Chapter 30 The Financial Crisis

Del looked at the telegram handed to him by the guard, which described in detail the outbreak of the crisis, which was another act of death on Wall Street.

Nick Burke Trust, the third largest trust company in the United States, went on a debt spree to buy shares of United Copper on the stock market, but the move failed, sparking a panic on Wall Street and rumors of Nick Burke's imminent bankruptcy. Banks are pulling back their loans, stock markets are plummeting, people are running on them, and several big banks are on the verge of collapse.

Looking at this news, Eder raised his vigilance against capital in his heart, and in later generations, the two best examples of state control of capital and capital control of countries are China and the United States. As a person with the experience of later generations, capital has no borders, it will go with profits, as long as it cannot find high profits in a country, it will look everywhere in the world

Eder can now take advantage of the fact that the Romanian capitalists are not growing and preemptively complete the strategic layout. Let the people feel the benefits of royal capital, and it will not let the people's northern capital sway, anyway, now Romania has a population of only 7.5 million, which can be driven by royal capital, so that the people are grateful to the royal family. In later generations, it was also called national capital, and Eder actually followed the routine of the largest developing country in later generations.

In the following days, the financial crisis in the United States continued to ferment, and rumors suddenly began to spread in New York that Nick Burke, the third largest trust company in the United States, was about to go bankrupt. The rumors spread like a virus across New York, and terrified citizens lined up all night at the gates of various trust companies to withdraw their deposits. The bank demanded that the trust company repay the loan immediately, and the trust company, which was subject to a two-sided reminder, had no choice but to borrow money from the stock market, and the interest on the loan suddenly rushed to a sky-high price of 150%. By October 24, trading on the stock market was almost at a standstill.

Morgan appeared as a savior at this time. When the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange came to Morgan's office for help, he said in a trembling voice that if he didn't raise $25 million by 3 p.m., at least 50 dealers would go bankrupt and that he would have no choice but to shut down the stock market. At two o'clock in the afternoon, Morgan convened an emergency meeting of bankers, and in 16 minutes, the bankers had raised enough money. Morgan immediately sent someone to the stock exchange to announce that the interest on the loan would be open at 10%, and the exchange immediately cheered. Just one day later, the funds for the emergency relief ran out, and the interest rate rose again. Eight banks and trust companies have collapsed. Morgan rushed to the New York Clearing Bank and demanded the issuance of notes as temporary currency to cope with the severe cash shortage.

On Saturday, November 2, Morgan embarked on his long-planned plan to "rescue" the still-reeling Morse Slyer Company. The company has fallen into $25 million in debt and is on the verge of collapse. But it was a major creditor of the Tennessee Mining and Iron Company, and if Morsley were to be forced into liquidation, the New York stock market would collapse completely, with dire consequences. Morgan invited all the big names in New York's financial circles to his library, the merchant bankers were placed in the East Study, and the trust company CEOs were placed in the West Study, and the panicked financiers anxiously awaited the fate that Morgan had arranged for them.

Morgan knew that the iron and coal deposits in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, owned by Tennessee Mining and Steel, would greatly strengthen the monopoly of American Steel, the steel giant that Morgan founded himself. Under the constraints of antitrust law, Morgan has always been unable to talk about this big piece of fat, and this crisis has created a rare opportunity for him to merge. To get this piece of fat, Morgan still has one last hurdle to pass, and that is the old President Roosevelt, who is not ambiguous about antitrust. On Sunday night, Nov. 3, Morgan sent a starry night rush to Washington to get presidential approval before the stock market opened the following Monday morning. The banking crisis caused a large number of businesses to fail, and the thousands of angry people who had lost their life savings formed a huge political crisis, and Roosevelt Sr. had to rely on Morgan's power to stabilize the situation, and he was forced to sign the alliance at the last moment. There are only 5 minutes left until the stock market opens on Monday!

Morgan bought Tennessee Mining and Steel for an ultra-low price of $45 million, and the company's potential value is at least around $1 billion, according to John Moody's estimates.

It is clear that this financial crisis is yet another long-planned precision directional blast.

The impact of this incident on the United States was the creation of its own central bank, the Federal Reserve. It is a pity that the central bank of the United States is completely controlled by the bankers, which is a sign event that the United States is controlled by the capitalists.

The decline in production caused by this crisis is more severe than ever before. On a monthly basis, steel production fell by almost 60 percent, pig iron by 38 percent, locomotives by 69 percent, freight cars by 75 percent, and new railways by 46 percent. In 1908, contracts for new construction were reduced by 23 percent, and more than half of the companies owned by the steel trust were shut down. More people are unemployed than ever before.

The crisis quickly spread to other countries, with the United Kingdom, which has close economic ties with the United States, bearing the brunt of the crisis, second only to the United States in depth. In 1907, ferrous metal consumption fell by 20 percent, pig iron production by 11 percent, steel production by 19 percent, new ship tonnage by 48 percent, and cotton consumption by 14 percent. From 1906 to 1909, the price of pig iron fell by 25%.

The crisis is also serious in Germany. In 1907, the consumption of ferrous metals fell by more than 20%, the output of steel fell by 13.1%, the tonnage of completed merchant ships decreased by one-third, and the construction industry suffered the heaviest losses, with the volume of business falling by 36%, and correspondingly, the output of cement and other building materials fell by nearly half. The losses of light industry are not small. Exports of cotton yarn and cotton cloth fell by 18 per cent, and cotton cloth prices fell by 23 per cent. It is worth noting that despite the contraction in the consumption of ferrous metals, the price of ferrous metals has increased by 14% due to the high degree of monopoly in the industry.

In 1907, industrial production in France fell by 6.5%. Among them, the crisis of the silk spinning industry was the most serious, and the export of silk fabrics decreased by 24%. The crisis has not only worsened the lives of workers, but also the lives of teachers and state officials, and trade union activities have become active. In 1909, the University of Posts and Telecommunications in Paris was temporarily interrupted.

During this time, Eder watched the crisis continue to ferment, but he had no choice at all. can only do a good job in the control of Romania's domestic capital, and now there are no capitalists in Romania, and the royal family is the largest capital in the country. Volkswagen, which was expected to sell 35,000 units in Europe, was the most affected by the crisis. In this crisis, many entrepreneurs canceled orders, so that the current Volkswagen company is no longer afraid to produce trucks at full capacity.

After consulting with the king, Eder announced the establishment of its own central bank, the National Bank of Romania, a foreign bank with financial operations in Romania, which would need to pay a deposit of 15 percent of its operations in Romania to the central bank, and the domestic government announced that it would merge into three large and medium-sized banks in view of the weakness of the domestic banks in Romania. It is also necessary to pay 15 percent of the deposit to the central bank.