Darkstone Code

This time Lynch was invited over for a chat, in order to gather some information; this society is composed of millions of such relationships, forming a vast network.

Lynch chatted with Mr. Wardrick for about an hour before leaving. Standing behind the study's glass window and watching Lynch depart, Mr. Wardrick's expression remained calm.

He walked back to the desk, sat down in the chair, touched the fingertips of his ten fingers together, and pondered his earlier conversation with Lynch.

Looking at the Federation's domestic economic situation, according to the media and people's words, it seems pretty good.

The worsening trend has stopped, some factories have started to resume operations, the economy seems to be warming up, and light is about to tear through the darkness.

But actually, it's not like that. The media only reports good news, positive news that uplifts people, whereas the reality is not significantly better than before.

Products dumped from free trade zones have destroyed more medium and small enterprises, which in the eyes of the Federation's capitalists is simply... bizarre, or a miracle.

Imported goods are sold locally at prices lower than the local production cost of similar goods, a phenomenon that exists only in the mouths of swindlers, but has now become reality!

The other party bears ocean shipping costs and various expenses, yet they remain profitable. No merchant opens a factory to produce goods out of altruism, so how do they do it?

These questions have troubled the Federation's merchants endlessly, even if they make adjustments to production processes, raw materials, and workers' wages, they still lack competitiveness.

Some institutions have been commissioned to investigate these dumped products, and they found an astonishing result: the producers of these dumped goods rely on subsidies from their government to profit.

They severely suffer losses from dumping at ultra-low prices that crowd out similar Federation goods, yet their government provides substantial financial subsidies and various incentives, enabling them not only to avoid losses but also to earn big profits elsewhere.

This has exacerbated the dumping trend towards the Federation, causing many non-resilient factories to go bankrupt under the onslaught of cheap goods, and then these cheap goods gradually increase in price until they can ensure cost recovery and even achieve profitability.

Matches and lighters, these ubiquitous small products, have entirely succumbed to imported goods in the South.

Southern local factories cannot compete on price with imported dumped products and have fully gone bankrupt, except for a few that are barely holding on; the rest are finished.

If transported from the Central or other places, it is clearly not cost-effective as logistics costs make these originally worthless items non-competitive, so Southern distributors are importing these goods, cheaper than local production costs, en masse from overseas merchants.

Meanwhile, these products also feature some higher-spec few luxury items of the same brand, surprisingly with decent sales.

In fact, it's not just matches and lighters facing these issues, many things face these issues, including Mr. Wardrick's consortium, which is likewise affected by a variety of dumping products, creating a sense of crisis.

Within the consortium, there are some thoughts; everyone is seeking money abroad, so why doesn't the consortium follow this trend and open up international markets?

This idea is not a mainstream opinion within the consortium, and Mr. Wardrick himself holds this view, even being one of the proponents of such a trend.

Yet more individuals maintain a conservative attitude, and these people are currently pushing some new proposals to change the current situation.

For instance, they plan to push for a certain protection act, allowing banks to provide enterprises with long-term low-interest or even interest-free loans to help them weather the crisis.

Also, they're actively planning to push for a bill to raise tariffs on dumped products, artificially increasing the sales cost of these products within the Federation to secure survival opportunities for all enterprises.

But ultimately, these are passive measures; once new situations arise, they will again fall into passivity, which is why some young people, like Mr. Wardrick, hope to fundamentally change the situation by obtaining external resources to support domestic consortia.

Using proactive attacks to replace passive defenses has the advantage that even if new situations arise in the future, the impact on the consortium will be minimal.

Yet those old timers—indeed, Mr. Wardrick is already in his fifties, but he remains a "young man," occupying a position at his level within the consortium, and most are in their sixties or seventies, or even older, older gentlemen. He's only just over fifty and still so young.

These old timers, who've experienced multiple historical stages of the Federation, have conservatism ingrained into their bones. Compared to more proper methods they're good at, Mr. Wardrick and his peers' ideas seem a bit radical.

They didn't express disagreement, nor firmly oppose it, rather they need to persuade each other.

This is perhaps the consortium's final "freedom"; they need to canvass support in board meetings, persuading opponents to stand by their side, forming a majority group, then securing a resolution.

It sounds complicated, but actually follows the same routine politicians play—most of the time.

Gathering some information from Lynch's side while releasing some signals provides Mr. Wardrick with a better speech when persuading others to join him—"I have discussed these matters with Mr. Lynch before."

It sounds somewhat incredible; when did Lynch gain such prestige?

Actually, this matter cannot simply be introduced under concepts like status, prestige, authority; Lynch happens to be deeply involved in this series of issues, and this involvement in the matter itself gives him temporary weighting in terms of status, prestige, and authority.

This is akin to Mr. Truman before taking his current position; people didn't pay much attention to him. Now the attention is not on him personally, but rather the subjective controllable power endowed to him by his office.

So when those Mr. Wardrick needs to persuade hear "Mr. Lynch", they will seriously consider Mr. Wardrick's proposals, but the name "Mr. Lynch" is limited to use in this matter.

If discussing other matters and any person mentions "Mr. Lynch," people will merely scoff, for he lacks influence in those areas. He himself doesn't have that level of influence.

Mr. Wardrick, who had been contemplating for a long time on his chair, picked up the phone; he needed to arrange some people's upcoming work.

Since the turmoil in the Amelia Region aligns with the Federation's current interests, then aligning with Lynch, or rather complying with Mr. Truman and the President's national policy direction, has evidently become very important.

Following Mr. Wardrick's phone call, some individuals under the guise of investigation in the Amelia Region began clandestine contacts with those rebel groups; they had everything the rebel groups wanted in their hands.

Weapons, ammunition, medicine, money, and opportunities to leave the region. Of course, Mr. Wardrick very subtly, non-prominently expressed his demand, which is to make a big headline!

The negotiations continued the next morning.

Sitting across the negotiation table, everyone had stern faces. Lynch was purely unwilling to show a good face to these people; they fundamentally couldn't understand the current situation, nor grasp that Nagariel indeed lacked the basic capacity to resist the Federation's demands.

They lacked the rights and strength to haggle with the Federation. The fact that Lynch and his team made such "concessions" actually reflects the Federation's diplomatic policies and methods still being insufficiently tough.

This shouldn't be blamed on the Federation Government too, as they need time to learn how to strongly make others bow, but of course, before that, the navy battle must be won, as only then can Federation diplomats gain confidence—they've defeated the world's number one.

Compared to Lynch's sour face, members of the Nagariel delegation also looked dreadful; Lynch's unequivocal threats made them tremble once more, and Mr. Truman's unconditional support attitude also frightened them.

Lynch is a madman; who threatens to go to war for unmet conditions in negotiations?

This isn't a diplomatic negotiation, is it?

But circumstances are weaker than people, and apart from enduring, what else can they do?

They discussed these matters with those think tanks yesterday afternoon; the think tanks simply pointed out some obvious issues, yet how to decide still remained in their hands.

Actually, whether the currency system collapses has no value to them. What truly bothers them is having to fork out real silver to eat into Federation Sol, and the amount isn't small. This is the request they're unwilling to accept.

Unfortunately, Lynch had already seen through them from the beginning, which is also a deadly flaw brought by hereditary power, where the ruling family's interests outweigh the interests of the nation, only considering themselves rather than the country's and people's future.

"Mr. Lynch, we have discussed the ideas you proposed yesterday, and there are a few issues." The representative of Nagariel stared at Lynch, fearing he might lose his temper suddenly.

Lynch didn't refuse to let them propose conditions, rather he nodded for them to continue, saving the breakdown for a future time.

"The first issue, can you reduce the number proposed by you? Five hundred billion Sol roughly equals five trillion Gafura; the national treasury can't provide that money."

"The second issue, even if we can agree on specific numbers, United Bank also finds it difficult to disburse such a large amount at once, ultimately relying on local banks themselves."

"We've discussed whether, if these foreign exchanges are consumed, they can be allocated to different investing banks' own reserves?"

"The third issue, we also deeply feel Gafura's massive fluctuations in the foreign exchange market, and are considering whether it can peg its exchange rate to the Federation's rate by seizing the opportunity of consuming Federation Sol?"

Lynch nearly burst into laughter upon hearing these three points.

Bullshit you wish!