Rebirth 79: I opened a bank in the United States

"Yum? Never heard of it. Are you talking about PepsiCo?"

"No, it's not Pepsi. It's Yum! It's the company that manages that chain of fried chicken restaurants. Maybe it's still relatively small and not famous. I want to know about it, but in my small place, there's not enough information.

, so I need your help."

Speaking of Yum Brands, Carter naturally thought of Pizza Hut. However, the popularity and influence of this brand are far inferior to KFC, especially now. He has seen KFC stores, but Pizza Hut has not seen them at all.

I've seen it before. When it comes to KFC, Julian may not even know it. If you mention Pizza Hut, it's completely unnecessary.

"Okay, Kentucky Fried Chicken, right? I've written it down and I'll keep an eye on it for you. Oh, by the way, did you know that the chairman of the Federal Reserve has been replaced recently? He's a ruthless character. Your bank will be in trouble in the next few years.

I'm afraid life will be difficult. You need to pay attention to risk control and collect loans as soon as possible. If my prediction is good, Volcker will definitely shrink the currency."

"I know the news, thank you for reminding me."

It’s another familiar double identification! Most of Volcker’s life has been in New York. Financial practitioners like Julian and others who are rooted in New York must know him better than Carter and Goodman. With their early warning, there is also

Using the future information as a reference, Carter couldn't help but start to reflect on himself: Are his assumptions about the economic situation in the next few years too optimistic?

After hanging up the phone, Carter, who was a little startled, immediately started to do the accounting. Soon Carter discovered that in the two months since he left, Goodman, who was in charge of the bank, had consciously begun to reduce the loan amount. In the two months, he only had a total of

Less than US$10,000 was loaned out, especially in August, when only US$2,000 was loaned out. The overall loan ratio has objectively decreased, but the amount of money loaned out during the old Black period was actually a bit too much, and the bank’s

The books don't look promising.

Cash reserves still cannot meet the withdrawal needs of all savers, especially after the borrowed money is now invested in the fund. If the credit crisis occurs again now, it will be a big trouble. And next month, there will still be a deposit

The insurance fee has to be paid. The deposit insurance fee is not a fixed amount, but one-thousandth of the deposit. Based on the current deposit size of Black Bank, it probably costs about a thousand U.S. dollars, which is not much. But the problem is,

Black Bank doesn't have much cash right now, and it still has to prepare money for users to withdraw money and cash checks.

Looking at it this way, the focus of the bank's work in the next stage is very clear. Recovery of loans! Even if the interest is reduced, the loaned money must be recovered as much as possible to prepare for emergencies.

"Goodman, I'll go to Exxon and talk to him."

"Okay, go ahead."

Thinking of it, he had to do it. After taking stock of the accounts, Carter, who had nothing to do, decided to actually contact the lender. Exxon's farm is located in the southern suburbs of the small city, and "southern suburbs" is just a nice way of saying it.

To be precise, after exiting Douglas from the south, you still have to drive for about half an hour before you can find Exxon's farm. Within the farm, except for a road that runs from north to south and Exxon's lonely house, there are almost

Nothing.

Shortly after turning from the concrete road onto a dirt road, Carter slowly parked the car in front of the Exxon house. People who heard the noise in the house also came out...

"Is this Mrs. Ackerson? I'm Carter from Blackbank."

"Carter... I know you. I heard that you just came back from a trip around the United States. Please come in, are you here to collect money?"

Mrs. Ackerson looked to be in her fifties, dressed simply and with a kind face. But in her brows and eyes, Carter could clearly show a hint of sadness, and she was obviously worried about repaying the loan.

"Yes, is Mr. Exon at home?"

Although Mrs. Ackerson seems sympathetic, Carter will not forget his purpose.

"He's not here. He went to work in the fields. You go inside and sit for a while, and I'll call him back for you."

This is not that Exxon is escaping from Carter. It’s just that almost all farmers’ families are like this. When Carter returned to his hometown when he was a child, he often couldn’t see his grandfather during the day.

"Thank you. I'd better go directly to him. I have a few places to go to in a while. Mrs. Ackerson, don't worry. I don't have any ill intentions. I'm just talking to him about repayment. If you have any difficulties, we will understand.

Yes, as long as we can work out a proper solution."

"Well, my husband's temper may be a little short-tempered. I'd better go with you. I'm worried that you might quarrel."

As Mrs. Ackerson said this, she changed out of her house slippers at the entrance, and then she and Carter walked onto the field ridges one after another. The characteristic of American agriculture is that it is highly mechanized, and there is actually no way around it.

In the United States, which is vast and sparsely populated, the amount of land per farmer in the United States is several times that of China. It is impossible to plow it with manpower alone. However, it is summer, sowing has been completed, and the harvest time has not yet come, and several agricultural machinery are parked.

The open space next to the Ackerson family's cabin was filled with idleness.

No wonder everyone's first thought is to sell a few farm machines to pay off debts, because at the moment, the Exxon family may have some value in these idle big machines...

"Mrs. Ackerson, how is your harvest now?"

The Exxon family has a lot of farmland and a large area. Before finding Exxon, Carter took the initiative to find a topic, but the topic was really not very good. If the harvest was not good, why did Exxon need a loan to buy more

How many farm machines are there?

Sure enough, Mrs. Ackerson said:

"The harvest is pretty good. Georgia has plenty of sunshine and no shortage of water. But the peanuts we grow now have never been sold at a high price. Those damn capitalists obviously know that peanut butter is getting more expensive, but the purchase price is not at all.

Rising. Now we can basically only say that we don’t lose money growing peanuts, but we don’t make any money at all.”

"Who do you usually sell your peanuts to? Are they sold directly to factories?"

According to the information left by Old Black, among Georgia's agricultural products, the most important crop is peanuts. The world's largest peanut butter factory is in Dawson City, Georgia. In addition to making peanut butter, Georgia's peanuts account for the largest output in the United States.

More than half. Carter was not surprised that the Exxon family was growing peanuts. He was just wondering if there was something wrong with this intermediate link.

"How can it be possible for peanuts grown by families like ours to be sold directly to factories? They are all sold to purchasers in Douglas, who then organize transportation to various factories or sell them to other states."

"So if you can't sell at a good price, could it be that there is something going on among these purchasers? For example, the factory obviously raised the purchase price, but they did not increase it in order to seek greater profits."

"No, we had suspected this before. Exxon and a few old friends went to Dawson City to ask. The largest factory didn't get a raise, and it was even less likely that other factories would get a raise..."