Chapter 9 2. The law of the great era: rule replacement, driving the transformation of China's business environment

Strong capital is destined to eat weak capital, and currency capital is destined to eat physical capital. The law of big fish eating small fish in the ecological environment is also applicable in the capital market.The war between private capital and international capital follows the typical law of the food chain. Topic introduction: new rules that are not novel - international capital strangling war - new prey of foreign capital - responding to changes with the same In the past year, one topic has been persistent: the economic crisis. People with different occupations, different levels of education, and different social classes have completely different understandings of the economic crisis, but there is no difference in their fear of it.

The Chinese are afraid of an "economic winter". People who live in fear can also be divided into two types. One is the fear from the heart. They understand the possible consequences of the economic crisis and have experienced the impact of the economic crisis through direct or indirect channels. For this type of people, The overall image of the economic crisis is tantamount to an invisible earthquake. Because of this, for this type of people, most of them will focus on exaggeration, combine what they know and hear with theory, and connect with the status quo, becoming the most pessimistic group in this era.

The other kind of people is completely different. They are also afraid, but this fear is not from the heart, but is infected by the first kind of people. If we have some understanding of group psychology, we will know that contagion will have the same effect on everyone in the group, and this effect will gradually become stronger and stronger as the emotional chain of the group is passed on until it breaks through. Thoughts and imaginations still won't stop. Therefore, for this type of people, even though their lives have not been affected in any way, they have not lost a single penny of income, and they have not taken a car less, but they still feel that they are on the front line of the crisis and become anxious all day long.

However, looking at the history of the world economy, this is not the first economic crisis faced by mankind, and it will never be the last. In fact, a crisis like this happens every thirty years. It is just It is just an integral part of the laws of the market economy - if there is a climax, there will inevitably be a trough, and if there is development, there will inevitably be a recession. However, in the long-term planned economy era, we have no opportunity or channel to perceive the crisis. In fact, the vast majority of Chinese people not only panicked in this economic crisis, but even in calm times, we behaved like inexperienced novices.

"We need to understand the rules of the international business community. We are only in a cyclical growth logic. While striving to create value, we must pay attention to connecting with the international market and ensuring our core competitiveness." This is a point of view that does not need to be argued at all, and it even loses its characteristics because it is too correct. If you have studied the most basic international trade theory, you can make the same argument, but when it comes from the mouths of countless economists When it is said repeatedly, it makes people feel sad when they hear it.

The new rules are not new, but our old system is astonishingly old. In the process of replacing the old rules with the new rules, it is really impossible to know how many enterprises will become victims. Speaking of which, when we shouted the slogan of "adapting to the rules", we have already declared that we are falling behind. A rule is something that is made by the first comer, followed by the last comer, modified by the first comer, obeyed by the last comer, controlled by the first comer, and followed by the last comer. In this process, the first comer has passed the rules Once the dominant position is established, no matter how hard the latecomers struggle, it will be difficult for them to flourish under the shackles of the rules.

We have spent ten years or more accumulating capital, and when we are finally qualified to enter the international capital market, we might as well ask ourselves, is our accumulation just to participate in a game where others make rules? When our private capital flows into the international market in batches, it means that a strangling war with international capital has begun. In this game, there may not be a winner, but we are destined to be losers. Some people may question now, isn't the will of capital destined to flow to high-profit fields?If we go against it, aren't we fighting against the law?

This is true, but this is only the first law of capital. In the actual movement of capital, there is another obvious law: Strong capital is destined to eat weak capital, and currency capital is destined to eat physical capital. The law of big fish eating small fish in the ecological environment is also applicable in the capital market. The war between private capital and international capital follows the typical law of the food chain. Industries such as manufacturing and low-end service industries are the most important foundations in the process of economic development, while finance and real estate are castles in the air built on the foundations. The most important law of capital wars is to use illusory high-end industries to erode competition The profits of the opponent's low-end industries.

Using stocks to eat up the profits of the opponent's shoe industry, using real estate to embezzle the profits of the opponent's agricultural product processing, and using exquisite capital operation skills to control the opponent's factories, mines, and land, this has been done in China more than 2,000 years ago. There have been examples. No matter how many fancy vocabulary and statistical methods there are, no matter how developed the society is, there are only two categories of social wealth, actual wealth and fictional wealth. The so-called real wealth refers to resources, industries, products, and talent pools that are closely related to our lives.

The so-called fictitious wealth refers to the dispensable high-end service industry, luxury goods, financial industry, securities, funds, and even all currencies except precious metals. In the history of China, many countries used domestic luxury goods and currency to exchange grain, gold and silver, and minerals from neighboring countries, and eventually achieved hegemony, while those countries that were drained of blood fat, because they established too many service industries, Selling too much real wealth, replacing physical reserves with currency reserves, embarked on a wrong path of wealth accumulation, and thus easily lost in the operation of capital, and eventually lost vitality and the country was destroyed.

Such a rule is so simple that even middle school students can see through it at a glance. However, the reason why this rule has been able to run for thousands of years, and even in modern society, is because it has insight into the weakness of human nature. As far as human nature is concerned, when we are faced with huge profits in the financial market and business opportunities worth billions in the real estate market, it is easy to lose interest in the production industry that has been carefully managed step by step. Investing capital in the former is almost a 100% choice. For any entrepreneur, the ultimate goal is to use the shortest time and the fastest speed to make the enterprise bigger and stronger, and it is the most convenient way to join the capital market. Because of this, it is obviously contrary to human nature to let private enterprises resist such temptations. Because of this, it is inevitable to join the capital market, and the result of fighting against strong capital will inevitably lead to continuous outflow of real wealth and fictional wealth. Constant inflows, outflows of production funds, flashy securities and equity inflows, physical outflows, virtual inflows, a series of results that the consumer market is empty, and the capital market is crowded. Private enterprises participating in the operation of the capital market are undoubtedly out of self-interested considerations, but when such individual behaviors are superimposed, the results obtained are disastrous. For private enterprises, the profits of conventional production activities are fixed, and they can only increase their income by expanding the scale of operation. However, if they sell their physical reserves and exchange them for direct currency reserves, they are expected to make huge profits. When such scattered individual enterprise behaviors gather together, the final result is damage to the entire national economy. What is even worse is that due to the existence of the law of "big fish eat small fish", private companies with weak capital It is extremely difficult for an enterprise to survive in the international capital market and eventually become a big fish in the capital market. It can be said that in today's highly developed financial derivatives, even if we strictly guard our wealth, it is difficult to ensure that it will not be impacted by strong capital. Even if small fish live quietly, there is no guarantee that they will not be swallowed by big fish , not to mention that we take the initiative to send limited real wealth to others. In a real war, if one soldier falls, tens of thousands of soldiers will follow; but in this war of strangling capital, if a large enterprise falls, there will never be tens of thousands of companies following up. On the contrary , Companies that fail will even bring the entire industrial chain to destruction. If it is said that the game of the international capital market brings a kind of shock to private enterprises, then this kind of game will bring disaster to state-owned enterprises. Compared with private enterprises, although state-owned enterprises have a lot of disadvantages, their value is obvious to all because of the advantages of state-owned resources and long-term operation.Compared with its assets, the stock assets accumulated over the years, a large number of professionals, superior brands, and market share, these social resources are obviously more valuable treasures. The operation of state-owned enterprises is not measured by purely commercial principles. As a representative agency of state-owned assets, it can be said that any commercial activity represents the interests of state-owned capital. Possessing unique advantages, private enterprises are like grasslands and green forests meeting regular troops in front of state-owned enterprises. Not to mention keeping pace with each other, it is even difficult to keep pace with them. When a large amount of foreign capital poured into our market, although we gained considerable vitality, we also had to face the negative effects it brought. In China 10 years ago, foreign capital only relied on joint ventures and cooperation to obtain profits in a low-key manner. For leading and backbone enterprises in various industries, such a prospect is obviously chilling. Taking international capital as the vitality is one of the biggest mistakes that local companies are prone to make. Strong capital plus resource advantages can only bring about monopoly, and the hand of this monopoly comes from others. Once the current situation changes, our related industries will not develop. There is no guarantee of economic security. No matter how prosperous the economy is, no matter how much foreign exchange we have, we cannot buy enough security. What is even more frightening is that private enterprises cannot compete with strong international capital in terms of capital flow and persistence. In the face of the law of "big fish eat small fish", private enterprises have absolutely no chance. The reason why the government controls the participation of private institutions and private capital in the restructuring of state-owned enterprises is nothing more than worrying that state-owned assets will flow into the private sector and into the pockets of ordinary people, but it does not realize that the cold face of foreign capital is far more ferocious than private capital. When the private enterprises are in a difficult situation due to the impact of foreign capital, the state-owned enterprises are caught in a potential disaster because of the combination with foreign capital. Thus, we have obtained a proposition of macroeconomics here: the intervention of international capital must have an appropriate measurement, and the grasp of this measurement lies in how to deal with the key proposition of industry selection. In terms of economic thought, Chinese entrepreneurs have never gone further than a farmer. If a farmer has several years of surplus grain in his granary, a few horses of coarse cloth, some poultry and livestock, fruit trees, silkworms, mulberry trees, fish ponds...then these basic material wealth are enough to guarantee his life. The whole family lives a happy life without worrying about food and clothing, and can transition smoothly even in times of disaster. With the security of life, it is hard to guarantee that you will not have unreasonable thoughts, and you will inevitably envy the lifestyle of the rich, so you will follow the example of others in business, thinking that you should abandon agriculture and go into business, and that banks and wineries should be opened. , Even at any cost, the fields were completely thrown away. However, converting real objects into money means a heavy blow to the affluent life of farmers. Whether it is cattle, sheep, rice, or silk, chickens and ducks, the sum of these things is not worth the wealth flow of a bank for a day. Such a calculation method completely negates the survival value of the farm, and the result is dead. unacceptable. What is more unacceptable than this is the new business model itself. The profit of agricultural products is low. Even if it is to carry out the most basic loan, it needs to be exchanged for real wealth. After three times and five times, the physical reserves of the farmers will be exhausted. In vain, several years of living security have been wasted, and the monetary wealth exchanged is not enough for a small-scale operation. Now, when we re-examine the Chinese economy under the economic crisis, we will find how similar the two are. When our economy is prosperous, we always habitually cast our sights further afield; when our economic growth is guaranteed, we will think about developing the financial industry and high-end service industry; When there is improvement, they will think about catching up with developed countries, leaving the industrial economy behind and abandoning it. We can see that most of the state-owned enterprises and private enterprises have such a view. When they have just completed or have not yet completed the original capital accumulation, they are no longer focused on manufacturing and are no longer willing to engage in Rustic labor-intensive industries, instead of injecting limited funds into the real estate and financial fields to seek high profits. It is true that the profits in these fields are amazing, but when our urbanization and industrialization are far from being completed, these fields are dangerous. The profit that the industry can provide is limited, and it is absolutely impossible to generate a large amount of cash flow in the short term. Especially because our industrial foundation is not developed, we are not qualified to engage in larger-scale operations in the capital market. Therefore, with small performance , cannot support the capital flow required for financial expansion. Once there is a slight fluctuation in the financial market, in order to support a large and high-interest financing platform, our enterprises must withdraw funds from the industry and transfuse blood into the financial field. In this way, all the profits we gained from the steady operation were given to the capital market, and we were forced to lose more funds, including our capital in the end. Fighting in the capital market is undoubtedly a very difficult and cruel process. It even requires the unremitting efforts of several generations. The Morgan Group, which is famous in the international capital market, has gone through a history of more than 100 years. The Childe banking family, whose capital accumulation began as early as the Napoleon era two hundred years ago, during such a long process, countless enterprises and financial institutions died, and all the capital players who can survive today are all Stepping on the dead body to come bathed in blood. Perhaps, our business thinking is correct, but for the current Chinese economy, this kind of thinking is too advanced and too bold. If we want to achieve the goal of nuggeting gold in the capital market, in the current economic environment, we can only To raise funds in a desperate and desperate way in exchange for a bargaining chip, such a behavior is tantamount to dodging on a tightrope. From the perspective of the development of the global economy, we are still latecomers. At this stage of development, it is actually not inappropriate to operate in the fields we are good at. Some people may think that the labor-intensive industrial economy is seriously inconsistent with China's appearance as a big country, and sweatshops can only make us fall further and further away.However, have we ever thought that the true meaning of the economy lies in helping the world and benefiting the people? What we need are real employment opportunities and solid economic growth. The scenery can never last long. The capital battle royale in the economic crisis has shown that without industry, the country’s economy will lose its foundation. Needles and threads must always be made by someone, and food must always be planted by someone. Unchanging things are not necessarily a symbol of conservatism and stagnation. However, the situation remains the same and can be changed--Wal-Mart is still a world-class enterprise that is second to none until today, while Lehman Brothers used to have great glory, but its end is endlessly bleak. Perhaps, until we really lose it, we will not know how valuable those labor-intensive industries that we once despised are to our development and stability.