Chapter 530 The Spirit of Heaven

The largest Polo market in London is located next to London Bridge. It not only has fresh vegetables and fruits, but also seafood and delicacies from various countries. Shopping here is like a treasure hunt, and you may find surprises at any time.

"Severus, look!" Pomona immediately waved to him excitedly when she saw a stall selling something.

If Belon oysters are the king of oysters, then Ginato is the queen of oysters. It is a super brand of French oysters. Every authentic oyster from the French Girardeau company has a unique G-shaped seal on the oyster shell.

The best way to eat this kind of oyster is to eat it raw, and with your eyes closed, so that you can taste the ultimate taste.

Vision is the most important sense of human beings, because more than 80% of the various information people receive from the outside world is obtained through vision. Once the eyes are closed, other senses will become sharper, and the hearing and touch of the blind are higher than those of ordinary people. Many people's sense of taste will become sharper after closing their eyes.

When kissing, people always close their eyes involuntarily. Although the blushing face of the other party is very attractive, but in order to avoid the embarrassment of the other party, shy people always close them subconsciously. At this time, the sense of touch and taste become more sensitive.

Pomona never thought of kissing him in public, and the vendors didn't care at all when they saw them, and even smiled friendly.

A song is playing on the market radio.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair. Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Remember me to one who lives there.

She once was a true love of mine.

The mixed smell of all kinds of smells in the market was driven away by the smell of sage on his body. For a moment, she thought she was back in the Middle Ages, and she couldn't figure out whether the person she was making out with was a wizard Or Vikings.

"Oh, my God." When the kiss was over, she said in a daze, she suspected that she had been cast with a confusion spell.

Severus smiled smugly, then bargained with the peddler.

Oysters are mentioned in Maupassant's short story "My Uncle Yule":

Suddenly he saw two male passengers inviting two fashionable female passengers to eat oysters. An old sailor in ragged clothes pried open its shell with a knife and handed it to the male passengers, who then handed it to the two female passengers. They ate with a certain grace, supporting the oysters in a fine handkerchief, and sticking their mouths forward so as not to mark their dresses. Then with one quick little movement they drank the juice from the oysters, and threw the shells over to the surface. My father was no doubt seduced by the genteel act of eating oysters on a moving ship. He thought it was good style, elegant, and noble.

Maybe she's just a natural eccentric, and while others focus on the palatability of the oysters, she thinks about how much it costs.

If you go to a restaurant, in a relatively high-end restaurant, you can enjoy 1 bottle of red wine, 1 soup, 3 dishes, 1 dessert, and unlimited bread for 2 francs. Therefore, it can be seen that two and a half gold francs is really a lot of money, and they only ate four raw meat.

Oysters were a high-end item in France in the past, and they still are. Eating Ginardeau oysters is a luxury.

The old sailor who found the oyster was reluctant to eat this gift from heaven, but sold it to the rich to eat. This kind of nobility and elegance is in stark contrast to the old sailor's abjection.

"Here, take it." Severus happily handed her an oyster. It had just been pried open. The juice exuded a fishy smell of sea water. The white flesh should look appetizing, but she didn't any appetite.

When he was young, Yu Le was extravagant and lost his money and life. He was regarded as a "disaster", and he was swept out of the house. When I came to America, I made a small fortune, and two years later, I made a fortune and became everyone's "lucky star". Philip's family is eager for the return of the rich Jules. Because of this, the second sister found her fiancé, and the whole family was very happy. When they went abroad to Jersey Island for a trip, they saw a poor oyster seller who looked like Jules on board, and Mr. Philip got a terrible surprise from the captain. confirmed. Not only has the dream of getting rich come to nothing, but also the dream of entering the upper class has come to naught, and now the marriage of the second daughter is also in jeopardy. In the end, the whole family calmly changed to return by sea vessel.

Yule went to the United States to pan for gold. There are only a few people who get rich like Molly Brown, and most people's dreams of getting rich have been shattered.

Wealth and squandering, pursuit and adventure, ambition and desire, strength and ingenuity, hope, struggle, pursuit, failure, frustration, and disillusionment, the development of the American West is closely related to the gold rush.

In January 1848, carpenter James Marshall found some shiny things while inspecting the river at a sawmill in Southern California. On closer inspection, there was a metallic thing shining at the bottom of the river. Realizing that he had discovered a gold mine, he told his employer, John Sutter, the owner of the land, the good news.

Sartre and Marshall tried to hide the news, and the two men had the gold mine outright for themselves. But paper could not contain the fire, and news of the gold in the American River quickly spread.

Gold prospectors quickly flocked to Sartre's land, not only panning for gold, but also stealing tools, food, livestock, and other people's gold. Sutter, who thought he would become the richest man in California, became worried and kept busy guarding his property all day long.

Gold prospectors found gold mainly in a region 120 miles long and 60 miles wide between the Feather River in the north and the Tuolumne River in the south. The first gold diggers often only collect the surface layer of gold, and soon move to the next layer, and they don't even bother to mine the lower layers of gold.

Thousands of people came to California from across the United States and around the world, energizing the region's economy. California has become the land of hope, the land of dreams, and also the land of greed and sin. People with different accents are looking for "flash particles that can change fate" here, and they are also here to rob, fight, gamble, drink, curse each other, and the air is filled with gunshots.

At first when gold was easier to find, there was not so much violence in California. As gold became harder to find, gold diggers started shooting each other, shooting Indians, taking their land, and taking their women and children.

Few people pay attention to an economic crisis in the United States before 1848, just like gold diggers only look for the surface layer and do not dig deep.

In 1812, the Second War of Independence broke out in the United States. From 1812 to 1815, the Central Bank of the United States closed down at this juncture when the United States needed the Central Bank to be responsible for raising war funds.

In 1816, the Second Bank of the United States controlled by the Rothschild family was authorized by Congress and the license period was also 20 years. It created a unified national currency, once became the largest and best issuer of banknotes in the United States, and made outstanding contributions to the creation of a single exchange rate. Its capital is twice as much as the fiscal expenditure of the US government, it has 20% of the country's currency circulation, and it has established 29 branches in various states, controlling the finance of each state.

Paper money also began to appear at this time.

In the mid-1820s, given the hasty legislation of many state banks, many of which had many problems in their operations, the Second Bank maintained its own stability by refusing to accept bills from banks it considered poorly run, which weakened the public Confidence in Second Bank, as people prefer state banks with easy credit and less stringent requirements, many no longer accept Second Bank.

In 1829, Andrew Jackson was elected as the seventh president of the United States. He believed that the credit problem of the Second Bank had affected the development of the American economy. Some opponents from civil and political circles believe that this bank represents the interests of a few wealthy people, and because too many foreign deposits have brought hidden dangers to the stability of the young republic.

To free the U.S. economy from its tight grip, Jackson decided to close the Second Bank. As part of a strategy to destroy the Second Bank, Jackson withdrew government deposits from the bank and placed them in state banks, which quickly became known to Jackson's political opponents as "the favored banks."

Unexpectedly, a crisis arose. Because of the increased deposit base, the state banks, which did not place a premium on credit policy, could issue more banknotes and make more loans secured by real estate, the most illiquid of all investments. In this way, the policy implemented by President Jackson, who hated speculation and paper currency most, unexpectedly triggered the first huge speculative bubble caused by paper currency in the United States.

In this bubble, much of the land was sold by the federal government to residents or speculators. Land sales by the government's Land Office totaled $2.5 million in 1832 and $25 million by 1836.

At the same time, the United States promulgated and implemented the Free Banking Act. The Free Banking Act allows anyone with a minimum capital of $100,000 to establish a bank, without any other requirements; and state application procedures have been greatly simplified. Banks sprung up like mushrooms after rain, and the hasty start of banks led to rampant fraud and poor quality banking.

Jackson responded by cutting speculation down the middle. He signed the "Coin Circulation Order" as an executive order, requiring that, except in rare cases, all future purchases of land must be paid in gold or silver coins. Jackson hoped his measures would stem speculation across the country, but they did more than that.

In 1836, Congress decided to remove most of the precious metals from the Second Bank and transfer them to the various state governments. Jackson also ordered the Treasury Department to withdraw $9 million each quarter from the Treasury's deposits in the Second Bank beginning in February 1837, and to distribute among the states in proportion to their populations.

All Jackson's measures were aimed at improving what he thought was the financial industry, but the final result surprised him.

As demand for coinage surged, holders of banknotes began demanding gold and silver coinage in exchange for banknotes. Banks were running low on precious metal deposits and had to call in loans as quickly as possible in order to raise much-needed money. Due to the lack of sufficient precious metals, the banks were unable to honor the issued currency and had to be postponed repeatedly. The economic panic in the United States began.

Due to the excessive issuance of banknotes in the past, the huge number of redemption requests almost exhausted its resources. At the same time, the bank's application for extension was rejected by President Jackson, and it was forced to shrink into a state bank and cease. Some loans are issued. The panic also severely weakened the state banks, and many of the weaker ones went bankrupt due to their lack of gold reserves, and the ones that survived went "rogue": that is, they refused to repay their loans.

At the end of 1937, all banks in the United States, at least those that had not yet failed, stopped paying in gold coins.

The Bank of England began to raise interest rates in order to prevent gold from leaving the country, which led to a decline in British cotton imports and further affected the US economy. Moreover, because of the rise in interest rates in the UK, British investors are no longer willing to invest money in US securities, which is undoubtedly worse for the Wall Street securities market. The United States was caught in a severe "artificial" depletion of money in circulation, which culminated in the Panic of 1837.

On January 2, 1837, the U.S. Treasury Department withdrew $9 million from major banks in New York. Within a few days there was panic and a series of bankruptcies and riots in the streets. The real estate market entered a vicious circle of forced sell-offs, banks failed, and so did many other industries.

Wall Street stock prices began to fall with a vengeance, bankruptcies soon spread to all industries, 90% of the factories in the United States closed, unemployment was extremely high, and thousands of people lost their land. When state governments in several states tried to refinance their debt, they found that there was simply no market willing to buy their bonds. Government revenues, though $50.8 million in 1836, were only $24.9 million in 1837. Gone was Jackson's rosy vision of a debt-free federal government, and the United States entered a depression for the first time in history.

James Gordon Bennett, editor of the Herald, wrote in his March 1837 editorial:

America has never been in such a precarious situation. We are now surrounded by a commercial panic which is threatening to disrupt all affairs of our society--to destroy our entire country, to reduce vast areas to ruins, to lift half our banking institutions from the ground. Erase the world, to ignite the most impetuous enthusiasm, and create a sudden change, which will eventually stagnate the country.

The economic depression brought about by this financial panic lasted until the huge San Francisco gold mine was discovered in California in 1848. The economic situation in the United States began to improve. Jules went to pan for gold only after hearing that there was gold in America. The sailor was recognized by relatives who were also full of dreams of getting rich, but their dreams were shattered, and then turned around and left as if nothing had happened.

If you don’t have money in “Heaven”, it’s like living in hell. You found the oysters but you can’t eat them. It’s such a terrible feeling that you can’t eat the oysters.

There is no cure for the vicious circle, and the financial bubble is swallowing the real economy like a black hole. All the loose policies that can stimulate the economy have had little effect because of the money-making effect of the financial market.

On December 31, 1991, the Red Giant fell and the Soviet Union disintegrated.

The Plaza Accord collapsed the Japanese economy.

These two economies have injected a huge amount of flight capital into Europe and the United States, relying on the unprecedented scale of monetary capacity to get rid of the recession, and ended a Jugra cycle calmly.

Only when others fall can they stand on their own. For the United States, only the collapse of an economy of the size of China and the European Union is enough to obtain enough resources to make it through the cycle.

For China, only the disintegration of economies of the size of the United States and the European Union can clear away the obstacles to the country's economic transformation and rise.

The capitalist's way of life is the way of death for others, even if he is covered in tumors and pustules, and exudes the stench of corruption, he still has to continue to live.

The earth in the farming era was not like this. The earth now is like a mirror that reflects people's hearts. California native oysters were eaten and extinct by gold diggers after the gold rush. In the future, even rich people who want to taste oysters can only find it from other people's descriptions.

"Go on." Severus urged the dazed Pomona.

She felt extremely contradictory. Although she liked food, she only made ordinary ingredients delicious, and rarely used such expensive ingredients. If Albus knew how extravagant she was, he would be so disappointed.

"The money has already been paid, and it would be a waste if you throw it away." He coaxed her.

So she hesitated and took the expensive oyster, and finally swallowed it like medicine.

"How?" he asked expectantly.

Mouth full of fishy and metallic taste, not tasty at all!

She wanted to answer him like this, but she still nodded with a smile.

"It tastes better with some lemon juice," said the peddler, cracking open another oyster. They were well dressed, and Severus could afford the money.

After all, he is no longer the poor boy who grew up in the garbage dump of the slums. After fighting for so many years, he should enjoy it.

It's just that she really can't imitate the elegance of eating oysters in Maupassant's novels.

She ate it to please Severus, and she felt guilty with every bite, because she felt like she was part of the "capitalist family" too.