The Rise Of Australasia - Chapter 883

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Chapter 883: Chapter 659: The Antique Collector

How severe is the damage of the economic crisis to the United States? Although it has only continued for just over a month so far, the United States has still lost a tremendous amount of wealth.

In New York, even a nursery rhyme became popular: “Mellon pulled the whistle, Coolidge rang the bell, Wall Street gave the signal and the country went to hell.”

Following the collapse of the stock market, the American economy subsequently fell into a comprehensive, devastating disaster, and a terrible chain reaction quickly unfolded.

The bankruptcy of banks and enterprises had become an ordinary affair, and Americans didn’t even have to worry about when they would become unemployed because after the outbreak of the economic crisis, they wouldn’t have jobs anymore.

Yet, ironically, agricultural capitalists and numerous farm owners were still destroying so-called “surplus” farm products. They directly used wheat and corn as fuel instead of coal, and dumped milk into the Mississippi River, turning it into a literal Milky Way.

Although spanning only a brief period of over a month, a large number of cities in America, including New York, had already gathered many homeless people.

Forced by their dire situation, they could only build makeshift dwellings with planks, old iron sheets, tarpaulins, and even kraft paper.

The so-called villages made up of these makeshift houses were called Hoovervilles, the bags used by urban vagrants to beg were named Coolidge bags, cars that couldn’t afford petrol and were instead pulled by livestock were called Coolidge cars, and even the newspapers that the homeless spread over themselves were called Coolidge blankets.

This not only proved the enormous changes in the American economy due to the economic crisis but also proved how dissatisfied and even angry the American people were with the current President Coolidge.

If previously the loss of influence in Central America merely caused widespread dissatisfaction among Americans, this economic crisis directly turned Coolidge into a street rat.

If it weren’t for the fact that others were unwilling to take over the mess of the economic crisis, the documents to impeach President Coolidge would probably already have spread throughout the streets and alleys of America.

Although it was the economic crisis that caused President Coolidge to completely lose the trust of the American people, it was also the economic crisis that allowed him to temporarily stay on the throne of the President of America.

There was another piece of terrible news for Americans, which was that the United Kingdom soon announced it would impose additional tariffs on the United States and the Island Nation, severely affecting American imports and exports and causing some of the struggling industries to collapse instantaneously.

The British Empire was regarded as the current world’s strongest country, and the actions of the United Kingdom were like a weathervane for all other countries.

After all, the compensation that the United States paid was to the entire world. Amid the economic crisis, America suspended the payment of these compensations, which was a heavy blow for those countries whose financial situations were already precarious, wasn’t it?

To retaliate against the Americans and seize this opportunity to make a profit, many European countries followed the lead of the United Kingdom in announcing higher tariffs on America, and the Island Nation was also incidentally put onto the list for increased tariffs.

Although the United States had the world’s strongest economic size, this did not mean that its dependence on Europe was any less.

The collective move by European countries to raise tariffs on the United States was tantamount to another economic crisis for America, the effects of which were even greater than the sum of individual parts.

While the rest of the world was so animated, Arthur couldn’t afford to be the odd one out. He not only boldly announced a 50% increase in tariffs against America through the government but also had the military industry ship a large amount of weapons to the United States.

As for the purpose? It was to comply with the United States’ law on legal possession of firearms. Since the American people were allowed to own guns legally, it didn’t seem excessive to ensure that every American had a gun.

Of course, dealing in the arms trade in America was merely a method to create more chaos in the country; it was not feasible to directly bring down America.

After all, the power of America’s strong countries wasn’t something to be taken lightly; maintaining domestic stability without foreign intervention was still easily achievable.

Arthur had no immediate thoughts of taking action against America; the most important task at the moment was to focus on the development within Australasia, while seizing opportunities to make a big profit during the economic crisis.

The first important task was to purchase gold.

While it’s commonly said that antiques thrive in prosperous times and gold in times of chaos, this does not mean gold never depreciates at any time.

During moments when wealth evaporated rapidly due to the economic crisis in various countries, that was the best time to acquire gold.

Since all countries were in turmoil, a necessary expenditure of gold to secure more grain and supplies to maintain domestic stability was unavoidable for them.

If one waited until all countries abandoned the gold standard before purchasing gold, it would seem too deliberate, leading to suspicion and wariness by other countries.

Including enterprises and financial institutions, they would also exchange gold for the supplies and currency essential for their survival at this time, which would rapidly increase Australasia’s gold reserves.

Before the economic crisis erupted, Americans had the world’s highest gold reserves. With such a vast economic scale, America could earn a large profit just from the export of industrial products each year.

However, the gap between Australasia and America wasn’t too wide. After all, Arthur had obtained over a thousand tons of gold from Nicholas II, thanks to the arms trade during World War I, which was also the real reason why the Australian Dollar became one of the strongest currencies.

Of course, no matter the period, it was basically impossible to obtain a large amount of gold reserves from other countries.

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