Restart life

Chapter 349, Chapter 0336: [Some Big Events Are Coming]

After lunch, everyone went to participate in various activities, mainly visiting the campus, having classmate reunions, and writing inscriptions as souvenirs for the alumni.

Professor Lin stopped Chen Guiliang: "Xiao Chen, how's your stock price going?"

Chen Guiliang said, "It's alright. It's only fallen 11% below the issue price."

Professor Lin laughed and said, "You used the word 'talent' well; the US stock market is indeed very dangerous."

Chen Guiliang asked, "Professor Lin, do you think an economic crisis will break out?"

Professor Lin said, "It's possible. The United States has long relied on consumption and fiscal deficits to maintain growth, while East Asian countries support US demand through high savings and exports. This has created a cycle of Asian production and US consumption. This model can lead to global economic imbalances, a sharp depreciation of the dollar triggering financial market turmoil, and US contraction of consumption impacting global trade chains."

"Could the economic crisis erupt in the form of a 'subprime derivatives collapse'?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Professor Lin pondered carefully: "Subprime derivatives collapse? This is a novel perspective, one I've never considered before. I'm more concerned about structural risks in trade and exchange rates."

At this time, some foreign economists had already issued clear warnings about the potential outbreak of a subprime mortgage crisis.

Professor Lin's research direction is different, so he really hadn't considered this.

However, in his own research field, he predicted systemic risks last year and offered suggestions to Chinese policymakers: promote exchange rate liberalization, reduce foreign exchange reserve accumulation, and decrease dependence on dollar assets; strengthen bank risk management and curb real estate speculation; expand social security to boost domestic demand and buffer against potential external shocks.

As they walked and talked, Chen Guiliang racked his brains to share his understanding of the subprime crisis.

Professor Lin became increasingly confused as he listened, and shook his head, saying, "Financial instruments are too complex, and it's difficult for regulators and academia to make predictions. However, what you said makes sense, and perhaps it could be a research topic for my graduate students to look into."

"I heard Professor Lin is going to the World Bank and will continue to supervise graduate students?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Professor Lin said, "For graduate students who cannot graduate this year, I will transfer them to other professors. This includes your research assistant position, which will either be canceled or transferred to another professor. But I will continue to provide academic advice to graduate students and will also provide them with remote guidance when I have time."

Chen Guiliang said, "How about I write a related paper? Professor Lin, do you have any suggestions?"

Professor Lin said, “You can start with global structural imbalances. Policy distortions in East Asian export-oriented economies have objectively supported unsustainable consumption in the United States. Globally… especially in East Asia, large-scale purchases of US Treasury bonds have lowered US interest rates, stimulated the expansion of US mortgage loans, and created a real estate bubble. US financial regulation has failed; the SEC allowed investment banks to exceed 30 times leverage, and the CDS market has no central clearing. Go check the data again and see the proportion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds in China's foreign exchange reserves…”

The two walked and talked. Professor Lin had only intended to offer Chen Guiliang advice on his thesis, but the more he talked, the more he felt something was off. This stuff was connected to his research direction.

Professor Lin also skipped the afternoon activities and immediately called his graduate students, instructing them to find relevant information. He also called his American friends, hoping to obtain firsthand information from them.

“I’m going to the World Bank in two or three months, and I should be able to finish my paper during that time. Would you like to join me in the research?” Professor Lin asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "I'll just offer some perspectives."

Professor Lin nodded and said, "Okay."

He decided to list Chen Guiliang as the second author and to acknowledge Chen Guiliang's special contribution to the paper.

Then, Professor Lin ran away.

Chen Guiliang wandered around aimlessly all afternoon.

Participate in various activities, take the opportunity to get to know some big shots, and exchange contact information.

There will also be a school anniversary gala in the evening, which will be recorded in its entirety by CCTV.

"Holy crap, let me take a look!"

"This medal is so beautiful, how come I never got one?"

"..."

As soon as Chen Guiliang ran to sit down in the student audience section, his May Fourth Medal was immediately snatched up by his classmates.

Chen Guiliang asked, "Have you all finished writing your papers?"

Jiang Junlai laughed and said, "The thesis defense is coming up soon, how can I hand it in if I don't write it well?"

"Sigh, I've only written an outline for my thesis. Looks like I'll have to continue as a fifth-year student," Chen Guiliang sighed.

Upon hearing this, the students gloated.

Of course, some people welcomed him to join the fifth-year students.

After the party ended, Chen Guiliang took back his medal and suddenly realized that Donald Duck, who had been taking pictures, was gone.

Damn it, we agreed to practice alone, but you just ran off without even setting a time.

The day after the school's anniversary celebration, Chen Guiliang arranged for his staff to make a promotional video.

The first person invited to give a lecture was Professor Yu. His name was declassified in 1988 and his identity was revealed in 1999, but one still has to be careful when making promotional videos, as the content needs to be reviewed by relevant departments.

The lecture is scheduled for the end of May.

Last year, the school's intranet launched an online classroom, which has been running intermittently. This time, Chen Guiliang plans to upgrade the online classroom and expand its scale, dividing it into various sections.

Furthermore, they invited schools and teachers across the country to upload their teaching videos.

Generally, it's free and used to promote the school and teachers. However, university associate professors and senior teachers in primary and secondary schools can collaborate with the school's intranet to offer paid courses. It depends on the partner's choice.

Ideally, introductory and popular science courses should be free, with advanced courses charged separately.

Course content also needs to be reviewed. People like Yuan Tengfei should definitely be removed because every lesson contains outrageous statements. No matter how popular they are with netizens, they shouldn't be allowed to do it, lest they end up causing trouble for Renren.com.

Since Renren and HaiNei opened their APIs last year, more than 6000 third-party applications have emerged.

These apps are listed in app stores and users need to download them themselves.

It mainly features mini-games, which overlaps somewhat with the Youke platform.

The most popular third-party application right now is called "Meitu Workshop," which simplifies the operation of traditional image processing software, allowing ordinary netizens to quickly beautify their pictures.

This application has been downloaded more than 500 million times on campus networks and overseas networks.

Since they are using ByteDance to develop themselves, these third-party applications should naturally be subject to its control.

First, their user accounts are directly linked to Renren and HaiNei accounts, so separating them from ByteDance will inevitably lead to user loss. Second, there's the revenue sharing: ByteDance takes 25% of their revenue, and Upay takes a payment channel fee.

The developers of "Meitu Workshop" were a group of college students. When the total number of downloads exceeded 50, ByteDance approached them to discuss acquisition. After much negotiation, the final cooperation agreement was an equity investment, with ByteDance acquiring a 30% stake.

ByteDance's "Zhihu" and "Kaixin Market" have been operating in a largely unregulated manner.

Happy Marketplace remains the same awful company, generating a net profit of around 200,000 to 300,000 yuan per month. ByteDance can't interfere too much, otherwise it will provoke user backlash.

Zhihu is still in its accumulation phase and hasn't even opened registration yet, only releasing a limited number of invitation codes each week. Currently, there are only over 5 registered users, with the rest being just browsing visitors. The more limited this is, the more tempting it becomes, with a single Zhihu invitation code already being resold for thousands of yuan.

It's estimated that Zhihu will only open up registration and spin off to raise funds independently after the financial crisis has passed—it's impossible to raise funds now, venture capital firms are too cautious.

……

Phoenix TV, on the other hand, behaved more normally and did not take the opportunity to say anything strange. Its commentators even praised the soldiers' spirit of sacrifice and commended the unprecedented unity of the people across the country, reflecting a "return to socialist values."

This makes the Southern Media Group and certain public intellectuals seem even less human.

The entire internet is condemning it!

Moreover, more and more traditional newspapers are joining the chorus of condemnation against the Southern Media Group because it is just too damn disgusting.

The Southern Media Group will continue its self-destructive behavior until mid-June, when it will likely calm down a bit, probably because it received a stern warning from above.

Chen Guiliang was too lazy to engage in a war of words with those guys. Since the entire internet was already condemning them, losing one of his men in the fray wouldn't make a difference.

However, Chen Guiliang also took time every day to watch the game.

Late May.

Chen Guiliang stared at the computer screen and called over the editor-in-chief, Chi Siyuan: "You removed the trending topic about Sanlu melamine?"

Chi Siyuan said, "The author deleted it himself."

"Oh, then it's alright," Chen Guiliang said.

Chi Siyuan said, "Is this news true or false? If it is true, then it could have serious implications."

Chen Guiliang said, "Who knows? If similar articles appear again, even if Sanlu comes knocking on our door, don't rush to remove them from the trending topics. Unless they can provide evidence that the tests were passed."

"Understood." Chi Siyuan chatted for a few more minutes before leaving.

The article exposing Sanlu's melamine scandal was actually deleted by the netizen himself. He believed Sanlu's explanation, thought he had bought counterfeit goods, accepted compensation, and deleted the article.

However, it has already attracted attention, and other consumers will soon post their own stories online.

Sigh, this year has really been a turbulent one.

Southern Media Group newspapers also contributed to making the Sanlu milk scandal bigger.

To be honest, although the Southern Media Group often spreads rumors and smears others, it does play a significant role in public opinion supervision.

There's a ton of fake news, and there's a ton of real news too.

It gives people a very complex feeling.

Then there's Baidu. Sanlu asked Baidu to block negative news and promised to spend 300 million yuan on advertising on Baidu. Baidu refused this time too, surprisingly not being tempted by money.

Chen Guiliang turned off his computer, went downstairs, and went to Game Science for a quick look around.

Then I went to HarmonyOS Technology's temporary R&D center, and then to the HarmonyOS Technology construction site in the suburbs. In the middle of the trip, I received a call from Professor Lin, asking me to go and discuss the thesis with the graduate students.

This is Chen Guiliang's daily work now; he pays attention to and inquires about everything.

Occasionally, I would also take some time to go to the Peking University Library to look up information and write my "philosophy + demography" paper, which I estimate will not be finished until next year.

(End of this chapter)