Chapter 89: The Great Depression (Part Eight)
Translator: Etern, Kim_Guo
One day later, Huang Xuan arrived in New York. He had taken a flight on Pan American World Airways (Pan Am), which had been the most important airline in America from 1930 to when it became bankrupt in 1991. In the 1930s, Pan Am was the biggest airline in the world, but at present, it was a delivery company that was just starting to add in passenger service.
The headquarters of Pan Am was in New York. In 1929, it had been the most popular stock at the New York Stock Exchange. Fortunately, it wasn’t affected much by the depression. To Huang Xuan, taking a flight on Pan Am in 1931 felt special and unreal, as if he had become closer to this plane, to this point in space-time.
Pan Am named most of their planes as “Clipper”. These planes traveled between states. The flight route from Detroit to New York was extremely important, the crew all wore formal navy uniforms, and in order to compete with ships and trains, Pan Am gave first class seats to almost all of its passengers. In modern times, such a seat would cost at least 8000 dollars, while Huang Xuan paid less than 100 dollars.
Due to the Great Depression, New York, like other large cities, looked depressed and dilapidated, as if it had just gone through a locust swarm, covering the sun in the shadows.
Huang Xuan had seen so much suffering during the depression that he had almost become immune to them, he wasn’t a saviour. Time meant everything to him because he could stay in this plane for only seven more days. Even wasting a second would be shameful.
“Rolin, go find the printing factories nearby, especially the ones Edsel mentioned.” Walking in the street of Manhattan, Huang Xuan was reluctant to ask anyone for directions, because he was annoyed and disgusted by the racism of America and the xenophobia of New York.
“You know it will waste a great deal of energy, don’t you?” Rolin complained. “Searching for materials in a plane without data might cost at least a million units of energy.”
“We’re just looking for a factory, don’t worry, you will be repaid.” Huang Xuan didn’t care about a few million units of energy.
“It will cost less if you can tell me more information. ”
Huang Xuan grinned and said in a low voice, “Rolin, what do you think about us printing the banknotes by ourselves?”
“Here?” Rolin responded without any change in tone.
“Yes.” Huang Xuan answered hopefully. It should be no problem to overcome the anti-counterfeiting technology of the 1930s. Huang Xuan was just worried about the after effects.
“I think it is feasible, but if you want me to retrofit the printers, it might cost tens of millions of energy.”
Huang Xuan said immediately: “No problem!”. After a moment, he spoke again: “Rolin, how about we print the banknotes back in P112?”
“Bad idea.” Rolin calmly said: “Destroying financial order would damage the buffer zone.”
Although Huang Xuan knew Rolin would reject, since the 2nd objective is the safety of the plane, he still added: “We can increase the energy in the buffer zone, then wouldn’t everything be okay?”
“No one can be sure how the buffer zone would recover the financial order. Certainly, it cannot do it by reducing the amount of currency available. Therefore, there will be inflation and economic crisis. Also, to reduce the buffer zone’s loss, a direct energy strike maybe possible.”
“What is a energy strike?” Huang Xuan was scared.
“For example, an earthquake or a thunderbolt with you as the target, would solve the problem easily.”
“No way. The buffer zone in your mouth sounds magical.” Huang Xuan was amazed.
“Natural law must be obeyed.” Rolin sternly said: “The loss caused by printing banknotes in our plane will far surpass the returns. Printing banks notes will reduce the energy in buffer zone and we would need a strong defense at the base to stop the revenge from the buffer zone. This is a method often used by plane colonizer, if you don’t care about the loss of P112, we can give it a try.”
Huang Xuan was disappointed. “I thought you were allied with the buffer zone,” he muttered.
“Of course I am not. The energy in the buffer zone belongs to the plane itself. It is the foundation of the plane itself, while the base is the creation of humans, at most it is a powerful tool.”
“What a shame! I thought I had a good idea.”
“The banknotes in your time are all numbered. If we print a lot of banknotes with false or existing numbers, we will be exposed. Besides, P112 is our base area, we shouldn’t exploit it.”
“Fine.” Huang Xuan compromised. “Find the factory quickly. According to you, if we printed banknotes here, not only can we make money, the energy in the buffer zone would be increased too. ”
“That’s because there is neither plane base nor the interference of the administration here. During the time of the big planes, the space-time administration only cared about getting buffer zone energy. Making money was the concern of poor time travelers.” Rolin sarcasticly said.
“I would rather be a poor traveler.” Huang Xuan held the suitcase tightly. “Where shall we go? Which factory can print banknotes?” Huang Xuan felt excited when mentioning printing bank notes, this could be the most direct and simplest way of making money.
“Beta printing factory in the south district can do what you want, but printing notes requires not only materials and workers, but also retrofitting the machinery. Looking at this factory, I estimate we’ll need to use over eighty million units of energy. ”
That would be more than seven million dollars. “We’re already at this point, why hesitate? Lets go now. ” Huang Xuan waved his hand and said.
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Beta factory focused on making pulp, making paper and printing. During its peak in 1929 it was worth two million dollars, but after two years of economic depression, its value had dropped to 400,000 dollars.
Of course Huang Xuan didn’t have that kind of money, but he was able to pay a deposit of 80,000 dollars. Such a large sum of money was enough to make people forget race and time. In America, money was your identification.
The boss of Beta, Leslie, was a 56 year old Californian. He took the money from Huang Xuan excitedly. The productivity utilization ratio of the factory was even less than 30%, so he thought selling it was for the best.
Since Leslie obtained the deposit so smoothly, he offered to pay the attorney fee and even agreed to a unreasonable request. He allowed Huang Xuan to try the factory for one week and to check the equipment. Of course, his deposit wouldn’t be refunded no matter what.
Huang Xuan didn’t intend to buy Beta Factory, he just needed to use it for one week.
Hans (who was wearing an army uniform) unbelievably watched Huang Xuan spend 80,000 dollars just like that. While Leslie was talking to the attorney, he couldn’t hold it and warned Huang Xuan: “Boss, we are in an economic crisis. Most factories are shutting down.”
“I know.” Huang Xuan liked Hans’ frankness. It was a pity for him that this German American couldn’t go back with him. He patted Hans’ shoulder and said, “I can keep this factory and sell it when its price goes up.”
“Do you think the depression will be over soon?” Even Hans who hadn’t even finished high school knew the word “depression”, but the Americans of this period didn’t know that they were experiencing what could be the worst depression in American history.
Looking at Han’s hopeful gaze, Huang Xuan could only smile comfortingly and say: “I’m afraid it’ll take another year or two.” It wasn’t until 1933 that the depression started to show signs of ending.
Hans was obviously disappointed, life wasn’t bad for him, but it wasn’t like that for most veterans. Just then, Leslie came back and said: “Mr. Xuan, I have already sent for my production manager, if needed, he can help you adjust the machinery.”
“I already have my own production manager.” Huang Xuan apologised. Huang Xuan wasn’t going to allow others to enter the retrofitted workshops, so a production manager would be unnecessary.
Leslie didn’t mind, being able to sell this loss-making factory was enough to satisfy him. “Shall we go sign the contract now?” he said with a relaxed smile.
The current USA, is not like the 1980’s, where each contract must be reviewed repeatly by the lawyers. Leslie just needed to get a already prepared contract, and the two bosses could complete the rest of the process.
Huang Xuan briefly scanned the contract and signed his name. The contract followed the fixed format. Starting from 1929, this type of contract had already been used countless times.
Leslie happily put away one copy of the contract, and gave another copy to the notary. Huang Xuan asked: “Are you going to sell the materials in the warehouse? Can you sell them to me?”
“I will give them to you.” Leslie sounded generous, but what was left was just some some pulp and paper, worth less than 2000 dollars. Even if Huang Xuan didn’t say anything, he would have left them for this adorable asian.
“Thanks a lot.” Huang Xuan took 1000 dollars from the suitcase and said, “I know this is not enough, but this is all the cash I have.”
“I said I would give them to you.” Leslie was sincere.
“I know.” Huang Xuan knew what he needed to do, he took 10 one hundred dollar bills, put it with the prepared purchase order and gave it to Leslie. “I also need some chemicals such as phosphoric acid and additives. I don’t know anyone in New York, and I can’t make you pay for everything. ”
Leslie laughed, took the purchase order and said: “You found the right person, nowadays, there aren’t many factories that can produce these things.”
Huang Xuan smiled, businessmen want profits, there were no free lunches. Doing things like this was for the best.
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There are seven workshops in Beta, it once had 500 workers, but now there were only one fifth of them left. When they had work, Leslie would hire some temps to do the simplest physical labour and dismiss them afterwards. This was how most factories operated during the great depression.
American banknote paper was made from paper corporations from the east. American law guaranteed them a degree of monopoly and cut off counterfeiting at the source. By law, it was illegal for anyone to be in possession of this type of paper, this paper that was different from all commercial papers.
One cannot make something out of nothing. Rolin could change the production and the printing method of the notes, but he could not produce the notes magically. It maybe possible according to Einstein’s theories, but then each bill would cost billions. So, a factory that can produce its own pulp and paper is necessary.
30 workers were assigned to produce pulp and other basic products. Huang Xuan closed the door to the paper and printing workshops. He asked Hans to leave four people there to stand guard, he made it clear that the machines could be started only when he was there. Otherwise, even Mr. Leslie wasn’t allowed in.
The veterans loyally carried out Huang Xuan’s orders.
Leslie went home happily. In 1931, selling a factory was extremely hard, completely opposite of the situation 10 years prior.
Huang Xuan looked at the factory with some pride. The factory had a structure of bricks and stone, a big chimney and a dirty sewer. Now it was his. Even if the federal government wanted to search it, they must get a warrant first.
The factory smelled bad, wasted paper mixed with garbage, paper products and their waste were not clean, not to mention the production conditions in 1931. Since Rolin’s abilities needed enough authorization or the base itself, Huang Xuan could only stay here and put up with all sorts of strange smells.
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