The Magician’s Memorial - Chapter 353



Only Krnovel

353. New beginning (2)

next day.

No matter how tired I was, I woke up at 5 in the morning.

As I was trying to wake myself up with lukewarm water, a welcome guest came.

“Dimon! You were still in Korea.”

“I came all the way to Korea. Shouldn’t I meet the Chairman and then return to the United States?”

I briefly exchanged greetings with Dimon at the completion ceremony held yesterday.

However, because I had to say hello to so many people, I could barely talk to Dimon.

“When are you going back to America?”

“I have a flight booked for you this evening.”

“There isn’t much left. You could have come by yesterday.”

“I didn’t want to disturb the president’s rest.”

Although Dimon rose to become the CEO of America’s largest financial company.

He didn’t become arrogant at all, and actually respected me more than before.

“There’s a lot to talk about, right? Where should we start?”

“I think we should start with Europe first. I started repaying the loan from Taewoo Securities from the beginning of this year, and I think I will repay it in full by the middle of this year.”

“You could repay the full amount right now, but I deliberately told you to proceed slowly. If too much money moves at once, wouldn’t the market be noisy?”

In fact, repayment of the loan was possible a long time ago.

Without having to go all the way to Europe, he was able to repay the loan with just the profits he earned in Japan and still have plenty left over.

But it didn’t happen.

This is because the loan amount could have been multiplied due to the European financial crisis.

“Principal and interest are coming in regularly, and there are investments made in response to the European financial crisis, so this year’s sales at fintech banks are likely to hit an all-time high.”

“It looks like there were funds left over to invest in the European financial crisis. I thought Taewoo Securities had used all of the fintech bank’s funds, but I guess that wasn’t the case.”

“The revenue coming from Bitcoin exchanges has increased significantly. Bitcoin prices have also risen sharply to $100.”

Already surpassed $100?

In the previous report, Bitcoin was worth less than $5, but in the meantime, Bitcoin had already risen more than 20 times.

“Prices are rising fast.”

“The rumor spread around Silicon Valley, and now people across the U.S. are opening fintech bank accounts for Bitcoin transactions. Deposits are accumulating on their own without any special promotion, and the profits earned from Bitcoin fees are significant. It is increasing.”

Fintech banks had a near monopoly on Bitcoin transactions.

Of course, any bank could create a Bitcoin exchange, and even if it was not a bank, anyone could easily create a Bitcoin exchange.

However, fintech banks have already taken the lead.

And since the bank did not yet recognize Bitcoin, it seemed that it had no intention of creating an exchange.

Of course, there were attempts to create exchanges, but the number of users did not increase because they were less trustworthy than fintech banks.

“Please adjust it yourself so that the speed does not increase too quickly. It would be difficult if the U.S. government took interest for no reason.”

“We controlled it through an algorithm created by Cheon Min-jeong and blocked it at the $100 level. If we had left it alone, it would have easily surpassed $300.”

“It seems like there are more people interested in Bitcoin than I thought.”

“To be honest, it seems like a craze has arrived. It wouldn’t be surprising if a situation like an IT bubble or a real estate bubble were to occur right now.”

Dimon was already worried about the Bitcoin craze.

His concerns were met with nothing but laughter on my part.

“It’s only $100. Wouldn’t it have to be at least $10,000 for madness to come?”

“For it to rise to $10,000, hundreds of times more people than now would have to trade Bitcoin.”

“There will come a day when more than 100 million people will trade Bitcoin. By then, it could go up to more than $30,000, not just $10,000. I think I told you this before, but you probably forgot.”

“I remember, but I thought it was very unlikely.”

Dimon was a person who spent his entire life in the financial world.

Therefore, they were unable to fully accept the value of Bitcoin.

“That day will come. The only difference will be whether it comes sooner or later.”

“If the price of Bitcoin really rises to $30,000, you will become the world’s most wealthy person.”

“That’s nonsense. If we release the Bitcoin we hold, the value of Bitcoin will fall significantly. We should just be satisfied with making a profit through the exchange.”

The Bitcoin we held was merely a safety device.

I shouldn’t have thought about making money with Bitcoin itself, and I created Bitcoin with the purpose of making money through additional businesses.

“But wouldn’t Bitcoin be a secret weapon not only for the Chairman but also for fintech banks?”

“A secret weapon is only effective if you don’t use it. Once you use it, it loses its value. And have you met the person I sent you?”

“Ah! You mean Beryl from Together Walk? She was a pretty nice person.”

Beryl, co-manager of the Wagner Ranch.

He became my agent and started a shared office business, naming the company Together Work.

“I need a lot of funds to run a shared office business. Please help me get a loan from a fintech bank.”

“It was already a good business idea, so we gave it a loan. We also introduced us to a good building in Silicon Valley so that we could start a shared office business.”

Dimon’s tone of voice rose when the topic of shared offices came up.

In his view, the shared office business seems to be a big hit.

“Everyone who has been on Wall Street has a favorable opinion of the shared office business.”

“Isn’t it an item that adds network services to office rental? It is a perfect business item, especially these days when venture businesses and startups are increasing.”

“It may look good now, but within 10 years, the shared office business will lose its growth momentum. So make sure to invest only the minimum. Or, even if you do invest, exit at an appropriate time.”

The business item that even Dimon was dying for was the shared office.

If so, it seemed like if I used the bait called a shared office, I could catch a bigger fish than I thought.

“Do you really see it that way?”

“This is an era of low interest rates, so the potential for growth may seem high, but it is a business that will falter even if interest rates rise even slightly.”

“It seems like this business was started with sale in mind from the beginning.”

“That’s right. So make sure you make it look like an attractive business item. I’ll transfer some of the shares to a fintech bank. If you sell the shares with me, you’ll make a decent profit.”

“Thank you. Chairman, thanks to you, FinTech Bank is recording the highest sales every year. We look forward to your continued support.”

Who is asking whom?

Since I was the largest shareholder of the fintech bank, it was my duty to ask Dimon.

“It’s good that the fintech bank’s sales are increasing. What’s the situation at CITI Group? They haven’t completely wiped out their debt yet, right?”

“However, we were able to make up for it to some extent with the loan we received from Taewoo Securities this time. If this continues for 3-4 more years, we can significantly reduce the amount of debt. However, I understand that Taewo Group is in a similar situation to us. AIZ’s “Don’t you have a lot of debt left?”

This was also the reason for this operation.

In the process of acquiring large corporations such as AIZ and GM, we took on enormous debt.

Of course, the U.S. government forgave a portion of the debt, but even so, the amount amounted to tens of billions of dollars.

“With this investment, we will be able to write off most of the debt. First, we will erase AIZ’s debt.”

“Is there a reason you’re holding GM back?”

“Right now, GM’s situation is not good, so the National Automobile Workers’ Union seems to be dead, but when the debt disappears, they will raise their voices again. So, before we completely cut off the connection with the American Automobile Workers’ Union and completely fill it with the union that we led. “I need more time to figure it out.”

It was safe to say that the American automobile industry was dominated by the National Automobile Workers’ Union.

It was one of the largest auto unions in the United States, and of course it possessed the power and authority commensurate with its size.

The leadership of the company could not be handed over to the union.

Therefore, a new union was needed to exclude the National Automobile Workers’ Union.

“It is not easy to exclude the National Automobile Workers’ Union. In order to get already registered union members to move to a new union, there must be not only a justification but also merit.”

“Employees belonging to the National Automobile Workers’ Union are being transferred to automobile brand factories that will be sold. And in the restructuring phase recognized by the U.S. government, strong union members have been retired.”

“But wouldn’t it be enough?”

Of course it wasn’t enough.

Because it was not possible to fire all employees belonging to the National Automobile Workers’ Union.

But it wasn’t that there was no way.

“There are two ways to lower the concentration of salt water.”

“One is to extract the salt from the salt water and remove it. This method is very complicated and can make your belly button bigger than your belly. Another method is to pour a large amount of water into the salt water to lower its concentration.”

“Are you saying you’re going to hire more new employees?”

“That’s right. In particular, electric vehicle factories and lines are filled only with people who are not union members. After they join the new union, they will move to other factories or lines. Then, the concentration of salt water will inevitably be lowered.”

The method was to create new unions in chunks and drop them into existing factories.

If that were to happen, factional strife was bound to occur.

No matter how large the number of existing unions was, there was no influx of new ones, so it was a battle in which new unions had the advantage as time went by.

“If we know this, we will not remain silent under the Obama administration. The National Automobile Workers’ Union is openly supporting the Obama administration.”

“So we have to take our time and proceed slowly.”

“As expected, you are the Chairman. You are enhancing the value of GM in ways I never thought possible. I respect you.”

“What about respect? Let’s not talk loudly among ourselves.”

We continued our conversation with Dimon on a variety of topics.

Future investment directions and even the reorganization of the global economy due to shale gas.

Only after half a day had passed did Dimon go to the airport.

* * *

Spring has come in full force.

The world was full of green, and green was also the representative color of the National Economy Party.

“Congratulations. The National Economy Party achieved very good results in this general election.”

“It’s all thanks to the Chairman. We were able to secure more seats than expected. The staff hasn’t figured out the reason yet. Doesn’t that mean the Chairman has helped us a lot behind the scenes?”

I had a meeting with Governor Choi Jae-seok at a semiconductor factory in Gyeonggi Province.

Today’s meeting was to celebrate the victory in the general election.

How can we not congratulate the National Economy Party, which has proudly emerged as the largest opposition party through this general election?