this man is not calm

Chapter 446: Clear and Organized
Many people don’t realize that holding cash has a cost.

Why does money deposited in the bank earn interest? Ultimately, it is because ordinary people lack awareness or do not have good investment channels, and are unable to maintain or increase the value of their money.

By pooling scattered money together and accumulating it into a large amount, once it reaches a certain threshold, you can earn the channel fee. If it is kept in the bank, it is called interest spread, and the entity that receives the money calls this investment financing residual capital.

When you have less money, you are not particularly sensitive to currency depreciation. But for Jin Shang, a 1% interest rate difference involves costs of hundreds of millions.

The cash flow of large enterprise groups must be sufficient and healthy, but too much money lying in the company's accounts can only mean that the management has poor leadership and is unable to promote healthy development and orderly growth.

The fact that spending money has become less easy shows that Jin Shang has realized the importance of allocating profits reasonably and mastering the key lifeline of a super-large consortium.

“Controlling resources and allocating them appropriately is a very important skill, and it is actually similar in all walks of life.”

In the small courtyard that seemed full of spring even on this winter day, the two of them sat by the pool, chatting and basking in the sun, like ordinary grandfather and grandson.

"You have really high vision and requirements."

"It's not that I'm too persistent, but I've seen a lot."

Old Huang seemed to be mumbling to himself, his eyes blurred, as if he had penetrated the long river of history. After a moment of silence, he continued,
"The changes that have taken place in the past hundred years are greater than those in the past few hundred years. I won't go into the details of the complexity. What do you think of this scene before you?"

"It's a rather elaborate garden landscape, but... that's all."

"So, no matter how smart you are, you can't truly feel the past through time. Let me put it this way. In the first few years of the century, the capital city had houses for outings and leisure, and lakes with slightly clean water and greenery. All of them were royal gardens. Other than that, the city and the outside of the city were all yellow soil. The hills that came into view were all bare and muddy yellow. As for crowded places, they were said to have the atmosphere of life, but in fact they were synonymous with dirt and stinking..."

Hearing such ridicule, Jin Shang instantly recalled the famous drama "Longxugou" from his textbook in his previous life. It uses the small to see the big, and through the different experiences of several families in a small courtyard during social changes, it shows the real life in a special period from one aspect.

If we put aside those somewhat obscure metaphors and only talk about natural tones, it actually reveals a problem.

Does agricultural society equal pastoral idyll?

Does industrialization equal environmental destruction?
No, no, no, those are prejudices imagined by the city people who are arrogant, well-fed and have too much to eat.

Take the bare hills near the capital for example. Although there has been some improvement now, with trees planted and grass growing, and the sandstorms are not as severe, when Lao Huang grew up, there was really no grass growing on them.

Now, we call it "greening"!
In the past, we called it "firewood"!
If we don't understand the historical records well, it would be hard for modern people to imagine that firewood was a scarce resource. They would think that there was plenty of firewood at our doorsteps, just like it is now.

Among the necessities of life, firewood comes first. Especially in the north where it is freezing cold and it is really hard to endure without anything to make a fire.

Think about the several steppe countries in Central Asia. They are all convex. The Arabian Peninsula was not completely barren from the beginning. After all, it is close to the sea and has decent rainfall. It should not be completely desert.

Why did people starve to death during famine times in the old society?
Even if there is no food, there is plenty of food around, such as wild vegetables, leaves, wood chips, grass, etc., which can fill your stomach.

From Old Huang's narration of the past, Jin Shang finally understood what life was like at that time.

There was nothing on the ground except dirt.

Oh, yes, there may also be the "smell of fireworks" and the foul-smelling Longxugou.

Reality is often contrary to common sense. In a mature society, when industry develops to a certain level, the more developed it is, the better the ecological environment will be.

Strictly speaking, the pastoral idyll of agricultural society does not exist, or rather, only a small group of people at the top are qualified to enjoy it.

Low productivity and expanding population will cause serious diminishing marginal returns. The only way to deal with this is to continue to open up new land.

"We have been engaged in farming for thousands of years, and we have reached the limit of nature's carrying capacity. Big trees are used to build houses, small trees are burned as firewood, and weeds are harvested to feed cattle. Why do woodcutters have to go to the mountains to cut wood? Why do farmers have to spend money to buy wood? Aren't there wood everywhere in the fields? The fact is that except for a few deep mountains and old forests, it has long been bare, especially in the northern plains. In fact, if you think about how the economic and cultural centers have changed in history, you will understand. At the beginning, they were in Guanzhong and Henan. After the Tang Dynasty, the former lost its self-sustaining ability, and the latter gradually became insufficient to maintain its central position. After comprehensive consideration, they moved to North China. However, after five or six hundred years of consumption, it has almost reached its limit. In the past thirty or forty years, there has been some awareness of ecological protection and afforestation. In fact, we have developed to a certain level, and industry can feed back agriculture..."

Jin Shang also had a little understanding of what Lao Huang said. In the previous life, it was called the Malthusian trap. Population growth is geometric, while natural resources are linear, so contradictions arise.

This is the result of not having vast amounts of coal, oil and natural gas. Our motherland in this life is a little stronger, so it has to resort to outward expansion. However, after reaching the upper limit of theoretical radiation, it has to resort to other methods to make adjustments.

Control of key ports and islands, indirect influence on countries within the cultural circle, establishment of buffer zones, etc.

Seeing Jin Shang was in deep thought, Huang Zhengkuo said leisurely:

"Last year's gross national product (GDP) is out. Beijing ranked first with an increase of 8.9%, and the national rate was 6.1%, rising from eighth to seventh in the world. What do you think of this performance?"

"It's just a joke. The so-called GDP ranking is just a statistical game. If we completely open up the capital market or adopt the same calculation method as the West, we will probably be in the third or fourth place. With some stimulation, we will have great hope of being in the top two."

After all, the size is so large that if it increases slightly, the total amount will be extremely exaggerated.

If we really want to stack up the total GDP and liberalize more financial derivatives, the trading volume will increase and the GDP will rise rapidly, but what is the use?

The consequences of industrial hollowing out are very serious.

“You can’t say that GDP is meaningless, it can still reflect the overall economic vitality, but... don’t take it too seriously. It can only be used as an important reference, and by the way, to fool small and medium-sized countries that don’t know much about it. In fact, smart people know that we... have accumulated a lot of wealth over hundreds of years, and there are many invisible financial groups that are rich enough to rival a country, but they have not shown it because of their usual strategy of keeping a low profile…” Attaching importance to substance rather than fame, China has quietly passed through a low period in the past half century, waiting for changes in the times and reviving again.

"Indeed, there is no need to fight for the shortest time. The world is changing, and others have come and gone, but we are still here. This is success."

For civilization, what needs to be considered is whether it can survive until the next century. For some individual clowns, what they care about is whether they can survive until next week.

"Back to the present, the model is a little different from that of ancient times. The division of labor in society is becoming more and more detailed, and the cost of refined management is getting higher and higher. It is impossible to have so many "all-round warriors" who are proficient in everything. More than a hundred years ago, it was enough to read the books of sages and understand their essence. Now, not only do you have to have a rough understanding of mathematics, physics and chemistry, but you also have to know a little about sociology, psychology, and economics from various schools of thought. You also have to keep up with the times and understand the latest changes in order not to be eliminated. This is not an easy task. You must focus on the big and let go of the small, but the traditional Four Books and Five Classics are no longer enough, so..."

“The power of finance…capital came into being?”

Huang Zhengkuo was very pleased with this answer and nodded with satisfaction:

"There is an old saying in ancient times, 'The government office is permanent, but the county magistrate is transient.' There is a very important grassroots staff called Xuli, you know? There are many of them in costume dramas, most of them are villains, used to set off the positive characters. Today's financial capital, to a certain extent, has replaced the role of the Xuli class, using the 'invisible' hand of the market to dynamically adjust the changes in supply and demand, playing an extremely important supplementary role. In a mature economic model, whether you like it or not, they are there, and their role may be big or small, but they must be indispensable, otherwise..."

After a pause, Huang Zhengkuo stared at Jin Shang's face and asked solemnly:
“Once the authorities get directly involved, what do you think will happen?”

Jin Shang hesitated for a while, then replied calmly:
"If you control it, it will die, but if you let it go, it will be in chaos?"

"You... are indeed better than I thought. It's not all the result of the 'fate' inherited from your family. Intelligence depends only on whether your brain is developed, but wisdom is an innate talent."

"I also vaguely realized something not long ago."

"Even if it's quick wit, it's still good. It took your grandfather ten years to get the hang of it."

Old Huang always likes to compare Huang Xiumin and Jin Shang, the grandfather and grandson, to show how optimistic he was about his eldest son and how high his expectations were for Jin Shang.

"Let's go back to the problem you are facing now. The split and restructuring of the basic operators, the independent operation of the tower companies, the separation of fixed-line phones, mobile phones, and radio and television networks, what do you think of the results?"

"It will probably continue to be split up, or mixed in operation, in the future. The current model is like splitting a store that originally sold shoes into one that sold left shoes, right shoes, shoelaces, shoe polish and shoe horns. It is not a completely market-oriented incentive, but just a stopgap measure."

"Your answer is good! From a higher perspective, everyone actually hopes for more vitality. Your Xiaolingtong makes money, even if it's a little too much, it's not a big problem. As long as it doesn't affect the overall situation, the people who control the rhythm are actually happy to see it happen."

It is a backward technology with an uncertain future. We don't know how many years we can make money. Whether the frequency band can be secured remains to be discussed. A temporary boom is still within the tolerable range.

Planet Intelligence has a high cash flow from home appliances, consumer electronics, electromechanical equipment, spare parts, etc., but the overall profit margin is not high. Only the PHS business is really profitable.

"Then... the only problem is the lack of transparency and supervision?"

"Ruzi is teachable. There are tens of millions of users, and in the future there may be hundreds of millions. If an accident occurs, it cannot be brushed off as 'carelessness'."

On a small scale, it affects the vital interests of many people; on a large scale, it involves public safety.

Whether there is money or not is actually not important, and whether the actual controller is state-owned assets is not the fundamental issue.

The key is how to ensure that there are no problems in social interaction, communication, media, information release, etc.

To make an inappropriate analogy, in a small category (mobile newspaper) of SP (wireless value-added) business, how can we ensure that the technical and editorial teams strictly abide by the discipline and do not do anything illegal?
There is also the group messaging function. If someone uses it to spread inappropriate information to the public, how can we regulate it?

"I... sort of understand."

SNS social networking sites, short video platforms, online novels, comprehensive portals, etc. are all subject to review and supervision. How is it possible for a communication network with nearly hundreds of millions of users to grow so wildly?
After a brief thought, Jin Shang analyzed it very seriously, as if talking to himself:

"There is one thing I got wrong. Xiaolingtong plus Jinxi chat and mobile phone users adding Fetion are indeed competitors, but... they are also natural allies. After I started working on the eighth day of the first lunar month, I immediately proposed in-depth cooperation with Fetion, data sharing and interoperability. Jinxi Culture will not be able to improve its data management and audit system for a while, and Hao Qilian lacks super-large data integration capabilities. It's just right that we can combine our strengths."

The two are indeed in the same industry and are also strong rivals in sharing the market. However, if Jin Shang feels from the bottom of his heart that the natural disadvantages of the basic operators give Jinxi Chat a great chance of winning in future competition, then they should cooperate even more. It would be wonderful to take advantage of each other's resources.

If the two sides are evenly matched, or one is at a disadvantage, then we should deal with the situation flexibly and discuss mergers and joint ventures.

Didn’t Didi and Kuaidi, who were burning money and fighting each other like crazy, finally shake hands and merge into one?

As a major IT Internet company, competing directly with basic operators is really a thankless task.

The ups and downs in the business world are not just a fight to the death, but also about the ways of the world, and about joining forces with the strong to become bigger and stronger and create greater glory.

"Young people, it's good to be competitive, but... sometimes you may lose your composure because of your emotions and fail to see the new paths hidden in your blind spots."

"Been taught a lesson."

It was not until now that Jin Shang truly felt that the old man in front of him was really capable and not a man who had gained his fame for nothing.

When the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union was at its most intense, there was a consensus to join forces to dismantle the British and French colonial empires. The conflicts between Jinxi Chat and Fetion are obviously not that intense, so there is more room for cooperation!
(End of this chapter)