The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 113: A Showroom Before the Crash
William already had a plan in mind to take down the large stretch of vacant land southeast of Sabine City, and Ferraler did not try to persuade him again. He knew very well that although William looked young, he was in fact a young man with very firm ideas of his own.
With that kind of person, offering advice once was enough. If one said too much, the other party might not think it was being offered in good faith. Added to William’s depth of calculation, Ferraler did not bring the matter up again. Instead, he began chatting with William about other things.
With small talk, someone only needed to start the subject. Wherever the conversation wandered after that was where it went.
William opened the topic. He brought up the newspaper report about the seats on the three major exchanges. Ferraler had read the paper that morning as well, and could not help sighing over the situation in the capital.
“Financial trading is more prosperous than ever right now. A great deal of capital that should have flowed elsewhere has poured into financial trading instead. Especially after the six major banks lowered interest rates several times last year and early this year, even many ordinary people’s savings have flowed into stock and futures trading...”
The stagnation and even decline of economic development did not become visible in a short time. There was a process to it. Beginning several years earlier, the pace of social development had first stabilized, then begun to slow, until now, when waves of closures had started appearing in smaller places.
There was an obvious process. During this process, the President’s Cabinet, centered on the Federation Conservative Party, had also devised certain remedial plans. Their approach was simple: have the banks lower savings interest rates, push more money into society, and reactivate overall economic development through stimulated consumption.
But the result ... It could not be called entirely bad. Lower bank interest rates made ordinary people feel that keeping their money in the bank was no longer worthwhile. Combined with the plundering of scattered public capital by certain proper financial companies, all the money that should originally have been used for various forms of basic consumption, money meant to start the engine of social economic development, had flowed into the financial markets.
On top of that, the financial markets kept producing one miracle and legend after another. More and more members of the public began looking for investment brokers and asking them to put their money into the securities market.
It had to be admitted that some people really had made money. Or rather, in the face of this distorted era’s dividend, one that could not be replicated, anyone who participated could make money, so long as he was not especially unlucky.
Even other methods could make people a decent sum. Miracles among commoners also caused more commoners to notice this place and join in.
The more macro-control there was, the more distorted and strange the Federation’s economy became. By now, the President’s Cabinet no longer had any better method to reverse the current situation. They only hoped they could keep it going and avoid any major trouble during the President’s term.
“His Honor, the Mayor’s recent work is actually connected to this as well. Sabine City’s unemployment rate is getting higher and higher. Last week, another five plants announced bankruptcy. Our unemployment rate has already exceeded fifteen percent. That is a very dangerous number!”
Ferraler’s expression turned more severe. A fifteen-percent unemployment rate meant that among Sabine City’s population of eight hundred thousand, excluding retired elderly people and children still in school, roughly sixty thousand out of around four hundred thousand working-age people had no jobs.
Those sixty thousand people radiated outward to affect the livelihood of at least one family each, and as many as three families. In other words, the number of people currently troubled by unemployment in Sabine City might be around two hundred thousand, perhaps even more.
And that number was still rising. Ferraler and the other mayoral aides believed that by around the end of the year, Sabine City’s unemployment rate might exceed twenty percent.
Some might think a twenty-percent unemployment rate meant there was still an eighty-percent employment rate. In reality, the data was not as simple as it appeared.
The core around which it revolved was Sabine City’s available jobs. Once all the positions capable of providing work were filled, the remaining people could no longer find jobs at all. They would have no opportunity whatsoever.
And those positions, the ones that could let people work and earn wages, were constantly shrinking along with the wave of closures.
That was why, when William proposed that he could provide even five hundred jobs, the mayor had expressed support for his plan.
When such a great upheaval was about to arrive, nothing could reassure people more than a job capable of ensuring that a family would not starve.
Through his conversation with Ferraler, William also sensed something else. Ferraler, the mayor, and even the Federation Progressive Party all understood very clearly the problems the Federation was facing. They understood the changes taking place in the country.
That made William somewhat curious. “You don’t have any way to respond? I mean, at the senior leadership level?”
In truth, even by this point, although some things could no longer be reversed, there were still ways to reduce certain losses. Yet he had not seen anything of the sort happening.
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