Mediterranean hegemon

Faced with the plummeting lira exchange rate, the international media just watched the excitement, but Italy was really under real pressure. Not only was Count Volpi, the finance minister, as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, but even Mussolini himself couldn't sit still. He still had the traditional view that the exchange rate was a symbol of a country's status as a great power. The higher the better. At first He also wanted to force the lira to the level of 90 lira: 1 pound. Unexpectedly, it has now fallen below 200 lire: 1 pound, and is even on the way to 250.

He called Contini to his new office, the Palazzo Venezia, and said with a worried face: "Calais, I won't comment on your revival plan. Anyway, I know that such a large investment will definitely cause inflation. , I am mentally prepared for the exchange rate to fall, but the exchange rate has fallen too fast, far beyond what I thought at the time. You must find a way to stabilize it. You cannot continue like this. Now European countries are laughing at it. We are under great pressure from national public opinion and political pressure... Some people have compared us to the Deutsche Mark crisis, but they say it more harshly - the Deutsche Mark issue is a force majeure natural disaster, and we are completely a man-made disaster. I completely believe you! , but I can’t believe it alone, I have to convince everyone.”

"Leader, don't worry too much. The drop in the exchange rate was deliberately indulged by me." Contini smiled. "Look, I have only announced plans for large-scale construction. In fact, many of them are still in the planning, site selection, and bidding stages. It has not started in large quantities, and the issuance of long-term national construction bonds is only in the issuance stage and has not been released. Why has the lira fallen sharply since I took office? We have not significantly eased monetary policy, nor have we deliberately issued excessive currency. Fluctuations are normal, but falling like this is completely evil.”

Volpi explained: "That's because the people's psychological expectations have changed. I think it makes sense for you to cancel the gold exchange standard, but the people don't think so. They instinctively think that lira notes will become worthless when they lose their value. Also, exports The disruption to the industry also reduces our sources of foreign exchange, which drives foreign exchange hunger and lira depreciation at another level.”

Contini did not answer Volpi's words and only said: "Leader, do you also agree with the count's point of view?"

Mussolini did not answer, thought for a while and said: "You mean someone is targeting us?"

"We don't know who is targeting us, but this trend of speculation is obviously abnormal. What does the drop in the exchange rate have to do with the ordinary Italian people? The total value of some of the goods that are blocked in exports is only 200 million U.S. dollars. After they are converted to domestic sales, all of them will be Lira calculations show that the prices of other social products have not increased, but have fallen slightly due to the international economic crisis, and the government's various aspects of revenue and expenditure have not changed significantly. Do they have to rush to exchange the lira on hand for foreign exchange? "

Contini commented, “The real driving force behind this is international speculative capital. They borrow lira from Italian banks, and then use the lira to arbitrage foreign exchange. They wait for the foreign exchange to depreciate to a certain level and then exchange it back, earning a large amount of income in vain. Didn’t the Deutsche Mark crisis feed this group of speculative capital? Through this month’s investigation, I have a preliminary grasp of the situation. It was organized to carry out premeditated and systematic foreign exchange speculation, involving at least more than 20 billion lire. The other 40 to 50 billion liras are due to the people’s coercion, Your Excellency, am I right?”

"Um..." Volpil was stunned for a moment and then asked, "How do you know this number?"

"Simple, if you carefully count the additional loans issued after the gold exchange standard was decoupled, it will be clear that many of them are short-term loans of three months - if it is to start an industry, who would borrow such a short period of money? So it is capital There is no doubt that it is speculation," Contini said with confidence. "Of course they learned wisely this time, because last time I learned not to let them lend to foreign countries in the short term. This time they disguised themselves as domestic Italian companies, but they forgot. One thing is that I was able to check the registration information and business registration of Italian companies, because the policy was introduced too quickly and they did not have time to cover up more. They could find out the problem by just penetrating one layer. The Er family and many other Jewish capitals are involved, don’t you tell me that you don’t know?”

Volpi blushed. Of course he knew: these consortiums had greeted him and exchanged a lot of central bank foreign exchange from him. He could not refuse and could only use a variety of methods. One was to promote the rapid depreciation of the lira. In order to reverse expectations, the second was to complain to Mussolini. He did not expect to hear such words from Contini. He also felt speechless. Finally, he reluctantly replied: "What you said makes sense. What should we do now?" ?”

"Introduce exchange controls!" Contini replied confidently.

"No! You must not!" Volpi was shocked. "Foreign exchange controls will only further aggravate market panic, scramble for foreign exchange, and cause capital outflows..."

“How much foreign currency does the central bank have now?”

"There is still a little over 200 million..."

"Well, there was almost 1 billion U.S. dollars a month ago, and it's 800 million less in one month?" Contini glanced at Volpi dissatisfied, "What I told you that day should be used sparingly, and I would rather depreciate it. It seems that you don’t take the advice of not maintaining stability seriously.”

This was almost a curse, but Volpi did not dare to say anything. According to the rules of the National Development and Reform Commission, Contini can control him now, and the reason why he did this made him feel a little uneasy.

Mussolini couldn't sit still and explained: "I don't blame the count. I asked him to support the market as much as possible. It's just that I didn't expect that more than 800 million US dollars were consumed at once. This speed is really too fast."

Contini sighed and said nothing: he already knew that Mussolini bypassed him and gave Volpi the order to support the city, so he waited aside to see when the two men would come to the door. ——Now everyone knows that the United Group still has a large amount of foreign exchange, but Volpi has no ability to use the foreign exchange in the United Bank, so he can only find Mussolini to find a way. Unexpectedly, Contini's attitude is not only not panic, but also On the contrary, he even said that foreign exchange controls would be carried out surprisingly forcefully, which surprised him - even the leader could not suppress the president?

"Why not regulate it?" Contini commented calmly, "Foreign exchange is an asset for Italy. It is just a means of international balance of payments and cannot be regarded as wealth itself. How many people need foreign exchange? Except for Importers and some people who need to go abroad do not need to hold foreign exchange. Now that Britain, France and the United States have closed their doors to our fashion products, we must also adopt trade protection policies to reduce imports and restrict the use of foreign exchange. It must be done. Without this kind of iron-fisted management, how can we decouple ourselves from the international market? How can we avoid being affected by the economic crisis?”

Mussolini fell silent. Of course, he could use his own methods to suppress Contini and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain the lira structure, but he was also worried about what to do if the United Group sat down and still couldn't maintain it. ? At that time, he was facing internal and external pressures and the relationship with Contini had deteriorated. He could not imagine how to survive the economic crisis. He had also read the foreign comments, and the rest were absurd. There was only one thing he could not deny: no matter what he thought in his heart, the outside world tied this son-in-law to himself, and both suffered loss and prosperity.

What? Do you want to end your relationship with your son-in-law? You have to cut ties with your son-in-law. Who else can you trust in the future? So he could only respond to Contini's statement with silence, which turned into a very strange situation. When Volpi told him, he agreed, and when Contini told him, he supported the latter. Devolpi was embarrassed.