Chapter 1467: Recovering Funds

1928, Chicago, USA.

As the second largest city in the United States, Chicago, with a population of three million, ranks among the top cities in the world.

The combined population of New York and Chicago alone is nearly 10 million, while the total U.S. population was just over 100 million. This shows how powerful America's top cities are.

This is completely different from the situation in East Africa. In fact, among the major countries in the world, East Africa is considered to be a relatively different existence, because East African cities have not developed an existence with absolute overwhelming advantages.

Even in the 21st century, Germany was famous for its balance. At the beginning of the 20th century, Berlin, a city with a population of nearly four million, had no other city in Germany that could be compared with it.

Although there are more than a dozen cities in East Africa with a population of over one million, the difference in their population size is not that big. For example, Dar es Salaam, which is generally considered to be the largest city, and Mombasa, the second largest city, have populations that are almost the same and it is difficult to tell which one is better.

So, East Africans can easily be overwhelmed by the mega-cities in the United States, especially New York and Chicago.

Hechingen Bank of Chicago.

Manager Kuinleer looked at the steel forest of Chicago and exclaimed: "Chicago is indeed the second largest city in the United States. It has a population of more than one million more than Dar es Salaam, and there are many tall buildings. I guess only London and New York can surpass Chicago. I wonder if there will be cities in East Africa with a population of more than three million in the future."

Antonio, the deputy manager, shook his head and said, "Let alone three million, it is probably not easy for domestic cities to break through two million. The path of urban development in East Africa is different from that of most countries in the world."

"Take New York for example. Its comprehensive advantages such as its seaport, climate, terrain, and water resources are unmatched by any other city in our country."

"Chicago only has one limitation, which is the seaport, but with the five Great Lakes and developed inland water transportation, the water transportation conditions are not too bad."

"So, it is difficult for super-large cities like New York and Chicago to appear in East Africa. Our national conditions are very different from those in the United States."

The defects of East Africa are very obvious, that is, the coastline is too flat and there is a lack of good ports. This has also led to relatively scattered shipping in East Africa, and even many small seaports can get a share of the pie.

At the same time, East Africa lacks large rivers with high shipping value. Railways and roads account for a large proportion of inland transportation, and the construction of railways and roads is more balanced, which also allows various coastal areas to obtain more opportunities.

Although East Africa has built a large artificial canal that runs across the east and west coasts, the ships that can navigate through it can only carry a maximum of a few hundred tons, and it is connected by a series of rivers. This means that if you want to travel from the east coast to the west coast by water, you have to pass through many locks, have a small cargo capacity, complicated procedures, and poor timeliness, making it difficult to compete with railways and roads.

However, this has played a certain role in promoting the development of many inland cities and small and medium-sized coastal cities.

Kuinleer did not completely agree with Antonio's opinion. He said: "Although the national conditions in East Africa are rather special, I believe that an empire will still emerge with a city of two to three million people."

"For example, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa have been growing over the years, although their urban size has been growing relatively slowly."

"Other large cities have also developed rapidly in recent years, and the urbanization rate of the Empire can only be ranked in the upper middle level among industrial countries. Therefore, East African cities will definitely continue to expand in the future."

“However, for megacities like London and New York with a population of over five million, it is highly unlikely that we in East Africa will be able to achieve this.”

"Moreover, too many people in a city is not necessarily a good thing. For example, although Chicago looks very prosperous, it has also sacrificed livability. There is a lot of pressure on public security, public resources, and transportation. Especially in terms of public security, there is no comparison between the United States and East Africa."

Chicago’s public security problem is what Kuinlell criticizes the most. Of course, this is not only a problem in Chicago, but a problem for the entire United States.

After all, the entire United States is now a place where gangs are rampant. In addition, the community environment in the United States is also very poor. There are not only rich areas and slums, but also black communities, white communities, and so on.

For example, in Chicago, the black community, the Italian community, the Polish community, etc., naturally divide the lower-class people. In this case, it would be strange if conflicts did not occur.

In contrast, East Africa is also an immigration country, but it does not have so many twists and turns.

After hearing Kuinle's last words, Antonio said, "Speaking of public security, it reminds me of the Chicago gangs. The US government is indeed too irresponsible and has many crooked tricks, especially the prohibition of alcohol, which not only did not work, but also gave the gangs more business."

In 1920, the US government enacted a strict prohibition law. According to this law, it is illegal to manufacture, sell or even transport beverages with an alcohol content of more than 0.5%.

To date, Prohibition has been implemented in the United States for nearly eight years, but the facts have proved that Prohibition can not eliminate the desire and demand of the American people to drink. While the formal market is banned, the underground black market has developed rapidly. The huge profits brought by the illegal manufacture and sale of alcoholic products have deeply tapped the potential of "wine dealers".

They are called liquor dealers, but in fact they are just a group of lawbreakers. After all, current US law strictly restricts the production and sale of alcohol.

Criminals in the United States happen to be concentrated in gangs of all sizes, so the statement that Prohibition promoted the development of gangs is completely in line with reality.

Of course, from a factual point of view, the original intention of the prohibition was good, but like many policies of the Soviet Union, it was too idealistic, especially the suppression of human nature, which easily triggered rebellious psychology among the people.

However, there are also successful cases. For example, in the past, some Arab countries had very successful restrictions on alcoholic beverages. After all, religion, like alcohol, can numb some people who are unhappy with their lives, or provide spiritual sustenance. Therefore, the main driving group of Prohibition in the United States included Puritans, which also proves this point.

Antonio said: "In this regard, East Africa is better. After all, drinking is not entirely a bad thing. The US government has a prohibition attitude to deal with gangs, crimes and other problems. I am afraid it is more useful to society than prohibition."

There is no doubt that Antonio is a person who likes to drink, so he naturally feels dissatisfied with the American Prohibition.

"Now, in the United States, alcohol can only be bought on the black market, and the quality is uneven and the price is high, so it is better to relax the restrictions."

Cooney was not at all interested in Prohibition; he was not a heavy drinker anyway.

He said to Antonio, "Don't worry about these minor issues now. The tasks assigned by the higher-ups recently are not easy. Let's speed up the handling of the assets in Chicago and other places!"

With a foreboding of economic crisis, East African royal families and governments are quietly selling off assets around the world.

East Africa has made considerable overseas investments over the years, and it is clearly also involved in the active US market.

After the end of World War I, the East African governments had abundant funds. However, in recent years, construction projects in East Africa have not been active, so a lot of funds have been invested abroad.

Of course, local construction projects in East Africa are not active. They mainly refer to government projects, such as large-scale infrastructure construction such as railways, roads, canals, etc. In recent years, the East African government has basically not invested much.

However, private capital has filled most of the gaps left by the large-scale withdrawal of East African governments. Therefore, the activity of the East African market is basically driven by the private economy and foreign capital.

Antonio said: "I don't know what the higher-ups are thinking. Nowadays, the US can pick up money with its eyes closed, but it requires us to sell our assets. This loss is too huge."

"Moreover, we cannot attract the attention of the U.S. government and the market, which has greatly increased the workload of our employees in recent times."

Kuinlaier said: "Just follow the instructions of the local government. After all, the local government cannot do things without a purpose. They are not optimistic about the current US market, so they do this. There must be a reason for this."

Antonio said: "It is just too troublesome. Not only do we have to avoid attracting the attention of the Americans, but we also have to convert the assets into hard currencies such as gold. This is almost an impossible task."

It is easy to sell assets, but it is difficult to cash them out. East Africa certainly wants to obtain more gold or other precious metals, but the scale is too large and the Americans will obviously not be willing to do so.

Kuinleer said: "Anyway, we can only think of ways to solve the problem. If direct transactions don't work, we can buy people out. Americans have become very wealthy these years, and luxury consumption has soared. There are also many gold and silver jewelry among the people."

There is no doubt that there are a lot of precious metals in private hands, but for a country with a population of more than 100 million, the United States would inevitably require more effort and cost to collect precious metals from American society through this method.

But there is no way around it. After all, private precious metals are not subject to government supervision, so there is more room for operation and transactions are safer.

Gold is a safe-haven asset. In the face of a possible economic crisis, East Africa will naturally increase its gold collection.

But obviously, as a hard currency, no country wants to easily hand over its gold to others, and will restrict the outflow of gold. As for free exchange and circulation, that is just talk. Once it reaches a certain scale, it will inevitably cause warnings from the government of the country where it is located.

In this way, bypassing the supervision of the host country is very important for East Africa to control more useful assets.

In fact, East Africa is already the country with the largest gold reserves in the world, and the sources of East Africa's gold reserves mainly come from three aspects: trade, domestic mining, and plunder.

Needless to say, as the world's largest industrial country, East Africa has always been a recipient of gold, especially before and after World War I, when East Africa received huge amounts of gold from the Allies and the Entente.

East Africa has obvious advantages in domestic mining. Its vast land area and rich gold reserves make its domestic gold mining volume very considerable.

The last step is plunder, such as the Kazan gold. However, this kind of opportunity is very rare and cannot be replicated. However, the Kazan gold alone allowed East Africa to suck the blood of Tsarist Russia.

The huge gold reserves are also an important basis for East African governments to cope with economic crises in the future.

After 1928, East Africa has been accelerating the pace of acquiring gold and other assets from overseas through various means. At the same time, East Africa has also been accelerating the return of funds to reserve ammunition for the country to deal with economic risks.

As an asset of the East African royal family, the actions of the Hechingen Bank also reflect the East African royal family's pessimistic forecast of the world economy in the next few years.

…

East Africa, Rhine Palace.

Ernst said to Friedrich: "By the end of this year, we must clean up all the bad assets overseas. The bubble of the world economy may burst at any time. If we are slow, we may be affected and suffer huge losses."

In response to his father's concerns, Crown Prince Friedrich said confidently: "Now, we have dealt with most of the overseas assets and recovered a large amount of funds. The royal enterprises have basically completed most of the tasks. The government may be a little later, but even if the economic crisis breaks out at this time, our losses will not be the greatest."

"This will ensure that when the economic crisis hits, we will have more money at hand and be able to do more than other countries."

"At the same time, we are also strengthening some related trade with the Soviet Union and the Ottoman Empire as much as possible to further expand future markets, so as to seize the initiative and especially ensure the survival of some enterprises."

If an economic crisis breaks out, countries like the Soviet Union and the Ottoman Empire, which have already decoupled from the world economy, will most likely become popular.

This decoupling is inevitable. After all, the Soviet Union and the Ottoman Empire offended many countries. For example, the nationalization of enterprises was actually the use of administrative means to forcibly transfer enterprises and assets to state-owned industries at low prices. This was snatching food from the mouths of imperialist countries.

However, after the economic crisis broke out, these grudges became unimportant. At that time, the Soviet Union would become an important emerging market. After all, if the Soviet Union wanted to industrialize, they would inevitably have to introduce technology and production equipment on a large scale. Whoever could seize the opportunity would have an additional way out of the crisis.

Now, East Africa is lifting restrictions on trade with the Soviet Union in some areas, such as some important technologies and machinery that were originally not sold to the Soviet Union according to the consensus of the international community.

After these restrictions are lifted, it means that East Africa can make it easier for the Soviet Union to accept East African technical standards, allowing some industries in the Soviet Union to form path dependence on East African industrial products in a short period of time.

For example, in the arms trade, East Africa sold some products that were not originally for sale to the Soviet Union. At least before the Soviet Union imitated and developed similar products and independently produced substitutes, it had to continue doing business with East Africa. Imitation, development, and independent production obviously all take time. When an economic crisis breaks out, the most important thing for imperialist countries is time. As long as they can make adjustments first, they can be the first to get out of the crisis.

(End of this chapter)