Getting up in the morning, with one TV in the bedroom and another in the kitchen both broadcasting news to create a pseudo-surround sound effect, Liu Jun and Cui Bingbing split duties amid CCTV news’ majestic, resounding tones—the former frying eggs, toasting bread, making coffee, heating milk, and cutting fruit, while the latter dealt with their daughter, who was like a little monkey. Cui Bingbing finally managed to wash Dandan clean and expel her from the bathroom, then handed feeding duties over to her father. Cui Bingbing didn’t like having the nanny stay overnight, so every morning had to be this battlefield routine, especially when Liu Jun was on business trips.
When Cui Bingbing emerged after washing and dressing, she found her daughter had already finished a glass of milk, eaten half a slice of bread, and reportedly consumed two large shrimp, half a mushroom, and two bites of vegetables. This made Cui Bingbing’s constant complaints to her husband about their daughter’s disobedient eating habits, preventing her from having breakfast, seem rather like false accusations. She sat across from the father-daughter pair, genuinely wanting to learn Liu Jun’s techniques for getting food into their daughter’s mouth. What she saw nearly made her spit blood—her husband simply picked up some vegetables with chopsticks, brought them to Dandan’s little mouth, and said quite artlessly, “Dandan, eat vegetables.” Dandan promptly opened her little mouth to bite the vegetables, chewed efficiently a few times, swallowed them, then consciously tore off bread to eat by herself. While eating, her two eyes looked adoringly at Daddy—so well-behaved, completely different from the little demon Cui Bingbing usually faced. Cui Bingbing sighed in exasperation—she also needed to go on business trips to let this little demon experience that mommy was precious, too.
Finally, during a commercial break, Liu Jun said, “How come economic news is either the stock market or the real estate market? And futures market too—even unrelated matters can be tied to the stock market in one sentence.”
“It’s nationwide stock speculation. By three o’clock in the afternoon, our whole building stops to watch the stocks. The other day’s 5.30 crash had the whole country wailing like ghosts and wolves—who dares not take the stock market seriously now? Futures aren’t mentioned as much. What’s mentioned more is our banking sector—reserve ratios, interest rates. If you look at financial pages, they occupy front page positions almost daily.”
“We manufacturing enterprises already have difficulty getting loans with high interest rates. When they raise reserve ratios and interest rates, claiming to combat hot money, every cut stabs us in the real economy. Our company is fine, but many companies have very low profit margins—when financing costs rise, profits get completely eaten up.”
“The stock market has to be brought down—bank deposits are almost completely moved out. Right now we’re the priority, so you’ll have to step aside temporarily.”
“Deposits that don’t go to stocks go to real estate. Who dares deposit in banks now? Accounting for inflation, bank deposits have negative interest rates. GDP should have been brought down long ago, but last year, they still suppressed those numbers. Wasn’t it just adjusted? Who knows if the adjusted figures are accurate? But you have to admit, the economy has real momentum now—nobody knows where this strength comes from. These past few days, dining out, as soon as we leave, people waiting immediately take our places. Without reservations, there are no tables—business is incredibly hot.”
But when Dandan wasn’t asleep, the couple’s conversation only lasted as long as commercial breaks in the news. Soon, Dandan was banging her bowl and singing chaotic songs to attract her parents’ attention. The two quickly finished preparing and left home with reluctant farewells. After all, Cui Bingbing couldn’t possibly send her husband to the airport—Liu Jun’s business trips weren’t occasional.
In the departure lounge, the TV was showing stock market conditions. It was morning opening time, with more people watching quotes on phones or computers, each face showing joy or worry. When Liu Jun encountered acquaintances and went to greet them, they immediately pulled him into discussions about funds and stocks. Liu Jun had no clue and could only listen. Nationwide stock speculation—was this normal?
Flying from home to Guangzhou, then abroad from Guangzhou, Liu Jun pondered this question throughout the journey: nationwide stock speculation with relentlessly climbing indices—was this normal?
But Liu Jun had many doubts yet little understanding of macroeconomics. Many questions led to dead ends with no way out. He thought that since stocks were inflated by domestic and foreign hot money, hot money would eventually retreat with profits. But who was inflating the real economy? Who was driving such enormous demand? The published monthly import-export figures showing over 20% year-on-year growth—could hot money entering China drive this? Then why was the real economy so hot? Moreover, if stock market hot money withdrew, would it affect the real economy? What impact? How significant? Many questions he couldn’t answer. He only knew that if the economy continued burning like this, it would be very dangerous. But from his brief morning discussion with A’San, it was clear the government wanted control, but policies were inconsistent, with unbalanced regulation. Of course, Liu Jun ultimately returned to his problem: facing such an unbalanced situation, did he dare make large investments in an advanced-thinking heat treatment branch factory?
Liu Jun thought until his brain was twisted, sitting on pins and needles on the plane. Unlike stocks, which were easily liquidated, once a heat treatment branch factory was started, it would be a bottomless pit before production began. After production, if it couldn’t be kept busy, it would also become a bottomless pit. But what if the economy continued racing like it had since last year, and if he was conservative today, making a conventional decision to build only half the conservative capacity for the heat treatment branch factory, it would mean missing a once-in-a-century great opportunity. What to do? Liu Jun really couldn’t see clearly and didn’t dare decide, so he firmly put yesterday’s meeting out of his mind.
Unsurprisingly, his decision to have the R&D center temporarily halt the heat treatment branch factory design immediately came under bombardment from senior management emails. Some emails asked whether he had considered failure when he decided to stake everything on F-1 development. But compared to the F-1 decision back then, the heat treatment branch factory’s success probability was much higher, so what reason was there not to build it? Other emails directly asked Liu Jun whether President Liu’s management priorities were problematic. Was bold R&D like F-1 enough for an enterprise? Without complete equipment to produce F-1, how would that differ from trying to cook dumplings in a teapot? There were also mature, steady emails saying everyone had experienced F-1’s painful development process together, and President Liu’s suffering in all aspects was beyond what ordinary people could understand or bear—everyone understood President Liu’s hesitation about the heat treatment branch factory construction decision. But entrepreneurs couldn’t be “once bitten by a snake, afraid of wells for three years.” Entrepreneur doctrine must include one essential element: the courage to advance. Of course, other emails explained the current excellent economic situation to Liu Jun.
After Liu Jun’s client meetings, he returned to the hotel and sent a group email to management personnel.
“I’m trying to step outside our immediate circle, not looking at our current operations, not at our customers’ orders, not at the stocks you’re enthusiastic about. I’m trying to explore the most essential economic life. So I see that gas fees have become unattainable for many families with substantial expenses—they’ve switched to coal briquettes instead of gas. I see that street-side meat buns that originally cost fifty cents are getting smaller and smaller—the meat buns I saw this morning are barely larger than the pan-fried buns when I first returned to China, and fried dough sticks have also shrunk considerably. I see housing prices rising day and night while rents increasingly decline. I also see two small enterprises in the industrial zone whose profits were crushed by increasingly high financing costs and endlessly rising raw material prices—they’ve temporarily closed shop and invested their funds in the stock market… Is all this normal? People’s livelihoods cannot be so oppressed, especially concerning the most basic food and warmth issues. Society will inevitably react to these problems, and the government will be forced to respond. So, how long can this phenomenon continue? It’s only a matter of time. Have you considered what situation our company will face when that time comes? We’ll also see the essence of our current prosperity—is it a mirage or reality? This is exactly what I’m pondering now, and why I temporarily don’t dare make decisions. Please discuss and exchange views on this.”