Riding the wind of rebirth

Having completed his trip and gained a great deal, Zhouzhi was very satisfied with the work done by the Luojiang government in the field of culture and tourism. At least they were seriously playing the Li Diaoyuan cultural card, at least for the time being.

It's a pity that no one wrote a script like "The Eloquent Ji Xiaolan" or "Prime Minister Liu Luoguo" to make a well-known TV series to promote him, so this talented man from Sichuan and Chongqing was not well known to the public.

The restaurants in Luojiang serve not only dishes from Luojiang, but also a variety of delicious foods from the surrounding areas of Guanghan and Shifang.

Wrapped rabbit is made by marinating rabbit, wrapping it tightly with hemp rope, air-drying, smoking, steaming, and serving. This dish is a preserved meat dish, but it is visually appealing, colorful, and flavorful, making it an excellent accompaniment to wine.

The cooking method of Lianshan twice-cooked pork is similar to that of ordinary twice-cooked pork, but it is sliced ​​with a large knife. Each slice is about the size of two palms. Mai Xiaomiao created a "Chinese food eaten in a Western way" for this dish, treating the large slices of twice-cooked pork as steak. It takes about ten bites to finish one slice.

Fruit juice beef is similar to braised beef, but fruit juice is used instead of sugar and vinegar. The resulting stewed beef is glossy red and tempting, and full of fruity aroma.

Zhou Zhi thought that this dish could be made with pork, but Xu Anxin said that she had always eaten beef since she was a child, so why not use pork? Maybe pork is too easy to fall apart.

Zhou Zhi had written about Huang Xu's "Dumb Rabbit" in a book before, but it was all based on research. Today was the first time he had actually tasted it. This dish is made by stir-frying fresh rabbit meat with fresh red and green peppers, fresh Sichuan peppercorns, and tender ginger, highlighting its "fresh, numbing, and spicy" flavor. It's not only a dish that requires precise cooking time, but also a seasonal dish, and it's perfect right now, making Zhou Zhi thoroughly enjoy it.

Dry pot duck here tastes different from the dry pot dishes in Qianzhou. It's similar to braised or stewed duck, and then the sauce is reduced before serving. With the addition of green beans and potatoes as side dishes, the dish, which has absorbed the sauce, is further enhanced by the sauce-reducing process, giving it a peppery aroma. This dish is highly praised by Li Laosan, who has made great progress in eating spicy food but is still not very good at eating numbing food. He was just made mute by Dumb Rabbit.

Another dish that received high praise from Li Laosan was a local Luojiang roast goose. This dish involves roasting a whole goose before cutting it into pieces, which is actually a bit like braised goose. The amazing thing is that it is served with a dish of green plum sauce, which makes it look a bit like Cantonese cuisine.

"Is this sauce always served with Luojiang roast goose?" Zhou Zhi asked Xu Anxin.

Xu Anxin shook her head, indicating that she did not know, because her third aunt had inherited her grandmother's teachings and believed that geese were "trigger foods," so her family had basically never eaten geese before.

This question remains to be seen.

Having just visited the Li Diaoyuan Memorial Hall, everyone was curious about the Wenjiang mandarin fish. However, the owner was honest and said that he did have mandarin fish, but they were caught from the reservoir and were not from the Wenjiang River.

The dish that came out was just ordinary steamed mandarin fish. It's not that the restaurant made it badly, but there was nothing surprising about it.

However, the other dishes were all very good. After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, they continued their journey and returned to their aunt's house.

After a family meeting, Li Laosan decided that Tiedan should stay in Jingyang and be cared for by his maternal grandparents. If the child were sent to Hong Kong, he would probably only "grow up in the hands of women in the deep palace" and "not know the hardships of the world." Countless tyrannical emperors in history who ruined their families and dynasties grew up in that way. Li Laosan felt that it was better for the child to stay in Jingyang, where he could ride on his maternal grandfather's bicycle and interact with people everywhere.

That evening, Zhou Zhi brought Li Laosan and Xu Anxin to Suihuaxuan as well.

After Mai Xiaomiao took Xu Anxin to see Xiao Shunzi, Zhou Zhi and Li Laosan had tea in the study and began to formally discuss important matters. "Following your idea, we first used a model to review the Mexican financial crisis," Li Laosan said. "Five hundred billion US dollars, our AXA Fund got a bit too little of that."

"Weren't we still reaping the benefits of the European currency crisis back then?" Zhou Zhi said irritably. "Besides, how big was AXA back then? That 50 billion was the 'life-saving money' that the Americans used to control Mexico's finances. It was too dangerous to consume it, so we didn't need it."

“Hehe, you have a point. We were too young back then, and we were busy scrambling for stocks in IT companies, so we didn’t have much spare cash.” Li Laosan waved his hand, moving on from that point: “But looking back this time, we have indeed discovered some problems that exist in other Asian countries as well.”

The two were discussing the financial turmoil that occurred in Mexico from December 1994 to March 1995, triggered by the sharp devaluation of the peso.

On December 19, 1994, the Mexican government announced a 15% devaluation of the peso. This move triggered a withdrawal of foreign capital. In just three days, the peso depreciated by 42.17% against the US dollar, foreign exchange reserves plummeted by $4 billion, and the stock market fell by as much as 47.94%, directly crippling the Mexican economy.

"Judging from the cause of the incident, this crisis was triggered by the Mexican government's announcement of a 15% devaluation of the peso," Zhou Zhi said. "What I'm more curious about is why the Mexican government would do this, thus causing this crisis?"

"There was no other way; if we didn't do that, it would be a form of slow suicide."

"How so?" Although Zhou Zhi was reborn, he had little memory of the Mexican financial crisis that occurred at the end of the year before last, since the scope of the event was too small. He only remembered it when he needed to conduct preliminary research on the Asian financial crisis. His memories were mostly from his previous life.

“Because the Mexican government at that time was already facing internal and external troubles,” Li Laosan said. “The external troubles came from the Federal Reserve’s continuous interest rate hikes in 1994. Mexico, which is located in the region most directly affected by the US economy, was the first to experience capital outflows.”

"The reason why capital outflows cause financial crises is that the financial market was opened up too quickly and the dependence on foreign capital was too high."

"The reason for the excessive reliance on foreign investment was the huge current account deficit, amounting to US$289 billion, which forced Mexico to rely excessively on short-term speculative capital to make up for it. This portion of short-term speculative capital accounted for as much as 72.6% of Mexico's total foreign investment at the time."

“墨西哥最早是想通过金融开放和鼓励外资流入提振自身经济，1992到1994年间，每年流入的外资高达250亿到350亿美元。而外贸出口并未显著增长，外贸进口占国内生产总值的比重则从 1987年的9．4%增至1993年的31%，结果造成国际收支经常项目的赤字在230亿美元的高水准徘徊，使得整个墨西哥经济过分依赖外资。”

"The root cause of all this is that after Salinas came to power, the government used the exchange rate as a tool to combat inflation, pegging the peso to the dollar."

"While anti-inflationary plans centered on currency pegging have been relatively successful in reducing inflation, currency overvaluation is inevitable because the rate of currency depreciation is less than the rate of inflation, which weakens the international competitiveness of domestic products."

"It is estimated that the peso is overvalued by 20% when calculated using purchasing power parity. In addition, such anti-inflationary programs have generated a consumption boom and increased demand for imported goods."

"And what about their exports? Have they kept up?"

"One of Mexico's core problems lies here." (End of Chapter)