Thousands of sparks

Chapter 179 Rewards
On August 27th, there are still 20 days before the September coal futures. The wildly rising coal price has become the last straw that can crush the remaining rationality of all traders.

At 27 o'clock in the morning on August 240, the transaction price of coal futures in September has risen to an unbelievable [-] pence per pound, which is equivalent to one pound of coal per pound.On the same day, the spot price rose to [-] pence per pound.

This is no longer a question of "expensive", but outrageous.There may be many outrageous things in human history. The price of one pound of coal has skyrocketed to one gold pound, which can definitely be ranked in the top ten in the "ranking list of all outrageous things that have happened" in human history.

The people who work and live in Olin get no change in their wages, yet they earn just enough to buy a pound of coal for a month of work.This magical reality has very serious consequences in an instant.

In response to the outage of excavating machines caused by the shutdown of the Russel gear factory, various mines have stepped up their recruitment of miners.But... the miners are not stupid, their contribution is completely disproportionate to their labor income.

The coal mine and these miners have not established any labor contracts, and there is no relationship of "paying weekly wages to hire each other to work".In the empire, all coal miners are paid according to the mining time.Miners are paid 5p for an hour of work in the mine.

As for those who receive a fixed salary and operate machines to dig coal in the mine, they are technicians-they are not the same kind of people as miners.

At today's coal prices, a miner can only be paid to buy one pound of coal after working 40 hours and accumulating about [-] pounds of coal.

Faced with such an outrageous price and meager income, a fool would choose to use his salary to buy coal.In order to give their families at least the ability to make a fire and cook, the miners began to secretly carry the stolen coal mines.Because the problem of preventing miners from being entrained was not considered from the beginning of the design of the mine, the major coal mines immediately suffered "huge losses."

In fact, the weight of coal that a miner can carry is very limited, and after the "theft and entrainment" of the coal mine, in order to send these "high-value" minerals back to their homes as soon as possible, the miners even choose to shorten their working hours.Fivepence an hour didn't matter, as long as they had stashed as much coal as they could take with them, they would quickly go up the well and go home.

The mine didn't even dare to refuse the miners' request to go home quickly.They had no reasonable excuses to stop the miners' actions, and at the same time, they were worried that after refusing to raise the well, the enraged miners would go on strike just like the Russel Gear Factory.

Yes, mines are very concerned about strikes.The reason is also related to the extremely high price of September coal mine futures-their current coal mine reserves are simply not enough to deliver and pay the existing coal mine futures orders.

In fact, the production capacity and reserves of the original mine are very sufficient.At the beginning of July, it can even be said that each of the operators of these mines was having a headache on how to sell the coal in stock.In order to determine the market's expected level of coal demand within a certain period of time, various mines have adopted a very common method of stock coal transfer to futures sales - [-]% of the current coal reserves are included in the futures coal mine trading pool available for trading .

According to the mine's initial estimate, it doesn't matter even if [-]% of the coal is bought by futures traders - [-]% of the coal in stock is enough to meet the market demand, and the technicians who use the machines to mine the coal mine are not doing their best work at all. .From July to September is the maintenance period of traditional coal mine mining machines. All mines are overhauling the mining equipment that has been used for about a year.

If there is a sudden increase in demand, technicians can quickly complete the inspection and the machine can get back to work.

Therefore, the total amount of September coal futures sold by various mines through the Imperial City Exchange is quite a lot.The total amount they sell is 80% of the monthly production plus 80% of the existing coal stocks, totaling about [-] million pounds.

In other words, based on the price of 16 pence per pound, the total coal supply of Olin in September is worth about 4000 million gold pounds.Now, the Olympian Development Bank has spent 300 million pounds to purchase September coal futures totaling approximately 6000 million pounds.

76.6% of Olin's coal supply in September was concentrated in the hands of Olin Development Bank.And relying on the price advantage of the early purchase, after mortgaging these futures orders at 50% of the current price, the funds in the hands of Olin Development Bank not only did not decrease, but increased by 600 million gold pounds.

With these amounts in reserve, it is no problem at all to deal with ordinary customers withdrawing deposits-banks that absorb public deposits have felt tremendous pressure during this time of soaring prices.As long as a branch has all the cash taken away by customers and can no longer cash out funds to other customers, the news that "such and such a bank has suffered huge losses due to skyrocketing coal mines and is about to close down" will spread in the market.Then those big customers who had deposited their money in the bank would suddenly ask to withdraw their funds.

In order to meet the public withdrawal needs of only a few hundred thousand pounds, these banks have to keep a cash reserve of more than 20 pounds in each branch, and then use various means to find ways to supplement their own liquidity, ready to cash out customers withdrawal requirements.

The funds previously lent to Olin Development Bank at low interest rates for "supplementing liquidity" were naturally re-borrowed by them--borrowed rather than withdrawn in advance. After all, it is better to pay interest than to pay a large amount of liquidated damages cost-effective.

Almost all other Olin banks are on the defensive in response to these possible withdrawals.On the stock exchange, there was no trader who could compete with Olin Development Bank.Driven by large sums of money, it seems that no individual or organization can compete with Olin Development Bank - the September coal futures price has completely lost the possibility of market pricing, as long as Lorraine is willing, the September coal futures price Even if it rises to five hundred gold pounds per pound, there is no problem.

However, it is impossible to achieve Dusand's strategic goal of "slowing down the development of the empire through economic warfare" by simply raising futures prices.At least not simply raising the price of energy - the prices of other products also need to be raised, and to the point where it can cause civil unrest in the empire.

In fact, Du Sande himself did not have any detailed understanding and research on the impact of energy prices on the national economy, but one thing is certain - when he watched the news in his previous life, he heard more than once that certain countries were affected by energy prices. Rising sharply, leading to severe inflation followed by news of civil unrest and recession.

Whether there is a date or not, Dusand is doing everything he can to buy time for Newsaal to develop.Fortunately, as part of the overall war, the entire empire has almost no defense against economic warfare.Even Grand Duke Hall, who was supposed to be the gatekeeper of the empire's economy, did not respond effectively.

Of course, there is also Schultz's credit.

As a talent "hired" and "protected" by Grand Duke Hall, the relationship between Schulz and Grand Duke Hall is actually quite close.He will be selected by Grand Duke Hall as the candidate to implement the El Salvador plan, naturally because he has the trust of Grand Duke Hall.

And after the El Salvador plan has been implemented, anyone with a political mind can see that for Grand Duke Hall, Schulz no longer has irreplaceable value.So, if Schultz wants to continue to receive the protection of Grand Duke Hall and survive in this seemingly prosperous and stable Olin, which is actually undercurrent...then he must struggle immediately to create new value for himself.

Olin Development Bank, obviously, is the result of Schultz's struggles.

As the most trusted subordinate and close friend of the deceased Marquis of Newsail Lafayette, it is not surprising that Schultz can control a considerable part of the funds that Mr. Marquis hid in Olin.Not only did Grand Duke Hall not feel wrong about Schultz using this "weird" method to obtain a large amount of income, but he even appreciated that Schultz was indeed a talent.

Sure enough, on August 28, Schultz visited the residence of Grand Duke Hall.After handing out the first funds raised by the Olympian Development Bank - 1000 million gold pounds - to the bus, Schultz also very frankly promised that in order to make the empire stronger, he would donate [-] million pounds to the Olympian Development Bank. Half of the proceeds went to the Archduke Hall "for your urgent use to ensure the health of the Empire's finances".

After giving such a generous "contribution", Grand Duke Hall smiled and invited Schultz to taste the refreshments in the mansion, and then invited him to have lunch together.And the price of this lunch is that the Olin Development Bank has to prepare a sum of 500 million pounds for Grand Duke Hall tomorrow morning-all in cash.

During lunch, Grand Duke Hall naturally asked Schultz about the ultimate purpose of the Olin Development Bank and "how far do you plan to achieve it."

"The financial situation of the empire still has a lot of room for improvement... Therefore, I think that those humble poor ghosts who only know how to occupy the public services brought by the empire's funds should make some contributions to the economic development of the empire." Schultz's answer is very in line with his current personality, "Since they are unwilling to increase consumption, why not raise prices and make them pay more taxes?"

"Your loyalty to the empire is beyond doubt." Grand Duke Hall didn't care about such obviously deceptive words.He asked again, "What I want to know more is, how much money do you want to make from this futures?"

"Our goal is 600 million gold pounds." Schultz smiled slightly, and said a jaw-dropping figure in an insignificant tone, "Those banks have handed over 2000 million pounds, and they have no money left." More oil and water can be squeezed out. Other traders, especially those who are still insisting on shorting...they can squeeze out at least another [-] million gold pounds."

"Those mines that have nothing to do with the mining consortium are seriously oversold. If they can't deliver enough spot coal after the delivery period arrives, they have to compensate ten times the spot market price in cash. After a little negotiation, 3000 million gold pounds is almost enough It can be taken out—those who try to bargain with His Majesty should be beaten up." Schultz smiled very confidently, and he continued, "Next, we are going to let those greedy, who have taken a large number of orders but are not at all The smelter who fails to deliver the goods will suffer another dumb loss, which is almost another 3000 million gold pounds."

"The mining association has been too strong recently, and the Forestry Bureau needs some assistance." Grand Duke Hall said with a smile after eating a piece of good veal, "Do you know what to do?"

"Take action against the mining complex, this..." Schultz showed a embarrassed look, "I may need your help."

"You will get my help." Grand Duke Hall nodded, "As His Majesty said - those who are loyal to the empire will be rewarded."

(End of this chapter)