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Chapter 227 When People No Longer Believe...

"Do you have anything else to do tonight? Doing scientific research or something?" Zheng Xiwen did not directly answer Qiao Yu's question, but asked.

Qiao Yu shook his head and said, "Nothing for now."

"If you have nothing to do, come in and sit down?" Zheng Xiwen invited.

Qiao Yu nodded happily, then followed Zheng Xiwen into the small room on the first floor.

When he first came to Yanbei, he also lived here. However, after taking a look around, Yuan Lao felt that the first floor was not suitable for human habitation, so he moved to the suite upstairs.

But in fact, Qiao Yu always felt that this small suite on the first floor was quite cozy to live in.

Especially since the bed is placed against the wall, I feel very safe when I sleep.

Moreover, the window faces the road opposite. If you open the curtains a little, you can see people passing by outside the window when you look up. It is quite interesting to observe them secretly when you are bored.

"By the way, where is Zhang Mingyu?" Qiao Yu asked as he walked into the room.

After all, there was an assistant last time, and there is probably no need to go abroad this time, so only Zheng Xiwen was arranged to be by his side.

"Go home for a blind date, and now we should prepare for marriage." Zheng Xiwen replied.

"Huh? Then when he really gets married, tell me and I'll prepare a big red envelope for him. If I don't have time to go to the scene, you can find someone to help me deliver it." Qiao Yu said immediately.

Qiao Yu was not stingy at all towards the people who had protected him before.

After all, if he wants to do whatever he wants, at least he needs to have people around him to do things according to his ideas.

"Haha, okay! Then let me thank you on behalf of Xiao Zhang." Zheng Xiwen agreed with a smile.

At this time, Qiao Yu had already walked into the room and found that several computers were already connected in his small suite.

A total of six monitors are installed everywhere, making it like a miniature command center.

Probably to dissipate heat, even the air conditioner in the cabin was replaced.

"Wow...it looks quite professional." Qiao Yu sighed.

"We have now taken over the security of the International Center for Mathematical Research. Not only you, but also the project you recently applied for and all future selected scientific teams will be under our protection."

Zheng Xiwen explained the sentence succinctly.

Qiao Yu nodded in understanding. It seemed that everyone was serious this time. He estimated that it was more than just protection.

"any drinks?"

When Qiao Yu sat down on the only two stools in the room, Zheng Xiwen asked.

Qiao Yu shook his head and said, "I just had two cups of coffee at Professor Schultz's place. I don't need to drink anything."

"Oh, you don't seem to have much interest in the stock market and the cryptocurrency world?" Zheng Xiwen didn't bother to be polite with Qiao Yu and asked instead.

Qiao Yu nodded and replied, "I am not interested in things with too many uncontrollable variables."

Zheng Xiwen smiled and said, "In fact, you can also pay a little attention to these things. With your intelligence, it won't take too much energy to understand these things.

And at your level, it is necessary to understand everything. Materialism believes that everything is connected. Of course, I don’t mean to ask you to speculate in stocks. Just simply understand. "

As Zheng Xiwen was casually operating the computer, Qiao Yu saw a dazzling green color appear on the two screens in front of him.

"This is the night trading data of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the New York Mercantile Exchange and the European Exchange. Can you see anything?" Zheng Xiwen asked.

Qiao Yu took a few casual glances and concluded: "The rise in precious metals and energy last night was quite encouraging, and agricultural products also rose a lot. It seems that the money from the cryptocurrency world has found a place."

"Yes."

Zheng Xiwen sighed casually, nodded, and then said: "So now the whole world is waiting for the U.S. stock market to open, waiting to see how the U.S. stock market performs today."

Qiao Yu blinked.

"The U.S. stock market won't open until 9:30 p.m., and..." Zheng Xiwen glanced at the time in the lower right corner of the computer and continued, "It's only ten minutes. Let's pay attention to it together today."

Qiao Yu blinked and suddenly realized that the teacher who had taught him how to take safety precautions before would probably give him another political economy lesson today.

But it doesn’t matter.

Although he has no interest in the stock market, it is quite interesting to watch its ups and downs occasionally.

"Do you know what the total market value of the U.S. stock market is?" Zheng Xiwen asked again.

Qiao Yu shook his head. He really didn't care about these things.

"As of yesterday, it still had $59.8 trillion. Its peak was $63 trillion two years ago. Even though it has fallen a bit now, it still accounts for 50% of the total market value of global companies."

Zheng Xiwen casually reported a series of data, which was obviously well prepared.

"Tsk tsk tsk... Americans are still rich!" Qiao Yu subconsciously uttered a series of sighs.

The market value is almost 60 trillion US dollars, which is 420 trillion RMB...

With such a huge market, it’s no wonder that the whole world is concerned about it.

This is the real livelihood of hundreds of millions of water transport workers.

Qiao Yu really couldn't figure out why he felt that ordinary Americans seemed to be quite poor when he was in Philadelphia.

After all, there are only 3 million people in the United States. If the $ trillion is divided, everyone can get $ worth of stock.

If this happens in China, it means that every person is a millionaire. This super financial power is so terrifying!
"Yes, they are indeed quite rich. But at the same time, you should know that just last month, the US debt has officially exceeded the 39 trillion US dollar mark! This also means that the US national debt has accounted for 106.2% of GDP!"

Qiao Yu blinked and suddenly felt that it made sense that many people in Philadelphia were poor.

This is equivalent to an average debt of $13 per person. Based on Qiao Yu's shallow understanding of capitalists, if average is a good thing, ordinary people will definitely not get the advantage.

But if the average person is in trouble, ordinary people will definitely not be able to escape. In other words, even if countless ordinary people have nothing to do with this debt, the bitter fruit of this debt will definitely fall on ordinary people in the end. Such a huge debt scale accounts for more than 100% of GDP. Everyone knows that it is impossible to pay it off.

What does $39 trillion in debt mean?
Qiao Yu remembered that the interest rate of US debt was quite high. It was said that the average annual interest rate reached 4 percentage points! There was nothing he could do about it. If the interest rate was not high, he would not be able to borrow money at all.

This also means that the annual interest on the national debt alone is approximately 1.56 trillion US dollars. Roughly calculated based on 365 days in a year, the daily interest is 4.27 million US dollars!
Qiao Yu suddenly felt that the money he had in the bank was really not worth much...

"It's a miracle that the US dollar can still buy things! With so many military bases, we can do whatever we want." Qiao Yu sighed.

“It’s not just a matter of having too many military bases.”

Zheng Xiwen smiled, and then continued: "As I said just now, the market value of U.S. stocks is still 59.8 trillion. And this is the market value under the premise that the U.S. industrial system has already declined.

This can be seen from the increase in power generation. Last year, China's power generation reached 10.2 trillion kWh, accounting for more than one-third of the world's total, reaching 33.7%.

In the same year, the annual power generation in the United States was 4.9 trillion kWh, and the global share fell to 15.02%. Although the growth rate of power generation has increased year-on-year, the driving force for the growth of electricity is mainly the power demand brought by AI and data centers, rather than industry. "

Qiao Yu nodded.

He knows how much electricity a data center consumes.

For Xiyu Technology's small computer room with only two cabinets, the biggest expense every month is currently the electricity bill.

Not only does the computer in the cabinet consume electricity when it is computing, but the electricity consumed to cool the cabinet and keep the computer in the best condition is even greater.

A small example can reveal a big picture. For large data centers used to provide cloud services and AI computing, the electricity cost is definitely a terrifying number.

But even so, the other side's annual power generation is less than half of China's.

By the time Zheng Xiwen finished speaking, it was already 9:30 p.m. Teacher Zheng operated the computer for a few more times, and the screen in front of Qiao Yu turned directly to the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange price charts.

It is obvious that the Nasdaq opened in bright China red, which looks quite festive.

Of course, this is not good news for the other side. After all, the cultures of the two sides are different, so the meanings of colors are also different.

In China, red represents joy, but in the opposite world, red represents danger and warning. So red also represents decline.

Especially those heavyweight technology stocks at the top seem to have fallen badly. It's scary just looking at it...

"Tsk tsk tsk, um... Uncle Zheng, you're not going to say that the U.S. stock market's plunge since opening today has something to do with me, right?" Qiao Yu shrank his head and asked knowingly.

"I think there is some connection. After all, according to some experts, the value of the financial market comes from confidence in future development. The other side is currently a country based on science and technology.

In addition to the military bases you just mentioned, most of the confidence that keeps the stock market value high is based on its leading edge technology. "

Zheng Xiwen said with a smile.

“To be honest, I just published two Mersenne primes. At most, I have found a way to use electronic computers to simulate quantum computing. This is at most a technical breakthrough at the software level.

If you look at the chart, it shows that the companies that have suffered the most are hardware companies like Intel and Nvidia. Google is considered a leading company in quantum computing research, but its decline is not as severe as these two companies!"

Qiao Yu pointed at the screen and spoke confidently.

Zheng Xiwen smiled and retorted: "Then do you think there is a possibility that this is because the computer room you announced at the report conference for calculating Mersenne primes does not use their most advanced chips?
For example, the winning bidder for the computer room built by Xiyu Technology Company used Kunpeng chips, right? Including the overall network solution of the computer room and the OceanStor storage system, they have little to do with the latest cutting-edge technology in the United States.

Although we Chinese people value restraint, you don't have to be too modest! The facts have proven that you already have the ability, and there is nothing to be embarrassed about being realistic. "

This statement makes sense.

Qiao Yu stopped talking and simply moved over, picked up the mouse, clicked on a stock that interested him, and stared at the screen to watch the market.

I have to say that although he doesn't trade stocks, it's still quite fun to just watch the trend of those stocks. There are stocks being sold continuously, and then they are quickly bought back.

If each share is worth more than 100 US dollars, 100 shares would be worth more than 10,000 US dollars. Regardless of whether it is a buy order or a sell order, there are thousands or tens of thousands of shares...

In just over ten minutes, the transaction volume had exceeded 100 million. Qiao Yu felt distressed when he saw it.

After all, market value is too imaginary...

A company’s valuation is often pushed to two or three trillion, but these technology companies are lucky to have assets that are actually convertible into hundreds of billions.

Once bankruptcy protection begins, the most valuable assets will probably be the land surrounding the headquarters building and the buildings on it.

As for patents and intellectual property, they are only valuable if others don't have them. If others have similar technology... that's a matter of opinion.

So people always ask where the money that evaporated when the stock market crashed went? Qiao Yu thinks this question is the funniest.

The evaporated money can basically be understood as never having existed. It is just the imagination of a group of people based on the so-called consensus.

Just like the 59 trillion US dollar market value of U.S. stocks, in Qiao Yu's view it is the collective imagination of many interest groups.

When this imagination can no longer be maintained, the valuation buildings built on second-order derivative expectations will naturally collapse.

This is also the reason why listed companies are particularly fond of telling stories. Only those stories that are imaginative and irresistible can maintain the high valuations that everyone expects.

Once the illusion is shattered, people no longer believe in the future...

The situation is probably like this now. We can only rely on investing more real money to change some people's psychological anchors and make them believe in the future again.

“Do you know why I don’t like the stock market? Because I always feel that stocks are a bit like quantum physics. Only when the transaction is finally carried out will its value instantly collapse to the real price. At other times, it is in an unknown state.”

As Qiao Yu was talking, the market situation on the monitor suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse. God knows what happened. Suddenly, countless sellers swarmed in, and the real-time K-line suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse...

Almost instantly, many parties were overwhelmed. After a while, Qiao Yu suddenly found that the page was not moving...

Qiao Yu glanced at the time on the computer. It was only 9:45. Something seemed wrong. The exchange couldn't just work for 15 minutes and then go off work, right?
Zheng Xiwen, who was standing next to him, probably saw Qiao Yu's confusion and explained, "The circuit breaker was triggered. You can think of it as the stock market's self-protection mechanism.

When a stock drops by a certain percentage in a short period of time, trading is suspended to allow investors to cool down. Look, it has dropped ten points."

Qiao Yu took a deep breath, blinked at Zheng Xiwen, and asked, "Well, Uncle Zheng, isn't it a little too little to arrange for you to stay with me alone?"

(End of this chapter)