50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 596 This is a robbery

“Everyone in the know will automatically conceal the truth. Today I’m going to reveal the truth about this so-called loss.”

Then, Sun Zhiwei took out a stack of photocopied paper from his bag and handed it to the person next to him, asking him to pass it down one by one. This was the information he had prepared in advance.

A few minutes later, Sun Zhiwei saw that everyone had received the materials before he raised the paper in his hand.

"What you are seeing now is a selection of real bills that I have extracted from the financial statements of the New York subway."

"Guardrail gate screws: Market price is 90 cents each, purchase price is 297 US dollars each."

Protective railing glass window: Market price $36 per window, purchase price $2870 per window.

Subway support mops: Market price $23 each, purchase price $892 each.

Subway support mops: Market price $1.2 per piece, purchase price $128 per piece.

Subway restroom shower gel: Market price $9.9 per bottle, purchase price $389 per bottle.

Subway station signage screens: Market price $399 per set, purchase price $1.2 per set.

Subway decorative patches: Market price $18 per set, purchase price $1289 per set.

“The New York subway system costs $10 billion a year just for maintenance. If all maintenance supplies were purchased according to the price list on paper, the suppliers would make about $9.9 million.”

"So there is no loss at all. The loss is just on paper. They have already made money under various pretexts of maintenance and procurement. It is a huge cake with a profit of 10 billion US dollars every year."

"In addition, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority also applies for additional funding each year to upgrade facilities."

"For example, they plan to build platform screen doors or barriers on subway platforms to prevent passengers from accidentally falling onto the tracks."

"Their budget is $70 billion for the installation of 128 stations, which averages out to more than $5400 million per station."

"Gentlemen, you can do a rough calculation: if each subway platform needs 50 platform screen doors, then the cost of each platform screen door would be as high as 100 million US dollars."

"Haha, $100 million can buy a private jet from a Canadian aircraft company, but it can only buy a door in the New York subway."

At this point, Sun Zhiwei slammed the price list in his hand onto the table.

"Gentlemen, are you sure you want to hand over this $10 billion annual cost? And the additional billions of dollars in maintenance budget every year?"

"Gentlemen, you may not know this, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority spent two years and $1 million to install platform screen doors on just two stations."

“There are still 10 platforms, and they just used a 1-meter-high iron fence to make do. They are committing a crime, they are robbing us, and they are stealing money that should belong to us.”

Before he finished speaking, chaos erupted below, with everyone vehemently condemning the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Because Sun Zhiwei's last words expressed the sentiments of everyone present: 'This is all our money, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is a bunch of despicable thieves.'

In the end, it all boils down to nothing but interests.

Everyone here made a lot of money in the previous two auctions, but that's still a drop in the ocean compared to the $10 billion annually.

Faced with the enormous profits of the New York subway, all the support behind it and the entrustment of its financial backers are nothing but a joke.

Seeing that Sun Zhiwei had taken control of the situation, Governor Cuomo finally spoke. "So, James, what's your plan?" With Cuomo's words, the others gradually quieted down.

Sun Zhiwei then revealed his plan.

"I have two options."

"The first option is still privatization. But put the subway project aside and deal with the other dozen or so projects first."

"Afterwards, the subway project continued to be managed by the state government, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was to be dissolved and a new stock company was to be established to manage it."

In reality, this is still privatization, only with multiple direct supervisors at the top.

"As for how the shares of this joint-stock company will be distributed, that's another matter. In short, we can't give away this money for nothing."

This involves completely breaking up the original interest groups and redistributing the benefits.

Because the project was too large, even if everyone joined forces, they couldn't buy the entire New York subway system. They could only rely on this method to snatch a piece of the pie from the large corporations.

"The second option is to separate all the remaining projects, with each project managed by a separate operations department, but each department must submit its profits annually."

This plan is essentially the same thing in a different guise; it simply changes the unified operation from the original "New York and New Jersey Port Authority" to separate operations by smaller "Managements".

But there's one advantage to this: everyone can share the big cake, and Sun Zhiwei himself will definitely take a bite out of it.

"After these two plans are implemented, the original Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will be streamlined and can be directly reorganized into the Department of Transportation, which will still be in charge of all transportation affairs."

At this point, nobody cared about the transportation bureau anymore; everyone was thinking about how to get their hands on the remaining big cake.

Sun Zhiwei's arrival today has torn off all the hypocritical masks on everyone's faces. What's laid out before us is naked self-interest. Those who are reserved today will probably not even get a taste of the spoils in the future.

After three days of discussion, the group finally combined Sun Zhiwei's two proposals and came up with a new solution.

First, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was dissolved, and those who had previously benefited from it were naturally excluded.

Each of you here will send a team to take over the operation of the subway.

In fact, privatization would be the best option, as everyone could work together to buy it and then operate it as a joint venture.

But when everyone put their money together, they realized that it wasn't enough to buy the New York subway system.

There was no other way but to settle for second best and have a joint-stock company manage it, so that everyone could still share the annual profits of the subway system.

At most, they will have to pay a sum of money to the New York State government every year, which will serve as protection money.

As for the issue of losses, no one mentioned it again from then on. Like the people before them, they automatically kept it a secret.

Then, the remaining dozen or so large projects were put up for competition among capital groups, while the state government sat back and waited to collect the money, which it could then use to implement the governor's economic stimulus plan.

As for what happened next, the position of Director of the Transportation Bureau was naturally taken by Sun Zhiwei. This was the reward for his risky move and the starting point of his political career in America.

On August 7th, the third remaining asset auction of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was held as scheduled at the Twin Towers.

(End of this chapter)