On January 5, 130th year of the first year of the universe, Long Fei was holding a meeting with the ministers.

The new Minister of Finance Zeng Huanpeng reported to Long Fei on the empire's finances this year.

"Your Majesty, our country's fiscal budget GDP this year is about double that of last year, reaching 236 trillion Tianyi coins this year."

The ministers of various departments all looked at each other.

Everyone's eyes and expressions were filled with excitement and anticipation; their funding this year would be about twice as much as last year's.

Zeng Huanpeng continued to report: "This year, our country's budget will be about double that of last year. The main reason is that the domestic demand market has increased, and the consumption capacity of the people this year is higher than last year. In addition, many foreign companies have invested in our country, which has increased our tax revenue."

"Our country's imports and exports are traded with many countries. Any products exported to any country are settled in our own currency. Some imports are settled in the two major international currencies, and some are settled in our own currency. This has led to a significant appreciation of our currency, which is now 1:1 with the Earth Coin."

"The country's products and currency are very strong. Many countries buy a lot of domestic products. This not only allows the country to earn a lot of foreign exchange, but also does not show any inflation in the country's necessities, daily necessities, and food."

"Although the prices of these necessities increase every year, the rate of increase is very slow, less than 1%. On the contrary, the annual income of our people increases by 6%. Because of this, the people's spending power is getting higher year by year, and even ordinary people can afford many expensive luxury goods."

At this time, the Minister of Health, Ethan, raised his hand, and all the ministers looked at Ethan.

Long Fei glanced at Minister Ethan and nodded.

"It's good that our economy is booming, and the people's spending power has also increased a lot, but many people in our country have forgotten the suffering of the war and are now completely enjoying luxury and wasting. I must say that in this year's health report, the amount of food wasted in our country last year, especially rice, was more than 1 million tons a year."

Ethan went on to say, "If we look at the amount of fruits and vegetables thrown into landfills last year, it was almost 100 million tons. The same is true for meat, or even more, almost 200 million tons."

Ethan then popped up a few video photos, which showed a group of very fat cats and dogs.

Long Fei asked curiously, "Ethan, are these cats and dogs pets kept by the local people? Why are they so fat?"

"Your Majesty, these are not pets kept by the people of this country. If they were pets kept by the people of this country, most of them would be willing to control the weight of their pets and not let them eat too much. These are stray cats and dogs."

“……”The scene immediately fell silent.

One minister asked curiously, "Are these stray cats and dogs so fat because they were fed by kind people?"

"No, it's mainly because these stray cats and dogs will go directly to some garbage dumps or the garbage dumping sites behind restaurants. People will dump the leftovers for them to eat. Basically, these stray cats and dogs will automatically go there to eat at a certain time."

Long Fei asked, "Do these people pour out a lot of food every time?"

"The team I sent over has conducted extensive investigations and found that many people, whether they are eating at home or ordering food at a restaurant, will not stop eating unless they order more than five dishes, even if they are a family of three."

"And if someone at home celebrates a festival, like a birthday or wedding anniversary, they invite guests to dinner and each table has at least 12 dishes. A table can seat eight people, but they deliberately seat four people. For example, if you invite 64 people, you only need to order eight tables, and then you can order 16 or 24 tables, with four or two people at each table. This is not an isolated case. Almost every family is wasteful like this, and frugal families have become rare species."

"Also, our schools provide meals for students, but most of the students don't eat them. They eat what they bring from home. But the food they bring from home is very large, and any food that a student can't finish is thrown directly into the trash. Although the teachers report this to the parents, many parents don't take it seriously, thinking that they have money anyway, so it's none of the teachers' business whether it's wasted or not. This makes the teachers feel helpless."

Long Fei looked at the Minister of Education, Lin Yunxin.

Lin Yunxin said: "What the Minister of Health said is correct."

"What about the student meals provided by the school?"

"All of it was eaten by stray cats and dogs. If it wasn't finished, it was thrown directly into the trash can."

Long Fei couldn't help but cover his forehead with his right hand. He always felt as if he was struck by thunder. As an emperor, he didn't like luxury and waste, and he didn't do those things to lay the groundwork.

His own queen celebrated her birthday and held a Qianqiu Festival banquet for all the ministers. Eight people sat at each table, and each table only had six dishes, one soup and one dessert.

As a result, his own people were extravagant and wasteful, and even an ordinary birthday had to be prepared for all those unnecessary pomp and circumstance. "Minister Ethan, please continue."

"The main reason is that food prices in the country are too cheap. A pound of steak costs only $3, a whole organic chicken costs less than $5, and a 10-kilogram bag of corn costs less than $3, eight apples cost $1, and 10 kilograms of rice, the best quality, costs only $6 at most."

"The reason why the prices of food in our country are so cheap is that in addition to our advanced planting and breeding technology, we have also developed artificial black soil with this advanced agricultural technology, which has shortened the growth cycle of many fruits and vegetables, and has also increased production. The quality is not inferior to fruits and vegetables produced by natural black soil."

"More importantly, machines have replaced manual labor in many areas. Basically, only a few people are needed to operate a bunch of machines, except for some details that still need manual adjustment. This also leads to low costs and cheap food prices."

Then, Jack, the Minister in charge of Customs and Immigration, also raised his hand.

"speak."

"Recently, my department has caught illegal immigrants, illegal workers, and sex workers who came here on tourist visas or illegally (the Tianyi Empire has not legalized the porn industry). Their purpose is to come to our country, in addition to making money, to get our ID cards."

"No matter how many times these people were caught and sent back to their country, they would try their best to sneak in. They just want to stay in our country. The reason they come to our country is that they envy our country's wealth and extravagance. They once said that they would rather be a dog of the Tianyi Empire than return to their own country to be human beings."

Long Fei suddenly remembered that he had also read some foreign media reports on the extravagance and waste of the Tianyi Empire. It was even said that if the Tianyi Empire just poured out the undrinkable milk, it would create a vast ocean.

After reading such reports, Long Fei felt that the foreign media were exaggerating the story.

Long Fei asked Jack, "Did these guys who stowed here read the foreign media reports about our country's extravagance and waste?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, and this is not limited to Mars. The Earth Sphere is also troubled by these things. Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants or sex workers are deported every day. And this is not just a neighboring country, it can be said that the entire Earth Sphere and the colonial sphere are civilians."

"Especially those female sex workers, who take advantage of the fact that our country allows men to have one wife and multiple concubines, and are willing to marry their clients and become concubines. As long as they do not commit serious crimes for three years, they can get their own ID cards. For them, doing relatively low-end jobs in their own country, they can get more salary in one month than they would get in three months in their own country. Moreover, even food purchases are cheaper than in their original countries on a one-to-one basis."

Long Fei raised his eyebrows. The country's population has skyrocketed recently. Not only has the birth rate increased, but there are also many immigrants. The population of the Tianyi Empire has now exceeded 600 million.

Women account for more than 75% of immigrants.

These immigrant women contribute 60% to this year's population fertility rate.