The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 335 An irreversible situation

Zhou Xin originally thought that he could delay the arrival of the financial crisis by bringing the mobile Internet era ahead of schedule.

The 08 financial crisis had a profound impact on the entire geopolitics and international situation. Strategic politicians all saw from this massive crisis that the economic globalization pattern led by Amerikan would be unable to be maintained sooner or later.

The current division of labor means that even Amerikan, the most upstream stakeholder in economic globalization, cannot avoid cyclical economic crises, and the economic crises are getting worse.

The arrival of the financial crisis as promised made Zhou Xin realize that the development of events has its own objective laws, and it is difficult for individuals to reverse the trend.

The cause of the 08 financial crisis was an overly loose monetary policy. These loose money flowed to individuals at an extremely low threshold. Individuals lacked risk awareness and then purchased high-risk and high-return financial products. The entire capital flow chain was full of risks.

No matter what he does, he can't influence Amerikan's monetary policy and lending rules.

Zhou Xin brought the mobile Internet ahead of schedule, and he also brought Internet finance more than ten years ahead of schedule.

Being willing to give up profits and distribute shares of NewPay to traditional financial institutions has helped NewPay always have the strength to support its expansion.

Yu'e Bao has made all financial institutions realize the power of the mobile Internet and the energy that individual consumers can unleash when they come together.

At the same time, overly loose lending strategies, coupled with the dazzling array of financial products on various Internet channels, caused the bubble to be blown much larger than the original financial crisis in history.

Therefore, the crisis was advanced. Two hedge funds went bankrupt at the beginning of the year, which aroused investors' doubts about Madoff's financial products and believed that they still contained risks.

Historically, every time a hedge fund crisis broke out and a large hedge fund went bankrupt, Madoff's financial products were always questioned.

Why?Because Madoff's company's full name is Madoff Hedge Fund, it is also a hedge fund company.

It was not until April that the run on Madoff's investment funds was triggered, and it had been brewing for three months.

Madoff ruthlessly rejected Baidu's proposal. In fact, he didn't want to refuse, but he really couldn't afford so much money now.

On the surface, he has transferred US$100 billion to Baidu to meet these redemptions. In fact, Baidu is not the only channel that sells Madoff's financial products through Internet channels, but also other Internet channels.

Since Baidu's redemption stopped, these channels have also triggered runs, and Madoff has withdrawn more than 200 billion in cash.

Historically, Madoff's Ponzi scheme cost investors a total of $650 billion, and now the scale has expanded tenfold.

Madoff even believed he was on track to catch up with BlackRock, one of the world's largest asset management groups with nearly $2021 trillion under management. In 9.5, the management scale is US$[-] trillion.

In 2006, BlackRock's managed funds exceeded the trillion-dollar mark by annexing the investment arm of Merrill Lynch.

With great ability comes great responsibility.Similarly, the greater the ability, the greater the greed.

As the former chairman of Nasdaq, Madoff took advantage of the Internet to increase the size of the Madoff Hedge Venture Fund from US$600 billion to US$6000 billion. Naturally, he wanted to go further, at least not to turn this Ponzi scheme into a scam in his lifetime. Play and wear.

Therefore, when the amount of funds is larger, he will operate more funds, which is far from keeping all the money in the bank in history.

He has invested a large amount of funds in U.S. bonds, and the largest financial product he holds is the ten-year U.S. bond.

At this time, the yield on ten-year U.S. bonds has gradually risen and has exceeded the 4.5% mark. The average interest cost of his money is around 12%. By holding a large amount of U.S. bonds, he can turn this Ponzi scheme into a scam. It lasted for more than 20 years, and then he died and everything disappeared.

After his death, he will not care about the flood.

What I didn't expect was that with the coming financial crisis, Madoff's financial products would face a run crisis across the board.

It is easy to sell U.S. debt worth hundreds of billions, but if you face massive losses, sooner or later you will be found to be running a Ponzi scheme.

Instead of doing this, it is better to act recklessly. The contract restricts a one-year closure period. It is because the Internet companies made their own decisions and made it like this.

"Madoff Hedge Risk Fund has always adhered to the attitude of serving customers and has long been aiming to increase customer wealth. We have had a good reputation in the past 20 years, even when the Nasdaq bubble burst at the turn of the century. In this matter, 100% payment was still maintained, and even the income of every customer was guaranteed.

Madoff's reputation is forged by history. To protect the interests of all customers, we refuse to make payments before the end of the closed period."

Madoff gave public speeches on his official website and participated in several public interview programs.

"Honestly, hedge funds and Yu'E Bao issued by NewPay are completely different. The underlying logic of Yu'E Bao is a monetary fund, so they can borrow and repay at any time. Our underlying assets include treasury bonds, cash, stocks, etc.

The contract between us and our customers is very clear. We will not complete the payment until the one-year closure period is up.

An early run will seriously affect the original value of the underlying product and further affect the interests of all customers. This is an unreasonable requirement. "

"No, no, no, our underlying products do not include subprime mortgages. Madoff does not have a new century problem."

"We will fulfill our obligations in accordance with the contract, and similarly, customers need to give Madoff time.

There is a cooperative relationship between us. "

New Century, a real estate investment trust specializing in subprime lending and securitization, went bankrupt earlier this year.

The bankruptcy of New Century led to the bankruptcy of two other hedge funds.

With Madoff's speeches and speeches in public, and the Internet financial channels of Madoff's financial products, various companies used the power behind them to intervene in public opinion to calm investors' emotions.

Things calmed down after Madoff paid a price of about $200 billion.

Madoff finally breathed a sigh of relief, as did Robin.

The problem is that the financial crisis is a global crisis, not an accident. Zhou Xin was unable to prevent it from happening, let alone Madoff.

"This fall, Mphone will release a new generation of Mphone. With the spread of 3G mobile phones around the world, we have internally named the new Mphone3 Mphone3G."

At the end of June, the annual Matrix Developers Conference was held as scheduled. Because the last time Mphone released a product was four years ago, in the past three years, the new products discussed at the Matrix Developers Conference were all from Apple.

Everyone watched Aphone change from 1 to 3, while Mphone, the pioneer of the mobile Internet, stayed in the second generation unchanged.The only difference is that several colors have been added. The Bluetooth headsets matching Mphone have all been launched in the third generation, while Mphone is still in the second generation.

So much so that fans of Mphone all over the world often complain on Weibo, and they complain once every year at the developer conference.

After Lei Jun personally announced at the developer conference that Mphone 3 would be released this year, the news quickly occupied the top pages of all major social media.

"Smartphone head manufacturer Matrix will release a new generation of Mphone this fall."

"A new generation of Mphone is coming, is your wallet ready?"

News about the new generation of Mphone quickly became a hot topic on Weibo:
"It's finally here. I thought the next generation of iPhone would be burned to me after my death."

"Newman is too demanding on the Mphone. It must be so perfect that it crushes all other products before it is released."

"Nokia and Motorola are going to cry. They just released new products not long ago. A large number of users would rather wait for new Mphone products than buy their ready-made products."

"My wallet, tent, and camp bed are all ready. I plan to go to all the Mphone stores in San Francisco next week to find out which one is the most popular, and then I'll queue there."

Or because Mphone2 is so amazing, countless users have been awakened to the feeling of being shocked by Mphone2.

And this time Mphone3 is the second new product released by Matrix after four years, and everyone is looking forward to it.

Lei Jun briefly said at the developer conference that Mphone3 will be equipped with the latest 40nm chip technology, which can support more complex mobile games and more complex applications.

This makes consumers even more excited. Smartphones have greatly enriched the diversity of mobile games, and better mobile phone chips will bring new limits to mobile games.

When everyone from the media to netizens were excited about the release of Mphone3, Bear Stearns liquidated two hedge funds.

The two hedge funds mentioned above went bankrupt. It is true that they went bankrupt, but Bear Stearns, an investment bank with a century-old history that was about to collapse during the 08 financial crisis, stepped in to provide rescue for these two hedge funds.

This brought the problem under control, and investors in the two hedge funds felt relieved to see Bear Stearns take over.

However, Bear Stearns did not resist for long. It took over in June and liquidated the two hedge funds in July.

It only lasted two months, and at the same time Amerikan's home mortgage loan officially filed for bankruptcy.

Zhou Xin is obviously unwilling to let Madoff go. When you know where the loophole is, you only need to keep poking it.

After Ameliken’s home mortgage loan officially went bankrupt, a piece of news circulated on Weibo:
“The Madoff Hedge Fund was the largest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

"Madoff simply cannot achieve a stable return of more than 10% per year, nor can he achieve a compound annual interest rate of 10%. His fund management level is not even as good as that of a newcomer on Wall Street who has just entered the workplace."

"What Madoff did was borrow something new and pay back something old."

This kind of statement is widely circulated on Weibo. Yes, this is the news released by Zhou Xin in Amerikan through official Chinese channels.

Similar messages are emerging one after another, and Microsoft officials have begun to control similar messages, blocking or deleting such messages.

"All Internet channels are selling Madoff's financial products. Only NewPay has not let go of the sale of Madoff's financial products. It is precisely because Newman believes that Madoff is running a Ponzi scheme, so it has refused to cooperate with Madoff."

The information content of this message is much greater, it involves NewPay and Zhou Xin at the same time, and it was posted on Weibo in the middle of the night. Even though it was posted on Weibo in the middle of the night, it was still heavily forwarded by netizens who had not slept.

Among them, investors who bought Madoff's financial products even posted @Newman on Weibo, hoping to get Zhou Xin's answer.

Everyone wants an answer.

“Yes, the interest rate of NewPay’s financial products has never exceeded 5%, and the interest rate of Yu’e Bao has been fluctuating between 2 and 3% for a long time, and it was even lower than 2% at one time.

Investors have previously criticized NewPay's financial products for offering too low interest rates, which has also seriously affected NewPay's market share, revenue and profits.

But NewPay has never cooperated with Madoff. "

"This is definitely not normal. It can be seen from Baidu's annual report that Madoff's annual channel fee to Baidu is 2%. At the same time, Madoff wants to give users 10 points of income, which means he has to achieve 12% Stable income.

With a management scale of RMB 4000 billion, Baidu can earn US$80 billion in profits every year, which is almost the same as Baidu's advertising revenue. Is NewPay unmoved by such huge benefits?

The actual controller behind NewPay is Newman, but Newman may not allow it, so NewPay has never cooperated with Madoff. "

Some Wall Street influencers continued to speak on Weibo. A Goldman Sachs investment manager said:
“According to the information I have received, the shareholders behind NewPay have been advocating to cooperate with Madoff, claiming that cooperation with Madoff can bring them tens of billions of dollars in annual profits, and it is risk-free profit.

These voices were suppressed by Newman. With the joint efforts of Peter Thiel and Newman, all similar remarks were not approved by the board of directors.

Even because of this incident, many shareholders behind NewPay felt resentful towards Newman, thinking that he was a stubborn tyrant and an idiot in the financial field.

But Newman did not express doubts about Madoff's hedge funds on any occasion. "

Robin was on the phone to get rid of Zhou Xin and said a few words: "Newman, Baidu is facing a very difficult situation now. The number of redemptions in our backend has exceeded 1000 billion US dollars, and a large number of users are running on it."

Zhou Xin asked: "The contract is for one year, so you can completely ignore the users."

Zhou Xin heard a hint of panic in Robin's answer, which was so clear even though he was [-] miles away: "Yes, but it will expire in February next year.

If things are allowed to ferment, the amount due to be redeemed in February next year will exceed 2%. I am not sure that Bernard will be able to redeem US$50.00 billion in cash in one go.

And Bernard not only sells financial products on Baidu Pay, he also sells financial products on X.com, ebaypay, and Amazon Pay.

The payout in half a year will exceed all of our expectations.

50.00% may be conservative. "

(End of this chapter)