Chapter 195

Chapter 195

Professor Mohan warned that the Big One could kill a million people.

People laughed and said it was nonsense. But when Big One came, it turned out that it was really nonsense.

If he hadn’t prepared for it, it wouldn’t have been surprising if two million people had died.

Conversely, even with such preparations, the combined number of dead and missing reached 70,000. Rescue of survivors and retrieval of bodies continue to be carried out, but the number of deaths is increasing.

The entire city of San Francisco was destroyed. However, it was worth taking comfort in the fact that the damage in southern Silicon Valley, Fremont, and Auckland was small.

Despite the worst calamities in history, America still shows off.

Governments and businesses continued to work, and all systems, including finance and industry, worked without any problems.

Rather, compared to the chaos before the Big One came, it seemed to work better now.

Ronald lived in a shelter with his aides, ate and slept with the victims in a restaurant.

All external schedules were entrusted to the cabinet, and I did my best to direct the rescue. He also gave daily press briefings and informed the public of the rescue situation.

The American media also took an active part in this.

You might think of it as a show, but at least it was enough to give the impression that the president is with the people.

Shortly before his impeachment, Ronald’s approval rating fell to 5 percent, an all-time low. Some even said that the approval rating came out thanks to people who pressed the wrong button on the phone.

However, in a recent opinion poll, his approval rating was 92 percent. When asked whether they prepared well for Big One, 97 percent answered yes.

This is the approval rating that would only come from a dictatorship.

Well, if it wasn’t for Ronald, who would have made that decision?

With this incident, the Russian scandal and sex scandal that had been holding the regime’s ankles since the beginning of his inauguration disappeared.

No one could attack Ronald in this situation.

The lawmakers who participated in the impeachment, both Democrats and Republicans, prayed for forgiveness with tears and said that they would actively add strength to not only rectifying the situation, but also for future state affairs.

However, some could not be held accountable.

The political careers of Governor Simon Underwood and Vice President Bauer, who led the impeachment, and Governor Martin Albright, who shifted responsibility for the Blupel fire to Ronald, were virtually over.

* * *

The shelter was saturated with the influx of displaced people.

The United States has shown the world tremendous technological prowess and insane productivity in the last two world wars.

U.S. companies used their technology and production capabilities to build a large-scale temporary residence in Nevada, which is adjacent to the California state border.

Countless prefabricated houses have entered the empty fields. Until the city is restored, the displaced people will have to live there for several years.

The US government has officially started fundraising. The amount easily crossed the $10 billion mark in just a few days.

All countries paid out of their treasuries, and corporations donated from millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars. People from all over the world also willingly participated in the donation in prayer for the restoration of damage in the US.

In addition, relief supplies and firefighters from various countries arrived in California one after another. Allies have even considered sending military personnel.

Had it been any other president, he would have declined some face-to-face, but Ronald did not. Rather, he encouraged them to apply harder.

“America needs more support. Think about what America has done for the world in the meantime. Now is the time to get it back!”

This is not to collect congratulatory and condolence expenses that have been sowed in a single funeral. (As the United States is the world’s richest country, the amount of foreign aid is also the largest).

In fact, it is a situation that requires that much support.

Even if recovery was a later task, the rescue was urgent. Because the affected area was so extensive, even though the U.S. military was deployed, it suffered from a shortage of manpower.

Military forces from allies arrived in California one after another, and they were all brought under the control of the US military and mobilized to rescue.

South Korea dispatched the second largest number of personnel after Britain. There may be some blood alliance with the United States, but… … .

“I think he’s going to kill him with his body instead of money.”

“There are a lot of soldiers in Korea who can spend even a tenth of the minimum wage.”

A few years ago, I was one of them.

I saw Chairman Im Jin-yong sitting next to me.

As soon as the incident broke out, he flew to California to take care of the employees of the US corporation and check the company’s situation. Then he met with Ronald and expressed his intention to cooperate with the Suseong Group as much as possible, not only until now, but also in the future.

Seoseong Electronics played a huge role in this earthquake. Most of the equipment used in the rescue right now or the electronic equipment in the shelter are Suseong Electronics products.

Most of all, by transmitting the information of smartphone users in the base station in the hazardous area directly to the disaster integration headquarters, countless lives were saved.

Thanks to this, Suseong Electronics’ recognition in the United States has risen significantly.

I thought I would only go back to meeting Ronald, but Chairman Im Jin-yong stayed here for a few days and helped out with volunteers.

“Isn’t it hard?”

“Fine.”

Even though he said that, he looked very tired. The position of president has nothing to do with manual labor.

Chairman Im Jin-yong wiped his sweat and said.

“I knew it, but after all, it’s America. No matter how well prepared you are, how can the rescue and restoration proceed so quickly? If a similar earthquake had occurred in China, it would have killed over a million people.”

In fact, at the time of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the Chinese government was in a state of confusion in the early stages, causing damage to 100,000 people, both dead and missing.

“This is America’s strength.”

It is not a hegemonic country for nothing.

Chairman Im Jin-yong smiled.

“I am very fortunate that the companies in Silicon Valley are safe.”

NPL and Guble are competitors and partners of Suseong Electronics. If the IT industry had collapsed, demand for semiconductors would plummet right away, and Suseong Electronics would have been hit hard.

“Earthquakes will bring a lot of change. What we do in the future will determine the fate of the company.”

I nodded.

“Anyway, everyone was busy.”

* * *

Businesses are starting to prepare for the post-earthquake situation.

From the very beginning of his inauguration, Ronald has pledged to create jobs for American workers. To do this, he built barriers to trade and gave tax breaks to companies that built factories in the United States.

In fact, reshoring has also resulted in the return of the factories of American companies that were abroad to their home countries.

However, the number of jobs did not increase as expected.

No matter how many benefits it receives, it is not enough to close the wage gap between Vietnamese and Cambodian workers and American workers.

Reshoring was possible in the first place because the number of workers could be reduced with the development of robot technology and automatic facilities.

But the San Francisco earthquake solved the unemployment problem at once!

They are busy saving people here and there through the production, construction, and restoration of relief materials right away.

Experts predicted a boom in the next few years due to earthquakes. As a result, it was predicted that the industrial structure or economic landscape could change.

What matters is who will benefit from it.

In terms of nationality, of course, the United States ranked first, followed by China. However, the US will not play a leading role as much as it is to contain China, which has rapidly emerged as the G2.

Japan is an ally of the United States and has capital and technology. However, the problem was that the yen was suffering from the preference for safe assets. Of course, it is bound to fall behind in price competitiveness.

On the other hand, Korea had technological prowess and had sufficient price competitiveness due to the depreciation of the won.

Above all, Jinhoo Kang is Korean!

Although OTK Company is an American corporation, its head office is located in Korea. Considering the contribution, it is highly likely that OTK Company will hold the key to the recovery industry in the future in some way.

Korean companies all attempted to contact OTK Company. However, the representative, Jin-hoo Kang, is currently in the United States, and the deputy representative has hardly appeared outside.

The person you can meet right away is Kang Jin-hoo’s right-hand man and K Company’s CEO Park Sang-yeop.

But even that wasn’t easy.

Park Sang-yeop knew exactly where he was. Because of this, he did not meet anyone and waited for Kang Jin-hu to return.

The financial market also showed a gradual recovery, as the structure and recovery went smoothly. However, the anxiety factor remained everywhere.

The first is the strength of the dollar.

A large-scale recovery is expected in the US in the future, and assets invested in emerging countries are returning to the US.

At this time, of course, to the extent that foreign currency is sold and dollars are bought, the value of currencies in emerging countries decreases and the value of dollars increases according to the principle of supply and demand.

This was similar to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Japanese funds scattered around the world returned to their home countries at once, and had to suffer from a strong yen for a while.(Read more @ wuxiax.com)

For the time being, the US will suck the world’s money like a black hole.

If the dollar rose more than necessary, it would be very likely that they would do something about it, as it would not be good for the US either.

The second is rising oil prices.

An increase in the price of gold does not directly affect the real economy. However, crude oil has a direct impact on inflation.

The Big One caused shale companies in the west to shut down operations, which led to concerns about supply shortages, which led to an increase in oil prices.

Middle Eastern countries, Russia and Venezuela, which suffered from low oil prices, seemed to welcome the situation. When OPEC showed signs of taking advantage of rising oil prices and limiting supply, Ronald threatened to sell the falling oil reserves to the market.

In fact, the United States is storing more than 600 million barrels of crude oil in underground caverns in Texas and Louisiana to prepare for wars and fluctuations in supply and demand after going through oil shocks.

As Ronald’s remarks became known, oil prices, which had been rising all the time, turned downward all at once, and not only the United States but all countries that depend on oil imports sighed.

The third is the surge in raw material prices.

OTK Company concentrated on purchasing raw materials before the incident occurred. Among them, steel was the most concerned.

Until this happened, steel was in a global oversupply. The companies liked the idea that they could sell the surplus steel, so they signed the contract.

After the price skyrocketed, the steel and cement companies that signed the supply contract regretted it, but even though they have already paid the price, they cannot cancel the contract. Of course, we have no intention of destroying it on our side.

Financial institutions were also hit hard by the incident.

Fortunately, large financial institutions were swept away by various chaos before that and managed risk in various ways, so if the incident happened without any preparation, the Lehman Brothers incident may have occurred.

If you think about it, the decisive moment that caused the 200-year-old Bearings Bank to go bankrupt was the Kobe earthquake. (Although Nick Listenson sold the straddle, which was a problem)

Although financial authorities around the world are trying to stabilize the market, a credit crunch and a surge in the Libor interest rate were unavoidable nonetheless.

* * *

A fortnight has passed since the Big One occurred.

News of the rescue of survivors, which heated up the media day after day, are now being heard sporadically. Still, the rescue team did not stop trying to save even one more person.

When a woman in her 20s, who had been locked up in a building for a full month, was rescued, the crowd applauded and rejoiced.

I and Ronald drove around the nearby shelters. Everywhere we went we were warmly welcomed by the victims.

Many Americans held my hand and thanked me, and I offered them my condolences.

America was filled with remembrance and mourning for the victims, and hope to rise above the damage and wounds.

I told Ronald in the car on the way back.

“I think I will have to go back to Korea soon.”