Girls und War

This is a huge urban building, half buried underground, with hexagonal edges and covering an area of ​​more than 20 square kilometers.

Hundreds of female officers of various ranks got on and off vehicles from the finance departments of various war zones and were all received by AI robots.

The girls walked together towards the main door of the management headquarters, chatting with each other, and did not notice how crowded the road was.

Xia Shu also followed the crowd inside and met many civil servants in formal attire along the way.

When the civil servants saw this group of active-duty soldiers, their expressions were as if they had seen a group of cute animals, and they started taking pictures excitedly.

The underage officers here seemed to have gotten used to the feeling of being watched and did not look surprised.

Then, under the guidance of the robot, they walked smoothly into a large conference room inside.

The young female officers followed their instructions and took their seats. Not long after, a group of scholarly civil servants in white coats entered from the side door and took the front desk.

A leading female scholar among them first made a brief opening speech, and then took out last year's data model and conducted a resource analysis of the model by comparing it line by line.

Most of the officers, including Natsuki, were confused. However, they were there to act as an impartial judge. The adults had the final say on how the models would be distributed.

The current situation is simply that the unified management agency is showing sufficient respect to the active military.

It's as if those adult generals in the reserve forces nominally regard these underage girls as the supreme controllers of the modern army.

As the professionals on the stage gradually explained the model, the audience below gradually began to look drowsy.

Xia Shu was just thinking about finding an excuse to go out for a stroll when suddenly a big sister in a white coat called out to her.

Xia Shu looked up and saw the older sister waving at her again, motioning her to come over.

Xia Shu turned his head and looked around again. No one else seemed to be paying much attention to what was happening here.

So she stood up from her seat and walked along the aisle towards the older sister.

"Hello, is this Xia Shu? I'm Ai Keke, the director of the Financial Control Office." The young lady stretched out her hand and shook hands with Xia Shu.

"Hello, hello." Xia Shu returned the greeting and looked at Director Ai Keke's face. He felt that the other person looked so familiar. It was as if he had seen her somewhere before.

Ai Keke added, "I learned about you from my daughter. I heard that you just won the championship of the war zone competition? You are indeed a young and promising person."

When she said that, Xia Shu immediately remembered.

It turns out that this Ms. Ai Keke looks exactly like her daughter Kekeai!

No wonder Xia Shu felt so familiar.

It seems that Xia Shu was called here to attend the meeting, which is closely related to this lovely mother.

"The meeting here will last for a long time. Let's go to the office to talk. There are snacks in the office." Ai Keke invited Xia Shu with a smile.

Xia Shu thought about it and decided that he hadn't lost anything by going in the past. He still had a lot of questions that he wanted answered.

So he followed Director Ai Keke out of the back door of the conference room and walked towards the Financial Control Office of the Resource Management Department.

685. The Essence of Finance

After Director Ai Keke brought Xia Shu to the office and sat him down, he took out drinks and biscuits from the refrigerator under the table and placed them on the table.

Then he said, "These are all my daughter's favorites. I don't know if you like them."

Xia Shu thanked him, ate a piece of food for a moment, and then asked, "Does your daughter come over often?"

"No, I won't let her come here. After all, this is my office." Ai Keke said with a smile.

Xia Shu nodded, indicating that he understood.

At this moment, Xia Shu couldn't help but think of Ai Ai Ke, a new recruit in the squadron who was in the same class as him.

The two people's names differ by only one character, but their identities are completely different.

If Ai Ai Ke didn't look like the director in front of her, she would have suspected that this little medical soldier in the squadron was the illegitimate daughter of a planet-level financial controller.

After that, Xia Shu sat there and chatted with Director Ai about random things.

Seeing that the other party's words seemed to have no purpose, Xia Shu opened the door and said, "Then Director Ai, you called me here this time. Is there something you want to tell me?"

"Ah, have you been discovered?" The director smiled playfully, and Xia Shu couldn't help feeling embarrassed.

Given the current situation, if Xia Shu can't guess this, then his brain would be in vain.

"Oh, it's nothing actually. I just wanted to see what my daughter's so-admired military idol looks like." The lovely mother suddenly covered her mouth and laughed.

"You're too kind." Xia Shu said modestly.

"Hey, don't be so formal. Just treat me as your elder." Director Ai waved his hand and said, "It's rare to see Ke'aiai taking something so seriously. You're quite kind of you, too. By the way, is there anything you want? As an elder, I haven't prepared any gifts for you yet."

Ai Keke's simple words are not simple.

Who is she? The director of the Financial Control Office.

The scope of authority of this position is so broad that basically anything that the factory can produce is under her control.

In other words, even if Xia Shu asked for a carrier rocket, Director Ai would find a way to help her get it.

But what does Natsuki want to do with a rocket? To launch his own underwear?

So in the end, Xia Shu simply put forward the condition he wanted most.

"Then Director Ai, please tell me about the principles of financial control. I am particularly interested in this." Xia Shu said enthusiastically.

Director Ai was stunned when he heard Xia Shu's request. Then he said with a smile, "Is this what you are interested in?"

Natsuki nodded.

Director Ai could only smile and sigh, "No wonder Kekeaiai likes you so much. Well, let me tell you."

Then he opened the office door and said to her, "It's a bit hard to explain here. Let's go to the control room. It's more intuitive there."

So after that, Xia Shu followed Director Ai all the way to the Financial Control Center of the Resource Management Department.

All the financial flow data here are displayed on a huge photon panel, and many scientific researchers in white coats are analyzing the financial data one by one.

Xia Shu looked at the lines of addition and subtraction on it and suddenly felt that he was very familiar with this thing.

Isn’t this the index panel of the stock market?

"I heard that your bachelor's degree elective is finance, so you should be able to understand it, right?" Director Ai asked Xia Shu with a smile. It seemed that she had indeed done some research on Xia Shu in advance.

Xia Shu nodded and replied, "I'm studying ancient financial history, so I only know about stock history and don't know much about how modern financial management works."

"It's a good thing for young people to be eager to learn. These things aren't complicated at all; the principles are the same," Director Ai said, pointing to the financial index on the dashboard. "The rise and fall of the index reflects the actual flow of financial assets across various industries. However, unlike ancient financial markets, individuals here can't control the flow of financial assets. The only ones with the right to control it are dumb AI control programs."

"Using AI's big data to replace market manipulation... very sensible..." Xia Shu said to himself.

After hearing what Xia Shu said, Director Ai knew that Xia Shu was not a complete layman.

If Natsuki didn't understand anything, it might be even more difficult for her to explain.

"What do you think is the essence of finance?" Ai Keke began to ask Xia Shu questions as if she was testing a student.

Xia Shu thought about it and answered according to his own understanding, "The essence of finance is the circulation of value. It is a means of market formation."

"Yes, that's the mainstream view." Ai Keke nodded and said in agreement, "It was only after the emergence of a trading system based on credit currency that the financial market pushed human trading methods to a new starting point."

As he spoke, Ai Keke simply constructed a mathematical model in front of him and made a series of deductions about how currency transactions were born.

Then, the prototype of the short-term trading market of medieval humans was formed.

"Finance itself is a fictitious transaction, but it has made extremely beneficial contributions to the real economy. After the initial formation of the monetary trading system, banks, securities, insurance, and trusts, with credit transactions as their core, naturally formed—markets of expectation."

Then, Ai Keke snapped his fingers, and the monetary system on the structure formed a series of valuable expectation contracts.

This is also what Xia Shu understands, the general outline of the financial system.

"However, when people in history used finance as a tool, they forgot one very important thing - that is, finance itself does not create value. The essence of the financial market is actually a zero-sum market that is parasitic on the real economy." Ai Keke quickly demonstrated a data model of a financial crisis caused by the collapse of the real economy.

Xia Shu could understand this model, and she also understood that people hadn't forgotten that finance was just a tool. Rather, short-term interests had blinded people, making them only see the immediate benefits and forget about potential crises.

That's what capital is all about, after all.

"People are driven by profit, and a capital market comprised of redundant financial interests won't choose the right profitable projects for investment. They only choose projects that maximize profits, constantly expanding themselves and inflating their capital." Ai Keke shook his head and said, "Capital is shortsighted and unwise. If we want to use the right financial market rules to drive economic growth, we can't let capital itself control the market.

“Only a market controller who is selfless and non-exclusive is qualified to control the operation of the capital market.

"This is what the human financial system needs to get on the right track."

-

PS: However, with the current technological means of mankind, it is impossible to achieve this result, so this idea can only be utopian idealism.

The time for a planned economy is far from over.

686. When will the robot stand up?

Xia Shu understood what the director said very clearly and agreed with it, because she herself grew up in a world full of capital and profit.

There is a saying that goes, capital has no conscience.

Because the birth of capital is the result of human greed.

If there is such a market, with no supervision and no rules, allowing humans to manipulate capital in a bloody battle for funds - then the only result of this market is that the big fish eat the small fish, the fish devour each other, and finally a huge and irrational capital monster grows like a Gu.

This does not mean that the process of people pursuing profit is wrong.

Everyone wants to live better than others. This is common sense and an inevitable law of world development.

However, freedom without bottom line will inevitably lead to the exploitation of the weak by the strong.

In human history, which primitive capital market without market supervision has not experienced bloody massacres?

Whenever capital feels that there is profit to be made, it will bite like a shark smelling blood, and eat up every bit of profit it can grab.

What controls capital is not reason, but human greed.

Capital itself is dull and stupid. It is like an indescribable monster lurking in the deep sea, born from human prayers, and then destroying everything it can see with uncontrollable terror.

Director Ai also simply constructed an unlimited data model of capital cannibalization. It can be seen that large capital will cannibalize small capital, and even larger capital will swallow up everything.

The final outcome of the model is that all capital is integrated into one - this is also the essence of capital movement - the rich controlled by capital devour the poor, and the rich devour each other, and in the end only the last person who can control capital is left, and this person also owns everything in the world.

But everyone else was eaten.

So, does all this really make sense?

"Therefore, a financial market that simply pursues profits is wrong. This is just like the feudal society, slave society, and colonial society, which are the painful growth in human history. Only by experiencing these can humans learn from history what kind of social rules are wrong and what kind of human form is correct." Director Ai looked at Xia Shu and smiled, then put away the series of financial models he had just expanded.

Xia Shu slowly pondered the knowledge contained in Director Ai's words. The director waited for a moment and then continued, "But what I just said was just some simple financial history. You'll need to continue studying in the academy to learn more profound financial knowledge. We can't describe it in detail here."

Xia Shu nodded, and the director continued, "So I'll briefly describe to you how the current financial regulatory agency works. If you're interested in other things, I'll recommend a few books for you to read when you get home."

As he spoke, the director called on AI and asked it to expand the data models similar to stock indexes in front of the two of them.

"You see, these index fluctuations represent profits or losses in the real financial sector. That booming military industry is a money-spinning den for your military, with only money flowing in and no money leaving. Therefore, we must continuously allocate resources to fill the gaps there."

As he spoke, the director introduced several very profitable industrial markets, such as the consumables industry such as food and medicine, and the manufacturing industry which is equivalent to a large-scale money printing machine.

Behind the losses and profits of these industries is Bluestar’s pre-dominated financial system centered on robot manufacturing.

Unlike the credit-based financial system, the pre-dominated financial system is backed by an endless supply of AI robots that can be considered free labor.

What is regarded as financial value in the market is not the value contained in the goods themselves, but the value of the robot labor force.

This is easy to understand. For example, in the past, state-issued currency was a reflection of national credit. People believed in the purchasing power of currency because the government stood behind it.

The current national currency system is constructed by exploiting AI labor. As long as the machines controlled by the AI ​​network can form a virtuous industrial system cycle, the value of the currency will remain strong, ensuring that the people of Blue Star can use the currency to purchase anything.

However, Xia Shu still didn't understand something, so she asked the director, "Then the 'labor force' here is constantly expanding, and market demand isn't expanding at all (referring to the declining population of the Indigo Planet). Wouldn't that lead to severe inflation? Also, since purchasing power itself is no longer provided by the value of goods, doesn't that mean the existence of currency is meaningless? Simply abolishing the monetary system shouldn't cause any problems, right?"

The master, displaying a teachable expression, quickly replied, "These two questions are actually one. Do you know what would happen if, without a monetary system, the value of robot labor were automatically distributed to every Blue Star citizen, allowing them to buy whatever they wanted?"

Xia Shu thought about it seriously, then uttered two words, "lazy."

"Yes, everyone will become incredibly lazy, just waiting for robots to bring food to their mouths, greedy for pleasure, indulging in comfort, and having no desire to work at all." The master shrugged helplessly. "I'm not exaggerating. As early as more than 300 years ago, our society was like this. The development of science and technology and culture stagnated, and everything was maintained by robots. How could we have the prosperous society we have today?

"So, the current monetary system is actually a system of material incentives. We often call this policy a 'carrot in front of a lazy donkey' policy. Do you understand what I mean?"

Natsuki nodded and smiled.

Indeed, in a civilization devoid of a sense of crisis, such a result is almost inevitable. If there were no need to buy anything and everything you wanted was readily available, everyone would be content with the status quo and unwilling to work harder.