American Scandal King

Chapter 215 Looks Beautiful

In the villa, Gaskell looked at Ian with a smile: "First of all, you can't use intimidation to deal with this matter."

Ian has some dirty laundry on Madoff, but it's not convincing enough. The main reason is that Ian himself is not a financial expert, so it's difficult to find the information and he can only do it by eavesdropping on conversations.

But Madoff was a very cautious person, and what he said basically did not reveal too much inside information - unless Ian was willing to stay away from Los Angeles, accompany Madoff on Wall Street every day, and wait at his door every day.

The time cost is too high and Ian is unwilling to do it.

This also means that his limited information did not cause much harm to Madoff.

Gaskell said seriously, "This kind of thing can only be done voluntarily. You have to convince Madoff that Redstone is a company with great potential."

"Convince him of Red Stone's profitability?" Ian asked.

Gaskell shook his head repeatedly: "Since Madoff is a fraud, he doesn't care whether Red Stone makes money or not. All he wants is to appear to be making money!"

Ian nodded. "Well, I'm not used to that line of thinking. I usually like companies that don't seem to be making money, but are actually secretly making a lot of money."

Lena pursed her lips and chuckled. This was indeed very Ian Karl!
Gaskell laughed and said, "You know what kind of company looks the most beautiful?"

"what?"

"Military industry and medicine."

Gaskell's answer left Ian stunned, and then he suddenly realized.

Military industry and medicine are typical industries with high profits, and they look very good.

The value of a gun can be several times or even dozens of times its cost, and this is still legal. The shady level includes $1280 coffee cups, $1 toilet lids, and millions of goats... As long as you are related to the military, the profit level is beyond your imagination, and there is nothing they can't do.

The key is that even if you are exposed, nothing will happen to you!
This is the awesomeness of capital power. Even the so-called evidence is useless!
The same is true for medicine, where profits are also ridiculously high. Small medicines that cost a few cents can be sold for dozens of yuan, and those that cost a few hundred yuan can be sold for tens or even hundreds of thousands of yuan.

But they actually have their own problems.

For example, military industry and medicine have one common characteristic, which is high R&D costs.

The cost of researching a new weapon or a new medicine is unimaginably high. The key is that it does not guarantee success. Once it fails, tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars will be wasted.

A US company bid for fighter jets but lost to Lockheed Martin, resulting in all R&D costs becoming sunk costs and thousands of employees being laid off on the spot.

The same goes for pharmaceutical companies. Behind the successful development of every new drug is a huge amount of scientific research investment and gambling-style bets.

In addition to the huge R&D costs, there is also political investment, just like in chemical industry.

Military-industrial enterprises need politicians to start wars to sell arms, and pharmaceutical companies need politicians to protect them to avoid backlash from adverse drug reactions - the rampant addiction of Americans to painkillers is not just one or two cases.

For this reason, the powerful military and pharmaceutical companies are all giants, but every year there are still similar small military or pharmaceutical companies that go bankrupt.

Ups and downs are normal.

What people always see is success, what they don’t see is failure.

Otherwise, why aren’t the richest people in the world military, pharmaceutical, chemical, or financial tycoons?

They are very famous and have unlimited influence, but their personal wealth cannot compare to that of the Internet wave.

Whether it is Soros who swallowed Thailand, or Warren Buffett, the stock god, or the personal wealth of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Pfizer, JPMorgan Chase and other bigwigs, none of them can compare to Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Musk, etc. Although Musk is an entity, his business model is also Internet-oriented.

So they are awesome when it comes to influence, but they are still number one in the Internet world when it comes to making money!

But if the two sides really fight, the latter big guys cannot defeat those in front.

What Redstone Company is openly doing is military industry and medicine - they sell weapons and medicines, nominally selling them to Africa, but actually secretly selling them to Afghanistan.

If the media uses their influence to exchange for money, then the military industry and the medical industry use money to protect themselves. Therefore, with the media as the core, there is cooperation in all aspects.

Among the companies under the Carl Media Group, in addition to Hollywood film and television advertisements, a considerable number of advertisers are insurance companies, chemical companies, military and pharmaceutical industries, rather than daily necessities. Of course, this is also related to Ian's choice. From the beginning, he was aiming for the word "influence". Although Walmart makes money, it is indeed not as politically influential as these companies. After all, Walmart cannot force its customers to vote selectively.

Don’t think that military industry doesn’t need to advertise. In fact, it has to do so. After all, the United States has the freedom to bear arms.

Even fighter jets will be advertised... You have to make the public understand that it is necessary for the US government to buy fighter jets at a sky-high price, right?
In short, the relationship between the media and these large companies is inseparable.

Hearing Gaskell's words, Ian was surprised and said, "You're not planning to officially turn Redstone into a military and pharmaceutical manufacturing company, are you? Don't be ridiculous, that would require a huge investment. Redstone is just a shell company."

Gaskell laughed. "As long as it looks like it, that's all that matters, as long as it looks like it."

Ian narrowed his eyes: "It looks like... Now that you mention it, it reminds me of a story I heard in China." Ian remembered something, a story he had heard from a friend in his previous life.

At that time, Li Yi was chatting with a friend and talked about the boss of a pharmaceutical company.

His friend told Li Yi that the boss of this pharmaceutical company was very clever and was very good at exploiting loopholes. At that time, Chinese pharmaceutical companies were still in the era of generic drugs.

The so-called generic drugs are actually drugs that take advantage of patent loopholes. They modify other people's drug patents and are considered new drugs.

That's what the pharmaceutical company boss his friend knew did - he slightly adjusted the formula of a cold medicine and turned it into some kind of new drug. It was less effective, but guaranteed not to kill people.

Then he sold this new cold medicine through his channel relationships and made a lot of money.

It is said that many pharmaceutical companies in China did this in the beginning.

To put it bluntly, this method is used to save huge R&D costs and gain real profits.

This is not a privilege of the Chinese, but "imitation" is indeed the Chinese's strength, at least during this period of time.

As a Chinese in his previous life, Ian suddenly realized that he could do the same.

There's no need to invest heavily in R&D; you can just go ahead and make a generic version—and most importantly, you don't have to worry about customer feedback. Afghanistan won't complain, even if there are some significant side effects.

For them, having one is good enough, why would they want a bicycle?
Regardless of the cost of selling out their country and breaking the law, these Afghans are actually the best customers! It's a seller's market!

These customers will not complain, will not grumble, will not make any rude requests, and are even willing to pay a sky-high price, and in the end they will say thank you!
They are even willing to sacrifice their lives to maintain the relationship between you, work for you, carry out suicide attacks for you around the world, create news for you... If anyone dares to block your way, they are willing to strap bombs on their shoulders and charge forward for you.

They are more useful than the Crips Gang, have a sharp tongue and are more reliable!

Kreps: Are you changing your mind now?

Thinking of this, Ian also laughed.

He roughly explained his idea to Gaskell, who smiled and said, "Right, that's what I mean. It's the same with medicine and the military. We can contact some companies, find some outdated patents, modify them, and create so-called brand-new products, mainly for export. Then we can arbitrarily inflate profits, increase costs, and create a false impression of glory. Madoff would love such a company."

"Are you sure you can fool him?" Ian asked.

Gaskell laughed. "That's not important. Even if he sees through it, what does it matter? A con man won't care. He'll just think this company has great potential. Of course, you have to promise him some benefits. But you can't do it in person."

Ian had a grudge against Madoff, and his appearance was equivalent to telling Madoff, I'm here to cheat you.

Ian nodded. "I can find the right person, but I'm not going to pay him myself... How about I help him find some victims?"

Gaskell nodded. "He'd love that. Who are you going to talk to?"

Ian grinned. "Of course, it's our peers. The big guys in the financial industry, and the media industry. We can find a way to push the shareholders of ABC and CNN to Madoff. Don't be fooled by that old guy Madoff's pretense of being powerful. In fact, he accepts all kinds of funds."

Lino Bank has just started its business. It would be best if there is a bank that is about to go bankrupt and is a good opportunity for acquisition.

02-03 was the period of the United States' military strength, and it was invincible. However, starting from 02, the US economy began to decline. Although the economic crisis broke out in 08, there were already signs of it as early as this time.

Many people have judged this, but it is useless because you don’t know exactly when it will happen - the decline in 02 did not explode until 08. If you trust your prediction too much and short sell early, you will die miserably!
Gaskell said, "If Natalie Portman came to you, it's probably to get information. Imagine Ian Carr, who already had a rift with Madoff, still went to great lengths to secretly lend money to Madoff. This shows how much he trusts Madoff... She'll help you pass on the information. What could be more valuable and trustworthy than insider information from your opponent?"

Ian also laughed: “Yes, that’s what I mean. Ian Karl is a fool, he fell into the honey trap… She has to serve me well!”

Lian Na understood: "You and your people helped Madoff introduce clients, and Madoff gave the money to Hongshi. Hongshi made high profits, further enhancing the illusion that Madoff had a strong ability to make money."

Ian said, "I don't have any of Madoff's deadly black material right now, and I can't keep an eye on him every day. If one of my people could cooperate with him, I could get more accurate information channels, which would also save me time."

Gaskell interjected: "Then Ian can blow the whistle on Madoff being a fraud."

Ian spread his hands. "Madoff Investments and Securities are doomed, and Redstone, after transferring a large amount of profits, naturally went bankrupt at the same time. The victim went to jail, and no one can investigate. If we're lucky, we'll get everything. If we're unlucky, we'll just pay out 20% and it'll be over. Those tycoons in the financial and media circles will suffer heavy losses, and we can seize the opportunity to acquire banks and become Dalinuo and Carl Media."

It is an enterprise used for illegal operations. Restarting after bankruptcy is a daily operation, and moving to another place is a standard procedure - Afghans only want goods and don't care about red stones, white stones or black stones.

Lena slapped her forehead: "God, Gaskell, I always thought you were a legitimate businessman."

Gaskell chuckled. "Before I met Ian, I was. I pulled him out of the gambling vortex, and he pulled me into the quagmire of criminal business."

Ian curled his lips: "It sounds like I'm not really human."

Gaskell said, "Now you need a suitable agent, a good professional fraudster who understands finance and can bear all the consequences for you."

Ian's eyes narrowed slightly. "Ah! Then I actually have a suitable target... You know I have a special talent training center."

(End of this chapter)