Chapter 472 Our Common Enemy
"Knox? Attorney General?" Sheffield didn't know where Alice Roosevelt was calling from, but he was sure it was Alice Roosevelt's voice. He had been carrying heavy burdens for so long, so he would definitely not have heard it wrong. He asked, "Shouldn't we ask the Treasury Department for endorsement? The Ministry of Justice? What does your father want to do? Arrest us all?"
"I don't know either!" Alice Roosevelt whispered, "But my father is very dissatisfied with your big companies."
"So what? He only has one year left in his term." Sheffield asked back firmly, but then he slowed down his tone and said, "Alice, I don't mean anything else. But you also know that your father's actions in the past two years have made him very hostile to us. If he just steps down obediently, it's fine. But if he really wants to break the unspoken rule of re-election, his life may be in danger. This is not a threat, I'm just telling the truth."
No one can allow a president who always stabs big businesses to disgust himself in the White House. The current obedience is just because everyone has a hope. Unless it is the most dangerous time, they don't want to tear their faces apart and let Roosevelt follow in Lincoln's footsteps, but Roosevelt should also stop at the right time and not go too far.
"How dare you do anything to the president?" Alice Roosevelt was furious when she heard this. Her man was disrespectful to her father.
"Alice, you got it wrong. It's your father who wants to do something to us." Sheffield said calmly, "From your and my perspectives, I definitely don't want a conflict, and I can tolerate some minor frictions. But it's not certain for others. Not everyone has such a close relationship with you and me."
Sheffield immediately changed the subject and started playing the love card, saying that his greatest unfulfilled wish was for Alice Roosevelt to bear a child for him. Alice Roosevelt blushed and said angrily, "You bad guy, you got all the benefits, but I have to bear the reputational risks."
After a long while of talking nonsense, Sheffield finally hung up the phone. When he turned around, he was startled to see Edith Rockefeller looking at him meaningfully. "Alice Roosevelt? The president's daughter, she tipped you off without telling her father. It seems like you made her very happy."
"That's not what a lady should say. As you know, for an entrepreneur like me, if I just loosen my belt, there will be countless women waiting for me." Sheffield said modestly, a little embarrassed. "But I'm not that kind of person. You and I have a foundation of affection, and I don't want to hurt any of you."
Sheffield acted like an old scumbag as soon as he opened his mouth. He even said the most shameless lines, saying that he didn't want to hurt any of them. This attitude also convinced Edith Rockefeller. Slave owners are shameless. What can you do about it?
In New York, J.P. Morgan was still rescuing the banking industry. After completing the first round of capital injection, he rushed to the New York Clearing Center without stopping, and at the same time made an appointment with Rockefeller to meet with him and put forward his purpose, "Temporarily close the New York Stock Exchange?"
"Isn't this a bit too hasty?" Rockefeller Jr. did not respond to J.P. Morgan's request. "The suggestion to close the New York Stock Exchange has too great an impact and is likely to cause a stock market panic."
"Isn't there a panic in the stock market now? John, this crisis has your shadow and Sheffield's shadow, especially Sheffield. For whatever reason, he discovered the dispute between the bank and the trust company, and he took advantage of it. Now he has succeeded!" Morgan Jr. said with a cold face, "What else do you want? You are not pinning your hopes on bankrupting our family, are you? It's not that I'm arrogant, I can't beat you, but you can't beat me either. It's no good for everyone to continue fighting. It's better to directly propose conditions that everyone agrees to and see if we can talk."
"He's in Chicago, and he doesn't like New York." Rockefeller Jr. did not answer Morgan Jr.'s question directly, but mentioned Sheffield's difficulties.
"I came here with good intentions. I don't know if you believe me or not, but I can close the New York Stock Exchange and suspend the stock market!" Morgan Jr. stood up and looked at the surging crowd below. "Moreover, most people agree. As long as we win the opinions of most speculators and bankers, this will be a natural thing to do. No one wants to watch their money shrink every minute, right? John! I can even go to Chicago with you. There is nothing that cannot be discussed. As long as everyone benefits in the end, we are still friends of the same country."
Little Rockefeller stroked his smooth chin and said slowly, "Morgan, you seem to be threatening me."
"Not really. We are people of the same level. As for the ones below?" Little Morgan pointed at the sentient beings below, "They are not. Do you think what I said makes sense?"
Since the bankers started to attack the trust companies, the Dow Jones Index has fallen by 45%. It is very close to being cut in half. Eight major banks and trust companies have gone bankrupt, and the stock market has plummeted. Securities companies have closed down one after another, interest rates have soared, and the New York City government cannot issue bonds. If J.P. Morgan first said that he wanted to stop trading and let the stock market calm down, he would definitely get the approval of most people. Rockefeller also knew this and nodded, "I will communicate with him. My friend, please wait!"
Directly close the stock market and suspend trading? Sheffield swallowed hard. There is such an operation. He covered the microphone and asked Edith Rockefeller to use another phone to ask Blair of Union Bank if it was still possible to do so? Is this a more advanced way of circuit breaker?
For the first time, the slave owner felt that he was still too young and had overestimated the reliability of any rules. In fact, as long as he was willing to be shameless, he seemed to have nothing to lose.
A minute later, Edith Rockefeller came back and nodded at Sheffield. In an emergency, closing the New York Stock Exchange was not impossible. Sheffield said, "Talk! There is nothing that cannot be discussed, right? But I hope that before the talk, the New York Stock Exchange will not be closed. Anyway, it has fallen so much, so we might as well keep the last bit of appearance."
After hanging up the phone, Sheffield started to curse in front of Edith Rockefeller, "Shameless bankers, they don't even follow the rules they made themselves, it seems this is the end of it. But they shouldn't get complacent, today's bankers are infamous in the eyes of the citizens of the country, it will take at least ten or eight years for anyone to change this impression, that's the least to say."
If it had ended there, Sheffield would have only gained something intangible, which is the reputation of a banker. It would not have dealt a heavy blow to the Morgan Alliance. If it had been an ordinary financial institution, it would have been finished long ago. However, as for the Morgan Alliance, the loss was huge, but it would not have been a fatal crisis.
As for another benefit, only a few people know that the establishment of the Federal Reserve must be delayed. The financial crisis in history directly led to the birth of the Federal Reserve. The government lacked the right to directly intervene in the money market, and trust companies were disorganized and lost market trust. In the end, it was the New York private bankers led by Morgan who came out to save the financial crisis.
The attitude of New York bankers towards the central bank began to change. Previously, New York bankers who had always resisted the central bank believed that a clearing house was enough and there was no need for a central bank.
This matter can be viewed from two aspects. Eliminating the trust company is supported by the vast majority of New York bankers, but establishing a central bank may not be supported. However, members of the Morgan Alliance should know that the scope is narrowing a bit, and Morgan father and son must know it.
What is this operation similar to? The United States airstrike on Yugoslavia, but few people know that the country that was determined to dismantle Yugoslavia was not the United States, but the Germans after the Cold War. They believed that if Yugoslavia continued to exist and was pro-Russian, it would be a major threat to Germany's integration into Europe. Therefore, the main force in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia was Germany.
The role of the United States was to deliberately expand the scale of the war against Yugoslavia, create refugees and give a great gift to the birth of the euro. In fact, it was deliberately misrepresenting the economy to disgust Europeans. This example is very similar to the preparations made by Morgan, Rockefeller and Sheffield before the outbreak of this financial crisis. Everyone was preparing, but there was no communication and they were still on guard against each other. They were ready to use this crisis to achieve their own goals, but everyone's goals were not quite the same.
The Morgans took advantage of the bankers' dissatisfaction with trust companies to manipulate the financial crisis, but later they fulfilled their own interests by establishing the Federal Reserve. Now the bankers have a bad reputation and citizens know that they caused the financial crisis. Why do they still want to support the establishment of the Federal Reserve? They dared to go so far without the Federal Reserve. How can they do that with the Federal Reserve?
Sheffield was not particularly disgusted with the Federal Reserve. The reason for his disgust was that he was not strong in the financial industry. If the Federal Reserve was to be established now, he would definitely not have a share or would not benefit much. The financial institutions of the United Company still needed time to grow, so they threw dirty water on the reputation of the bankers. It was not really a dirty water, it was what they did.
Sheffield had not originally planned to achieve any results, but after the stock exchange closed that day, the federal government criticized some companies for allowing the economic crisis to occur, causing huge economic losses to citizens.
When this news came, Sheffield had to prepare for a good talk. Their common enemy was the federal government. In the face of this common enemy, the capitalists should unite.
Morgan Jr. and Rockefeller Jr. boarded the train at New York Station and reached a consensus on the way to Chicago. It was true that their common enemy was still the federal government.
I only write the percentage, not the number of points that fell, because it is too inconsistent to write it out. At the beginning of the century, the Dow Jones was 100 points, which was a big bull market. In the book, after operating for a long time, it fell by 30 or 40 points, which is a bit confusing.
(End of this chapter)
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