Rebirth 79: I opened a bank in the United States

Chapter 889 The Square Meeting Begins

The operation method of the new finance minister, Baker, looks like a lawyer, or a shadow of a rogue lawyer.A simple summary is four words: cheating and abduction Oh no, divide and conquer!
As early as the beginning of his tenure as Minister of Finance, James Baker took the "Prospects and Guidelines for Yen Internationalization" and "Prospects and Guidelines for the Opening of Financial and Capital Markets" discussed by the former Treasury Secretary Reagan to Europe. To be precise, first went to England
Find the British Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson and say: "Hey bro! Japan has agreed to open the market and help us lower the value of the dollar! You don't have many dollars in the UK reserves, so let's take 5% of the share ,How about it?"

"Don't hesitate, buddy! You know, Japan has a lot of dollars saved through trade surpluses. Once they start selling dollars, the dollars you have in reserve will be worthless. Just take advantage of the dollars When it is still worth money, sell some to recover some losses, and sell us a face. In the future, the United States will eat meat, and you will have to take a sip of soup with you!"

Britain flickered down, and then went to France to do the same: "Japan and Britain have accepted it, why don't you hurry? Don't blame my brother for not reminding you, the dollar will be worthless by then. You sell 10%, it's only 18 Hundreds of millions of dollars, not much!"

This method made a trip to Europe, and then ran back to Japan with the reason why Europe agreed to the agreement
While crying: "Brother Deng! Lord Deng! The United States needs your help!", while secretly threatening: "Look, all European countries have agreed, and now you are the only ones left. You must help me ! As long as you help me, Japan will be my father from now on"

Although, it was hard for Carter to believe that a dignified politician would make any decision because of face.Even most of the time, Carter firmly believed that the Japanese Prime Minister Noboshi Takeshita was forced to make a compromise because he deeply understood that Japan could not resist and could not bear the loss of the US market.
But the fact is.
After Finance Minister Baker changed his style of playing with soft knives, Akira Takeshita suddenly became surprisingly generous!

Not only directly, but actively stated that there is no problem with the appreciation of the yen by 10%, and if necessary, a 20% appreciation is not a big deal.
Whenever he thinks of this result, Carter can think of the roar of the old finance minister talking to himself shortly after Secretary Baker put down the phone in the room of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo
"Son of a son of a bitch, has Toshi Takeshita eaten too much shit?! Where's his brain?!"

"Is this something that a normal person can do? It doesn't matter what the hell is 20%. If you don't care, why did you go?!"

"Mr. Walker is right next to me. Even he said that Japan must have lost its mind. Carter. I. He."

Pray that the quick-acting heart-relief pills that the old treasurer always keeps will be useful!

Carter shook his head helplessly.
In addition, there were many interesting scenes at the London G5 meeting where the agreement was drafted.

What is more worth mentioning is that the Federal Republic of Germany is second only to Japan and has been named a "trade surplus country".The Federal Republic of Germany itself is very unwilling to be "buried" with Japan.At the London meeting, when the U.S. representative wrote in the draft agreement that "Japan and, to a lesser extent, Germany, have a current account surplus," the German representative said directly: "How can small animals ride in the same boat as elephants? "

Then the representative of the United States directly said, "Of course the little elephant has to take the same boat as the elephant".
And this seems to be saving face for Japan, or in other words, it seems not so targeted.And, it gave the Japanese a lot of psychological comfort: Look, I am not the only one who is unlucky.
As the saying goes, happiness is based on comparison. If only Japan is injured alone, then the world will not wait.As a result, hey!The Federal Republic of Germany, whose trade surplus is much smaller than its own, will also be unlucky with itself
Japan is very happy!

Perhaps Takeshita's generosity is also due to the kind of petty thinking that the new Finance Minister Baker has grasped? !

After all, the G22 meeting in New York on September 5 was held as scheduled!

On this day, Carter asked for leave in advance.On the afternoon of September 21, the Minister of Finance of Japan Noboru Takeshita, Finance Minister of the Ministry of Finance Tomomitsu Oba and Bank of Japan Governor Sumita Satoshi arrived at LaGuardia Airport in New York almost at the same time
The next day, in Central Park opposite the Plaza Hotel, Carter sat quietly, watching the big shots getting off the luxury cars and entering the hotel one by one
G5 finance ministers, on the financial road, there is generally a black name called "currency mafia".What I said is that the talks of these people are like the conspiracy of the mafia, which will never see the light
But today, Carter could clearly see a lot of "guns and sticks" media reporters rushing into the Plaza Hotel.
A meeting that started at 11:30 am and didn't end until 04:30 pm.It also included a 20-minute press conference for reporters. This meeting was more of a final review of the content of the agreement.
It stands to reason that Carter did not need to attend the scene.But in the agreement, I only know about it: 1. The five countries jointly sell the US dollar to the market in exchange for an orderly depreciation of the US dollar; 2. Make policy intervention on the current account expenditure imbalance; 3. Oppose trade protectionism.
Leaving aside the very imaginary third point, and the first point where the situation is relatively clear.The second point is policy intervention. What kind of policy intervention is used and how much is the degree of intervention?
This information was marked with the words "NO PAPER" on the documents used at the London meeting, and all of them were destroyed at the end of the meeting.Even those who know the inside story dare not reveal it to the outside world.
Carter wanted to try if he could hear the latest results at the press conference.Of course, the reason why I came all the way back is because of that little sense of historical participation.
"Goodman, how many yen reserves do we have now?"

While waiting for the meeting to end, Carter called Douglas.

Although the time for the real harvest has not yet come, Carter feels that this kind of opportunity to earn a small amount of money is really worthless.
"At most 400 billion yen can be eaten, and no more can be bought! This meeting, the attention is too high! Quite a few institutions are rushing to collect yen. We spent nearly 1.7 million US dollars to buy a lot of money. To 400 billion yen. Carter, are you really sure that the yen will appreciate significantly when the market opens next week? We are under a lot of pressure to use reserve funds in this way. Patterson will give us five days at most! Get rid of the weekend Two days, we only have three days."

"Three days is enough! If it is 1.7 million, it is no problem to earn at least 1000 million US dollars! Trust me. By the way, has the international remittance from Japan arrived?"

"Not yet, I guess we'll have to wait until tonight. How much money did you remit from Japan?"

"There is not much remittance from Japan. It just took out the profit dividends of the three quarters of this year. It may be more than 80 billion yen. It is estimated that some money will be spent immediately. First, it will be exchanged for a little less, and it will be about 4000. Wan came back, plus our wave. A total of more than [-] million U.S. dollars, first return the blood."

(End of this chapter)