The Grandmother in the Siheyuan

After finishing his work with the navy, Liu Hua returned to the laboratory to continue his research on his spaceship. Time flew by, especially during this year's Olympic Games.

I just heard "Welcome to Beijing," and now the Olympics are just around the corner.

Liu Hua's whole family came to the opening ceremony, and it was fortunate that he bought several sets of tickets. Otherwise, his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson wouldn't have been able to get in.

The opening ceremony was incredibly impressive, stunning the entire world. Of course, it was only impressive now; more than a decade later, people realized what it meant to have continuous aftershocks.

Why is Zhang Yimou considered the best director of our time? It's because he directed the entire opening ceremony with such grandeur and magnificence, showcasing both our strength and the inheritance of our civilization.

In contrast, the other director was far inferior. It is said that when he was competing for the position of chief director of the opening ceremony, he went on stage and recited a Tang poem, and then he had a feeling that he was the only one who could do it.

Our ignition ceremony was still leaked by a reporter from a certain country. Liu Hua was too busy to deal with this kind of thing, otherwise he would have reminded him.

Liu Hua's seat was relatively close to the podium, where all the leaders were seated. The best seats were occupied by the leaders of our country, Russia, and the United States.

Therefore, Liu Hua was able to see those leaders up close. These were the most influential figures in the international community at present. Liu Hua couldn't help but take a few more glances at them. Bush, the American leader, was probably the least impressive among them. He paled in comparison to the other two leaders. However, this was understandable, as he was the one who led the United States into a quagmire.

Our Olympic athletes fought bravely and, after a month of hard work, finally won the top spot on the gold medal tally, achieving a historic first place.

Just when people thought that life would return to normal and the economy would flourish after the Olympics, suddenly, bad news came from across the ocean.

Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

To outsiders, the collapse of Lehman Brothers was merely a shock; such a large bank had actually gone bankrupt.

But for people in the financial industry, the collapse of Lehman Brothers was like the sky falling.

People in the financial industry have long known that the US financial system is on the verge of an economic crisis, and now all that's needed is a spark to ignite a full-blown financial storm.

Lehman Brothers, a long-established investment bank, was a bankrupt bank that no one would have thought would go bankrupt before, because it had so much capital behind it.

But it was precisely this impossibility that became possible, and financial professionals worldwide knew that a financial storm was imminent.

According to Liu Hua's understanding, the subprime mortgage crisis was inevitable. These loans were issued to people with little or no repayment ability, which easily led to bad debts.

Then, in order to balance their books, banks will package these future bad debts as high-quality assets and sell them as bonds. In order to make more money, they will also add several times the leverage.

This isn't like a cow ruminating after eating grass. It's more like a healthy person getting minor illnesses or ailments, which are no big deal and can be toughed out. But for someone in their seventies or eighties, who is already frail and elderly, even a minor cold could be fatal.

The real estate industry is inherently prone to bubbles, and banks, not content with the already murky waters, have stirred things up even more, creating even more bubbles. And since it's a bubble, it's bound to collapse someday.

No one who invested in subprime mortgages was innocent; their own greed consumed them. The US, in its desperate attempt to recoup its losses, recklessly drained the world's resources, and our country was not spared. We suffered significant losses in import and export trade.

However, according to Liu Hua, some financial companies in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia are frantically shorting the US, Japan, and Europe. It goes without saying who their backers are.

National teams are assembling, while countless high-quality assets in the US and Europe are on the verge of bankruptcy, and the Wall Street tycoons behind these companies are fighting a bewildering battle in the financial markets.

To paraphrase Chu Yunfei, while the enemy is still establishing their foothold, it is the perfect time for our vanguard to rush in and harvest the wheat.

Liu Hua was invited to the mobilization meeting as an advisor, where representatives from hundreds of companies gathered in the auditorium of the foreign trade department.

Watching the leader give a passionate mobilization speech, Liu Hua smiled broadly. The Americans were about to suffer a lot.

Why did we vigorously develop the private sector in the first place? It was because the private sector is more dynamic and more efficient.

Although state-owned enterprises can set long-term goals, they are not as quick to act as private enterprises in the short term, precisely because private enterprises have a flatter and faster organizational structure.

The battle on Wall Street is fierce, and our acquisition team has already entered Japan, the US, and Europe.

Before these behind-the-scenes investors could even realize what was happening, the acquisition was completed in a flash.

There are some companies that the other party cares about a lot, the kind of companies that need government approval even if they are to be acquired. We took advantage of this chaos to buy technology where we could and shares where we could. Before the other party came to their senses, we had already spent money and gotten what we wanted.

After the US had initially stabilized Wall Street, those investors suddenly realized that the sky had fallen. Some companies seemed insignificant, but they were extremely important to the operation of their domestic industry.

As a result, the U.S. Department of Commerce rejected many merger and acquisition deals, even after payment had been made. They declared the acquisitions invalid. Although we suffered another loss, it greatly reduced the credibility of the U.S.

Most importantly, although we suffered a loss on the surface, we did not suffer a loss in the end.

Because the country had already stated that once the acquisition was completed, they would bring back everything they could, and those they couldn't bring back, they would destroy for the Americans.

So in 2009, NASA suddenly realized that they wanted to do a space program, but they were struggling to make ends meet.

In the past, several companies supplied them with key components, but because the market was relatively small and could not accommodate more companies, there were only one or two suppliers.

But when they began implementing their space program, they suddenly discovered that one or two of their suppliers had gone bankrupt, some equipment had mysteriously disappeared, and some equipment had been found in a junkyard.

As for the blueprints and documents, they are even harder to find. The originals are definitely gone, but there are backups, though they're not in the US anymore; they're on the other side of the ocean. (End of Chapter)