which is the heart of this financial empire. No matter what those who detract from it say, Wall Street is destined to dominate world finance in the next few decades, or even hundreds of years.
When did this all start?
Not tomorrow, not yesterday, but now!
Those well-dressed speculators are waving their dollar bills and acquiring all kinds of cheap assets in Europe. Their purpose of acquiring assets is not just to make money, but for another The goal - to turn Europe into a leek patch for the United States.
“I’m afraid the Marshall Plan is also a link of theirs!”
Li Yian said to himself, drawing inferences from one instance.
“Europe has accelerated its economic recovery through the “Marshall Plan”. Undervalued assets have regained their value along with the recovery of European countries. Europe seems to have recovered, but in fact it has long become the property of the United States. Leekland, the more developed Europe is, the more beneficial it is to the United States, because essentially, the economies of European countries have long been controlled by American financial capital!”
Ouch!
Taking a deep breath, Li Yian seemed to understand why in another world, no matter how dissatisfied European countries are with the United States, they only stay in words. Is it because of gratitude for the liberation of the United States during World War II? And post-war aid?
That’s nonsense!
Between countries, there is nothing to be grateful for. Gratitude is always verbal, and interests are the most important.
The reason why European countries dare not fall out is... they don’t have the capital to fall out! Because their capital is just covered in a shell of the British, French, German and other countries. If you tear off that shell, what will you see?
It is the financial capital of the United States!
"Good guys, it turns out that Mickey and the others are the real liberators of Europe..."
As he said this, Li Yian began to think in his heart. He has never been a An idealist, as a realist. He understands what this world is: it is purely a jungle. There are only two kinds of animals living in this jungle, one is tigers and lions, and the other is sheep and rabbits.
The former is the predator, while the latter is the prey. No one wants to be prey, but if you are not strong enough, you will often become prey and be captured by predators.
But what about beyond predators and prey?
The corner of Li Yian's mouth raised slightly. Standing on the Empire State Building, he stared at New York in the twilight. At this time, he was like an eagle hovering in the jungle... The eagle is also a predator, but It just moves above the nine heavens.
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(End of this chapter)