Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

Although his sugar came at a considerable hidden cost (Covenant R&D costs, mechanical wear and tear, his own labor and that of the infected, etc.), in the Lungmen Dollar market, it cost him nothing.

This means that the lowest acceptable price for sugar for Lao Xia could even be 0 yuan.

When this situation arises in the market, and he announces that he has a production capacity of ten million tons and will gradually increase the amount released into the market to realize profits, a terrible phenomenon will occur—

Sugar prices plummeted at a rate far exceeding the market share he invested in, causing the stock prices of all sugar companies to fall so low that no one would recognize them, and everyone was frantically selling sugar.

Because if they don't sell, the value of sugar will fall, and many companies use their own sugar holdings as collateral for bank loans.

Once sugar prices fall below a certain stop-loss level, banks will have to tighten credit, stop lending, intensify collection efforts, and even increase interest rates to expedite repayment.

Therefore, they will follow suit and sell off their sugar. However, market consumption is limited in the short term. If everyone sells off quickly to cut their losses, the price of sugar will plummet faster than a person jumping off a building, thus triggering a vicious cycle.

As a monopolistic giant in TerraSugar, Swire Group and Swire Sugar were about to collapse on the spot. Don't be fooled by the fact that they can pull out 40 billion without batting an eye. If Old Xia really hit them like that, they would be dead on the spot.

Normally, at this point, the focus should shift from superficial business competition to genuine business competition—send someone to get rid of Lao Xia and revive the sugar factory.

However, Lao Xia couldn't do that on the snowy plains of Ursus, so the only option was to drag Lao Xia into the monopoly. But Lao Xia didn't actually have the ten million tons of sugar he claimed, so a monopoly together would just be working for Swire Group for free.

Therefore, at this point, Lao Xia proposed another option: to borrow from Swire Group using the non-existent ten million tons of sugar.

Once the loan is approved, these 10 million tons of sugar will not enter the market. At least until Lao Xia can repay the loan, the sugar price will regain confidence and stabilize.

Meanwhile, Swire Group's shares remained stable. Therefore, if Lao Xia loses money and can't repay it, the existence of the sugar is irrelevant. In fact, its non-existence would be beneficial to Swire Group, since Lao Xia would take the blame while they would reap the benefits of the sugar price monopoly.

On the contrary, if this sugar really exists, Swire Group will actually earn less, because these tens of millions of tons will eventually enter the market.

Conversely, a supply of tens of millions of tons also means that Swire can completely monopolize the market, and once completely monopolized, they can dictate the price.

Therefore, what Lao Xia borrowed wasn't just money, and what he pledged wasn't sugar at all—he used the fate of the Swire Group as collateral—in layman's terms: protection money.

Chapter Four: Driving away wolves at the front door, welcoming tigers at the back.

Chapter Four

The sky over Victoria is always overcast, much like the country's basic color scheme. The world, composed of white, gray, and black, is like a somber black and white painting, with the only color being the Queen's Palace standing in the center of the city.

The dragon and the lion were fighting with all their might, but the conflict that was taking place in the upper class did not reach the lower class. The solemn and dignified gentlemen and the black umbrellas they held up formed black waves, which gradually blurred at the corner at the end of the street as the rain gradually fell.

Steam rose from the pale red teacup, clinging to the glass and obscuring the view, reflecting a blurry face that was slightly different from a human's. The fragrant aroma of black tea acted as an invisible curtain, keeping out the factory's thick smoke and heat.

“Mrs. Wen Yue, I’m sorry, I just had a board meeting to attend to. They need me to explain some recent investment decisions.”

After all, Swire Group withdrew 40 billion dollars almost entirely to prevent the entry of 10 million tons of sugar, the authenticity of which was unknown, into the market.

As a result, the other party used sugar to block their claws from reaching further into the Great Yan. Even though the Swire family is the largest shareholder of the group, they still have to make an explanation.

“I understand, for some reason, Lao Wei…”

“I understand…” The big tiger took off his top hat, and a maid helped him remove his trench coat and overcoat. The man, dressed in standard Victorian men’s clothing, sat down. His strong muscles, accentuated by his well-fitting clothes, made him look like a towering mountain.

"So, Lady Wenyue's special trip all the way from Longmen couldn't have been just a simple visit to a friend, could it?"

"Victoria's tea and pastries are still as sweet as ever. No wonder they're in the sugar business; every single one of them is incredibly sweet. If I were still a little girl, I would probably be very happy."

"Sweetness is a gentleman's right," a Victorian proverb...

“Sugar is both wealth and power,” Wen Yue added. “Is that power still in Swire’s hands?”

"Hmph—" The big tiger's face immediately turned ugly. "If it weren't for your Dragon Gate..."

“Longmen is a free commercial port, and we cannot impose discriminatory policies on any merchant who is legally selling goods.”

Wen Yue laughed and said, "You're putting Lao Wei in a difficult position."

Longmen is a free port. It has almost no production and consumption market of its own. It is a global trade transit station and trading port. The flow of goods in Longmen is a key factor.

The fact that it is not in other places means that Lungmen cannot directly collect so-called "tariffs".

In particular, discriminatory taxes should not be levied on a particular commodity. Once Lungmen loses its neutral stance on trade, the Lungmen currency, which is based on this position, will instantly lose its credibility.

Lungmen is not the United States on Earth; it doesn't have an aircraft carrier fleet to maintain its monetary hegemony through military dominance.

What will follow is a terrible economic default caused by all countries simultaneously defaulting on their credit, which will be a devastating blow to Terra's commerce, enough to drag every country into it and send them back to the Stone Age.

Terra is not like Earth, where there is a near-zero balance due to severe oversupply of goods. It needs to protect its domestic industries by doing so in a way that allows them to maintain a basic market and remain competitive.

Conversely, Terra, situated in the transitional period from feudalism to capitalism, happened to be in an era of large-scale industrial development where production capacity had just caught up with demand. The most prominent characteristic of this era was a completely free market economy.

The fact that Dragon Gate in the Great Yan Kingdom can purchase mobile cities from Victoria, and Ursus can purchase land-based warships from the Great Yan Kingdom, are typical examples.

The most distinctive feature of factory owners and businesses in this era was that they were willing to sell anything for money, even their own country's most advanced weapons and equipment.

Because this era is still in the age of technological discovery, if new technologies cannot be immediately monetized and invested in research and development, they will quickly become obsolete, unable to be sold for a penny, and unable to develop new technologies.

It's best not to apply the current global economic and trade situation to this. We're currently in a winter where the financial game has run its course, technological production growth is slowing down, and new markets are limited, making it difficult to explore new technologies.

Every household had to store grain and tighten their defenses to prevent capital from finding its way in. This led to various military and administrative measures that resulted in mutual destruction, the most typical of which were tariff barriers and trade protection.

As far as Terra is concerned, it is in the midst of a period of great development. Using tariff barriers as a panacea at this time would be like asking if it doesn't die fast enough or suffer enough.

"Yes, I'm not going to make things difficult for him, so now there's a gun pointed at my head and a gun pointed at his own head, and all I can do is smile and say, 'Well done,' using his own daughter as a bargaining chip to get people to let me off the hook."

Otherwise, he can go back to farming, and I'll go with him to farm, provided my enemies haven't killed me before then.

"You're not talking about Old Wei, are you?"

"Of course not... If that guy had that ability, the throne of Great Yan would have been his long ago." The big tiger shook its head. "I don't think you came here to talk to me about this, did you?"

“You never intended for Beatrice to marry into a powerful family before, but you suddenly changed your mind this time. As her aunt, I should at least come and see what's going on. If the eldest daughter of the Swire family really is going to marry far away to Ursus, I, as an elder, should be able to see her off…”

"That's impossible." The big tiger was silent for a moment, then repeated, "That's impossible..."

"So you mean you never intended for Swire to marry into the family, and it was just that Lao Wei and I were overly concerned?"

Wen Yue tentatively asked, "To be honest, if that Boss Xia really becomes the son-in-law of the Swire family, Old Wei will really have to prepare to go to the rooftop. Of course, not for the Leap of Faith, but to kick the Ursus Black Serpent off the roof and speed him up."

With Ursus's sugar production capacity and the power of Swire Sugar, Swire, as the designated heir of the Swire Group, means that he controls almost half of Victoria's economic and private military power. In addition, he has the ability to withstand the Ursus siege and break through the blockade to supply goods—the stability of the Ursus Emperor's throne is now questionable.

"Whether it's a marriage alliance or a daughter's marriage, there's still a lot to consider. Becoming the son-in-law of my Swire family isn't that easy," the big tiger shook his head. "I didn't care what kind of man she chose before because it didn't matter what kind of man she chose."

Victorian women had inheritance rights, hence the saying: I don't care if my friends are rich or poor, because none of them are as rich as I am.

"On the contrary, if there really is a talented person from that large group, I would have to think about it."

For a conglomerate of Swire Group's caliber, mergers and acquisitions can no longer bring any substantial expansion or progress. Smaller companies look down on it, while larger companies are entangled in conflicting interests, and it's easy to lose track of who's taking advantage of whom. Those that remain in the middle are merely icing on the cake.

In a world like Terra, where feudal remnants still linger, people who can only infiltrate through marriage look down on the little tiger's bloodline. Even if the little tiger is willing to be someone's lover, he would still feel humiliated and refuse.

So, to sum it up, it doesn't matter to the family what man the little tiger chooses, so there's no need to arrange a marriage for her.

Of course, it is also necessary to conduct a certain investigation of the man; you can't let him end up as a good-for-nothing spendthrift or a fraudster.

“But things are different now. When the family is stable, she is the family’s little princess, and we can do whatever we want with her. But when the family is unstable and in need, she is a member of Swire, not just my daughter.”

"Has it really come to this?"

"I've already said it, one gun is pointed at my head, and the other at his own head, forcing me to hand over my chips. What can I do? He has both guns. Even if I point a gun at his head, what good will it do?"

"What about the Queen?"

"It's no use. I can persuade the Queen to provide some help, but that bastard is using sugar!" The big tiger looked terrifying as he puffed out his beard and glared. "Victoria can stop Ursus's sugar, but can Kazdel? Those demons will probably just pull out all their Originium mines and exchange them for money to buy it. What's the difference?"

The market is only so big. Tariff barriers can prevent Lao Xia's sugar from entering Victoria, but they can't prevent it from entering Kazdel.

The primary premise of trade protection is that you can manufacture it yourself, and that you are an export-oriented and production-oriented economy.

But in an import- and demand-driven economy like Kazdel's, he'd be more than happy if the two sugar merchants were to fight.

It's like for graphics card buyers who are purely driven by need: if you don't buy, I won't buy, and tomorrow the price will drop by 200, that's what they're all about.

However, it doesn't matter whether it's sold to Victoria, Kazdel, Kazimierz, or Ursus itself.

For every ton of sugar that Lao Xia sells, the market demand decreases by one ton, and relying on Victoria alone is not enough to feed Swire.

For Swire, if it doesn't want to starve to the point of malnutrition and lose all its overseas markets, it has to engage in a price war with Lao Xia. This is not only bleeding itself dry, but also further causing the two major sugar merchants to fight each other for market share.

Then countries that don't produce sugar at all, don't care if sugar merchants go out of business, and even cheer for the price reduction of sugar as an industrial raw material and luxury item, will reduce their purchases even more.

Just like those guys hoping for graphics card price drops, we're waiting for you two to fight it out and come down to an ultra-low price. To put it more professionally, it's a sugar industry infighting. Purely import-consuming countries are happily exempting tariffs to lower raw material prices, thereby significantly reducing the manufacturing costs of sugar-related companies.

As sugar is a luxury item and an industrial raw material, its price has decreased, and other countries will definitely grant it zero tariffs. As a result, the costs of all sugar-related manufacturing industries have decreased, profit margins have increased, market competitiveness has strengthened, and they have begun to snatch orders from similar companies in Victoria.

And what about Victoria Enterprises?

Tariffs have led to higher raw material prices. In order to maintain their profit margins, domestic sugar producers have engaged in price wars with foreign companies. So where will the lost profits come from?

Of course, it's exploiting our own people—after all, there are trade barriers, so when imported sugar and local sugar are priced the same, you can only obediently be skinned alive.

Increased costs mean that Victoria's other sugar-related industries, and even people's livelihoods, will be pushed to the brink of collapse very quickly.

Because they will find that, let alone maintaining profit margins, even breaking even requires competing with similar companies in other countries at extremely low prices. At the same time, they will raise prices domestically to ensure they don't starve.

Once a chain reaction of soaring prices occurs, this trade barrier, intended to protect itself, will successfully stifle Victoria within its own borders.

So it's not that the big tigers didn't consider using this method, but the chain reaction was too terrifying.

The premise for its use on Earth is that a number of former colonies and Third World countries developed during the previous free market phase, which was the phase of capital expansion.

In other words, import-demand-driven economies that rely solely on selling resources to import products are becoming fewer and fewer. It's like there are more and more cooks but fewer and fewer people eating. So, the only solution is to prevent the few remaining diners from eating at other people's restaurants in order to avoid losing their jobs.

Terra is a completely different story. It's like Earth in the 18th and 19th centuries, where there are fewer cooks and more eaters. At that time, erecting trade barriers would be suicidal, even if we assume that you still have enough military strength to avoid being "opened up by the Black Ships".

You have barriers that others don't. Do you think others would be happy if suppliers would fight each other, setting up barriers so they could spend more money importing, and then causing their consumer goods to skyrocket?

Once the other party occupies these undefended territories, and gains the power to control the market, you'll have no choice but to obediently switch on and off if you don't want to destroy yourself.

Now, Taigu is the unfortunate one who was forced by Sugar to obediently turn on and off. Big Tiger has said more than once that he wants to hang the entire family of his subordinates who investigated Ursus's sugar production capacity and threat level.

But this only serves to vent his anger; it does nothing to help him face the seemingly prosperous and thriving situation that is actually nothing more than dry tinder with oil added underneath.

"But, thinking about it carefully, the marriage alliance isn't something that can't be discussed. Why is Old Wei also interested? Huijie is not young anymore. At her age, you already had...

"Well—" Princess Wenyue gave an awkward but polite smile. Although Swire wasn't exactly a proper young lady, she was at least a lively and lovely girl with a normal sexual orientation, while Chen Huijie...

She always made Wen Yue wonder if she should find her a virtuous wife instead of a husband.

"Huijie is currently focused on her career, probably because..."

“My little kitten is also very dedicated to her career. Hmm, speaking of career…” Big Tiger suddenly remembered something, “I remember Old Wei said that Boss Xia is from Ursus and has a connection with Lord Kal'tsit. What is their relationship?”

"It's probably a cooperative relationship..."

"Hmm, that's a bit strange. Why would that old lynx cooperate with him..."

"Perhaps it's something related to Rhodes Island's business..."