The President of the Bank of France, Count Argoux, spoke with a serious expression of honorific to Jérôme Bonaparte, and then tactfully dissuaded him: "The role of the Bank of France is to provide cover for other banks when they go bankrupt. It rashly affects the market.
Lending money may bring the French market into a temporary period of prosperity. When the tide recedes, the French market may face greater threats."
Although Count Argoux did not have a systematic understanding of Keynesian theory, based on his keen financial intuition developed over many years in charge of the Bank of France, he felt that what the President said about using financial means to stimulate industrial means was ultimately like giving a
Just like when a weak person is injected with opium, the patient will become excited due to the influence of opium in a short period of time. After the stimulant of opium wears off, the person who was originally sick will become even sicker.
"Count Argoux, in the long run, people are going to die!" Jérôme Bonaparte sneered. He used the most classic metaphor of later Keynesian theory to refute the conservative Count Argoux: "Just
Like a sick person, you don't prescribe him medicine. Instead, you tell him that people are bound to die! The side effects of the medicine may put the patient in danger later. Should we give up treating the patient because of the dangerous characteristics of the medicine itself?
?Are we going to pray that the patient’s body is strong enough to get through it?”
Jérôme Bonaparte's series of questions made Count Argoux fall into deep thought. Not only Count Argoux but also the brothers Achille Fuld, Magne and Perel also fell into thought.
In particular, the brothers Achille Fuld and Perel, who believed in Saint-Simonianism, felt that the theory spoken by the president had many similarities with Saint-Simonian theory, but also had some differences.
"Your Majesty, please believe in France!" Count Argoux pleaded to Jérôme Bonaparte: "Slight fluctuations cannot defeat the French market. France can resist it by relying on its own adjustment mechanism!"
"Mr. Argoux!" Jérôme Bonaparte stopped honoring the president of the Bank of France. He said coldly: "Tell me, what happened to the disaster a year ago? What you said
Where is France's own regulatory mechanism? I only see banks going bankrupt on a large scale and factories closing down on a large scale."
The Count of Argoux remained silent. He could not refute Jérôme Bonaparte's words. The changes a year ago made the directors of the Bank of France still afraid.
The large-scale bank failures brought about large-scale bad debts, and the Bank of France itself had no plans to rescue the market, which led to more companies facing bankruptcy. Under the double blow of bank failures and corporate bankruptcies, the entire Paris Stock Exchange was completely plunged into chaos.
In the chaos, various bonds plummeted crazily. The large-scale collapse of bonds directly affected the overall operation of the Bank of France. The Bank of France had to sell a batch of reserves in an attempt to save the world. But what happened to the Bank of France, which missed the best time to rescue?
The Bank of France, which was an opponent of the entire financial trend in Paris and had released one-third of its reserves, discovered tragically that the Paris Stock Exchange did not stop the downward trend at all, but instead swept towards France at a faster speed.
For the purpose of self-protection, the Bank of France could only announce that it would stop exchanges. The angry Paris citizens wanted to storm the Bank of France and get back their property.
If the government at that time had not considered that the bankruptcy of the Bank of France would bring greater disaster to the whole of France, the Bank of France would have been turned into ruins in the torrent.
It is precisely because Lamartine and others used administrative means to force the Bank of France to stop exchanges that the Bank of France, while breathing a sigh of relief, still has the power to spread the influence of accepting a batch of bankrupt banks to the Bank of France to the secondary cities of France.
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"Your Majesty, the previous year was caused by the turmoil caused by the combination of political issues and economic issues!" Count Argoux boasted to Jerome Bonaparte: "I believe that under your leadership! France will not fall into
Such a situation!"
Count Argoux's praise did not make Jerome Bonaparte feel the slightest bit happy. He believed that Count Argoux was just responding to him in a sloppy way.
Medieval financial thought has tightly entangled France from beginning to end. France under conservative finance will only invest all their money in more profitable places.
"Your Majesty, the Bank of France cannot conjure money out of thin air!" Achill Fuld on the side also said euphemistically: "Even if we invest funds in the market, the market will face a run because it cannot bear it.
Possibility!"
"Minister Fuld, haven't you considered this?" Jérôme Bonaparte took out a Bank of France note worth one thousand francs: "If we can lower the standard and issue 50 francs through the Bank of France,
Even if it is 10 francs, then we can have more ways to stabilize the market and postpone the run. The economic weakness is only temporary. We only need to stabilize employment when the economy is weak to prevent large-scale unemployment.
When the economy recovers, the currency we issue will be offset by the economic recovery."
Historical experience tells Jérôme and Bonaparte that the industrial revolution can offset part of the crisis caused by excessive currency issuance.
After World War II, the capitalist world had to provide a high welfare system for its citizens in order to compete with the Soviet Union. Such a high welfare system brought obvious shortcomings, that is, the capitalist world had to use money printing machines to plunder the world's wealth on a large scale.
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With the joint efforts of all countries in the capitalist world, Keynesianism lasted for more than 30 years before it produced marginal benefits.
Both the capitalist powers and the Soviet Union experienced weakness. The consequences of over-issuance of currency were partially alleviated after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Then the third information revolution also eliminated some of the consequences of Keynesianism.
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This allowed Keynesianism to continue for more than 30 years. Until the era of Jérôme Bonaparte's previous life, Keynesianism was still spreading its flowers.
The currency issue problems caused by the first industrial revolution can be partly solved by the second industrial revolution, not to mention that there are still many undeveloped areas in the world.
The evil consequences caused by Keynesianism can be solved entirely by relying on the third world.
Of course, Achille Fuld did not know what Jérôme Bonaparte was planning, and they also could not imagine that the world would develop faster than they imagined.
The productivity that exploded in more than 200 years exceeded the total of the previous thousands of years. The bourgeoisie crushed the shackles of the aristocracy with its huge productivity and vitality, pushing the world to a new height.
In Argoux's view, what Jérôme Bonaparte did was a complete plunder of the "nationals", and what was even worse was that this plunder was called a "country".
"Your Majesty, doing this may cause prices to rise!" Count Argoux did not dare to rebuke Jerome for plundering the people. He could only carefully dissuade Jerome Bonaparte from giving up his thoughts: "Every time Paris
Any price fluctuation will lead to a revolution!"
"Then just use administrative measures to prevent Paris from raising prices!" Jérôme Bonaparte said nonchalantly.
The history of France is a history of distribution according to demand. Preventing prices in Paris from rising does not mean that prices in other cities are not allowed to rise.
Just let other cities suffer instead of Paris.
"Mr. Argoux, I think unemployment is more fatal than rising prices!" Jérôme Bonaparte responded to Count Argoux.
"Your Majesty, this will cause people on the exchange to panic, and more people will sell their bonds!" Count Argoux responded to Jérôme Bonaparte.
"If necessary, some means can be used to maintain stability!" Jérôme Bonaparte said nakedly to Count Argoux.
Everyone present knew the subtext of Jérôme Bonaparte. If normal trading methods were not enough, guns would be a good solution.
In the view of Count Argoux, Jérôme Bonaparte's theory no longer belongs to the traditional financial category. This theory is entirely based on administrative instructions as a guide to reverse the will of the entire Paris financial level.
The shadow of Emperor Napoleon once again appeared in Count Argu's mind, and he showed a wry smile.
"Of course, I mean if necessary! We can take the approach of closing the market!" Jérôme Bonaparte comforted the Count of Argou. He did not want the president of the Bank of France to be angry to death by his remarks.
"Your Majesty, if you insist on doing this, please remove me!" Count Argu used his last trump card. With his conservative thinking, he really could not imagine what he would do after implementing the policies of Jérôme Bonaparte.
What impact did it have on France?
Although he still missed his job as president of the Bank of France, he was even more unwilling to implement Jérôme Bonaparte's nearly suicidal policy.
According to the constitution of the French Republic, the president has the power to nominate the president of the Bank of France.
However, one of the conditions required to become the president of the Bank of France is to become a member of the French board of directors.
The only banker Jérôme Bonaparte had in his hands was Achille Fuld, who was a member of the board of directors, but as the Minister of Finance, it was impossible for him to also be the President of the Bank of France.
The pros and cons of the impression created by the rash selection of a man whom Jérôme Bonaparte did not know are unknown.
Rather than face a central bank president whose pros and cons are unknown, it would be better to choose the Count of Argu.
At least before Jerome Bonaparte completely usurped the throne, he could not cause too much turmoil in the Bank of France.