The financial tsunami triggered on the US Wall Street is evolving into a global economic crisis. Now, on the Manhattan Island, almost everyone thinks that Chinese people are rich and Chinese people can save the world. When I returned from New York to Beijing, before boarding the plane, I encountered a coffee shop and went in to buy a few bottles of water. The young man selling goods said: You guys are Chinese, that's great, you're rich, the world is waiting for you to come and save it. I said: This time buying water has already cost ten yuan. I thought, they all think Chinese people have money because they don't understand China, fantasizing that China is the great savior of the world. When I got off the plane and walked out of the Capital Airport, I heard a conversation on the elevator going to the parking lot. One person who does coal transportation said that the freight price of coal dropped from 130 yuan/ton to 40 yuan/ton, and there was no coal to transport. Another person said: Last year our company made 2.4 million yuan, this year we lost about 2.4 million yuan. This is the real situation of the market and economy in China, which Americans fantasize as the great savior.
The Earth revolves around the Sun, and the Moon revolves around the Earth, always the smaller mass revolving around the larger one. In terms of economies, China is the Earth, and the US is the Sun. When the US has problems, China cannot avoid being affected, and it's even less possible for the US to revolve around China; China doesn't have such great power yet. The same principle applies domestically; if Chinese cities are the Earth, then the Chinese countryside is the Moon. Problems with the economy and market in the city cannot be solved by the countryside, just like the Sun and the Earth won't revolve around the Moon.
We must not be overly optimistic and should prepare for difficulties. What is the solution to these difficulties? Almost all governments around the world are using money to save the market, and the amount of money each government takes out is astronomical. However, from ancient times to today, no government will create a single cent of social wealth or pay a single cent of tax. Social wealth and the increase in fiscal and taxation are all created by enterprises and workers. Where does the government's money come from? There are only two ways: one is issuing national debt, borrowing from others or other countries. The other way is printing money; now with advanced technology, there's no need for printing with paperless transactions, as long as the central bank governor says how much to issue, the result can only be inflation, making the value of money in hand decrease more and more. As Warren Buffett wrote in his article for the New York Times the day before yesterday: "Today, holding cash is a terrible long-term asset, with no return and bound to depreciate." The situation in the US is like this, and the situation in China is no exception. Under these circumstances, what is our way out?
First, we should focus on the Chinese market and stop positioning the market as serving the Fortune 500 or super brands in the world. These companies had a small share of the market even before the economic crisis, not the mainstream of China's economic development, and it will be even more so after the economic crisis. In the next few months, we will see that the fastest declining companies will definitely be these kinds. Only by rooting ourselves in the Chinese market can we be the safest.
We cannot purchase resources and enterprises that become massive due to technological progress, such as internet bandwidth, computing power, etc. These things that seem valuable today will be worthless tomorrow with the advancement of technology. Although people need them and can't live without them, these enterprises find it hard to make money. It's like how people can't live without air, but no one opens an air sales company for the same reason. On the contrary, we should buy resources that are scarce but increasingly needed.
In China's future, honesty will become the most precious resource. Honesty is not just words, but actions. In the past decade, dishonesty in the market has destroyed the movie industry, the music industry, and the software industry. In such a vast Chinese market, the annual turnover of the movie, music, and software industries is less than the sales revenue of one building in the real estate industry. Due to lack of their own brands and technology, the clothing industry and electronic products industry have fallen to the pitiful state of processing for others and earning some manual fees. Dishonesty is also hitting the food industry, pharmaceutical industry, dairy products industry... A real estate developer came up with a strange idea, buy a house and get a cow for free, to drink fresh milk yourself, truly a regression of society. This morning, watching CCTV's program, Microsoft is going to hold an anti-piracy campaign, and computers using pirated software will intermittently show a black screen. Several young people interviewed by CCTV actually opposed the anti-piracy campaign, citing the high price of genuine versions as a reason. When thieves can openly say on CCTV that they are thieves, it shows how lacking in integrity our environment is.
The media will still report many bad economic news. In fact, the statistics published now do not represent the current situation; they reflect the situation from several months ago, half a year ago, or even a year ago (such as in the real estate industry). But I really like one famous saying by Buffett: "Bad news is the investor's best friend." This sentence reveals the essence of investment.
To view the economic crisis from a perspective beyond economics and consider what kind of enlightenment it brings us is a topic that requires thought and wisdom, and it is also a topic that requires our active discussion.