"Gentlemen, I know why you're cornering me. Isn't it because the Chinese made $6 billion on the vacuum high-speed railway last month? Is that money worth all this excitement?" Seeing himself completely surrounded by the directors, young Swift could only say helplessly.
"What? $6 billion?" The surrounding directors' eyes nearly popped out. Wasn't it $2 billion?
However, it was mentioned that young Swift was backed by the Jiangnan Group, and the Jiangnan Group was the only private enterprise with shares in China High-Speed Rail Development Company. They could obtain the internal financial data of this company.
Therefore, what young Swift said must be correct. The Chinese had made $6 billion in profit on this railway in one month. Thinking of this, the directors became even more frenzied, each wishing they could personally participate in the construction and build this pipeline as quickly as possible.
Some might find it strange that the total market value of the US United Super Vacuum Pipeline Railway at its peak exceeded $60 trillion. So, even if they built the new railway, it could still generate over $6 billion in profit each month. That would only be $72 billion in profit annually, $720 billion in ten years, and it would take 100 years to earn back the $60 trillion market value. This doesn't seem like much!
The reason is simple: this is the profit of Chinese companies, not American profit.
The Chinese company's $6 billion monthly profit is indeed not much compared to a market value of several trillion dollars. But the problem is, they are Chinese enterprises, and the fares collected are in RMB.
A Chinese ticket worth 600 RMB might be priced at $600 in the United States. How can the profit be compared?
If the Chinese can earn $6 billion a month, they can earn $36 billion a month. Who can stand this?
So, these directors immediately surrounded young Swift, forcing him to order the company to start construction immediately.
"Alright, since everyone is so enthusiastic, let's sit down and talk!" Swift led everyone into the conference room. However, because most of the staff had already gotten off work, the entire conference room was deserted, with no one to greet them.
"If you want to start construction, that's no problem. I actually want to start construction too, but there's the court's injunction. Since you all used this thing to annoy me, shouldn't you also find a way to get it off our company's back!" young Swift said irritably.
Anyone with a brain knew that the so-called environmental organizations in the United States were actually controlled by major consortiums and institutions. The original intention behind the establishment of these environmental organizations was to help their affiliated enterprises open up markets.
For example, the first non-international environmental organization spontaneously established by private institutions that made a significant impact globally was the Animal Rights Organization in the United States.
In 1956, they organized a campaign against leather products, opposing the slaughter of numerous animals and the use of their skins and furs to make various leather goods for human selfish desires.
This campaign against leather products caused a great stir. At its peak, the organization mobilized tens of thousands of people for demonstrations and published numerous touching articles on various media platforms. Ultimately, it successfully influenced many people and even led to a court order prohibiting many private leather workshops and restricting the business scope of many leather factories, directly causing many American leather enterprises to be shut down or go bankrupt.
If Mr. Huang were in the United States at that time, he would have likely gone bankrupt from the opposition.
So, was this environmental organization really acting to protect animals?
How could that be possible? An organization that had just been established could mobilize tens of thousands of people for demonstrations and also provide subsidies to everyone, as well as arrange action plans. This would have cost at least hundreds of thousands of dollars. How could it be as described in their historical introduction, that this organization was spontaneously established by a few animal protectionists?
In reality, this organization was backed by an import company. At that time, they acquired the largest leather tanning factory in India and held a large amount of leather products.
However, due to the vast and low cost of animal husbandry in the United States, which made everything expensive in the country, leather prices were very low. Leather goods produced in the United States were also not expensive. Moreover, Indian imported leather goods, not only in terms of style and quality but also in price, had no advantage. Therefore, this American company was basically operating at a loss.
So, they came up with a brilliant idea: using environmental organizations to create a frenzy and eventually successfully enact a series of animal protection laws. With these laws, they could successfully destroy the American domestic leather industry.
The leather industry disappeared, but the demand for leather would not. Therefore, purchasing imported leather naturally became the only option.
Within just two or three years, India became the largest supplier of leather and exporter of leather goods to the United States. This company made a fortune, and the cost was only a few hundred thousand dollars initially.
Later, major institutions and capital discovered that this method was incredibly effective. As long as they could somehow link their objectives to environmental protection, they could immediately use environmental organizations to force public opinion and government policies to change according to their interests and will.
Most importantly, these environmental organizations could not be punished.
This is because environmental protection had become a global political correctness. If you opposed environmental protection, you were opposing the world, the Earth, and the future of all humanity. You were committing a great offense and would be thoroughly attacked and criticized.
Thus, various environmental organizations were successively established, and they were all well-funded. Soon, they began issuing all sorts of bizarre demands that were impossible to refute.
For instance, some environmental organizations proposed that plastic bags should not be used because plastic bags are difficult to degrade and pollute the environment. As a result, many countries subsequently issued regulations requiring their countries not to produce plastic bags, and any shops or institutions, especially supermarkets, should not provide plastic bags to customers.
But the question is, if one doesn't bring a plastic bag to the supermarket, how can they buy things?
So, these environmental organizations proposed a proper solution: plastic bags cannot be used, but cloth bags can be used. Because cloth bags can be reused and are relatively expensive, consumers will be reluctant to discard them, thus eliminating the harm of plastic bags.
This answer seemed good, and then cloth bag manufacturers across the country made a fortune.
That's not all. Many people sometimes want to buy something and go to the supermarket. In such cases, they can't carry a cloth bag with them, can they?
So, supermarkets thoughtfully provided cloth bags for consumers at the checkout counter. However, the cost of cloth bags is certainly higher than that of plastic bags.
While plastic bags could be given away for free before, cloth bags cannot be given away for free now. You have to pay for them, and the price is generally around $5.
Don't think this price is too high. These are cloth bags made strictly according to environmental standards, with high craftsmanship, so they must be sold at this price. xxs壹贰
You can't possibly carry these things home empty-handed, so many people have no choice but to buy a cloth bag.
Later, people found that although these cloth bags could be reused after being brought home, there would always be times when a person would go to the supermarket twice and not bring a bag, so they would have to buy another one. In the end, their homes would be piled up with cloth bags, which would eventually have to be discarded as trash.
And the degradation difficulty of cloth bags is much higher than that of plastic bags.
The same situation applies to plastic straws. Originally, everyone was fine using plastic straws when drinking milk tea, but environmental organizations also objected, saying that plastic is not degradable and demanded that various businesses proactively provide easily degradable paper straws for consumers.
However, the cost of paper straws is high, so you still have to pay extra.
Furthermore, even if some shops provide paper straws for free, as is well known, paper straws are fine for a while, but once they are in milk tea for a long time, they will get soaked and become unusable.
So many people still request plastic straws. That's not allowed. For the sake of environmental protection, plastic straws require extra payment!
There are countless such tactics, and environmental organizations are indeed very useful.
You see, by simply connecting dozens of environmental organizations, they have directly blocked the US's own super vacuum pipeline railway. And all these environmental organizations are backed by shareholders of the US United Super Vacuum Pipeline Railway Company.
They were unhappy that young Swift had taken away huge profits from them, so they decided to use this method to cause trouble for him.
In fact, they did prevent the entire project and made the United States a worldwide laughingstock.
After all, the United States was the first country to propose building a new super vacuum maglev pipeline, and even China was several months behind the United States.
But China's first railway was completely completed, while not a single meter of the American railway had been built. Isn't this a huge joke?
Therefore, at this moment, young Swift's first demand is for these environmental organizations to withdraw their lawsuits and stop blocking construction.
This demand is very reasonable, but the problem is that these directors look like they have a headache. The last director said helplessly, "We have actually considered this issue in advance. Two weeks ago, we ordered these environmental organizations to withdraw their lawsuits. But the problem is, these organizations seem to have gone out of control and are refusing to obey our orders!"
"Are you all joking? These organizations are funded by you, and they dare to turn against you?" young Swift said irritably.
"This is true!" The directors' smiles became even more bitter. "We really can't control them anymore. Although the leaders of these organizations still listen to us, the vast majority of their members are resolutely refusing to withdraw their lawsuits. Some of our people have even been directly dismissed by the majority of members. We have lost control of these organizations!"
Well, those who play with fire will eventually be burned. These people have been backfired.