Chapter 451: New Era (I)
The first year of the Galaxy.
June 2nd.
As soon as the North American stock market opened, it was red and hot.
However, this bright red color is definitely not what the Wall Street financial groups and a number of North American stock investors want to see.
Because European and American stock markets rise in green and fall in red.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 7.3% at the opening and instantly triggered the circuit breaker mechanism.
Even Buffett, who is known as the God of Stocks, suffered heavy losses at this time. Medical and pharmaceutical stocks, insurance stocks, education stocks, sports stocks, and cosmetics stocks led the decline, followed by daily chemical stocks, electrical appliances stocks, automobile stocks, and real estate stocks.
Except for military stocks and a few companies involved in biochips and space exploration, stocks of companies in other industries are all bright red.
In fact, it is not just the North American stock market that has plummeted, but the stock markets of major economies around the world are all plummeting. During the economic crisis two years ago, the continuous plunge seemed to have come back again.
And this time, even if there is another plastic crisis, there is no way to stimulate a rapid recovery of the global economy.
Omaha Township.
Berkshire Hathaway's headquarters.
Buffett was in his chairman's office, listening to reports from five analysts, a look of fatigue and unwillingness on his face.
On the other side, DeSarro, who is in charge of Berkshire's insurance business, reported solemnly: "Mr. Chairman, our company's insurance business may be greatly impacted."
In fact, Buffett is well aware of the current situation without Desarroll telling him.
However, Buffett did not care too much about this. Even though his wealth has dropped a lot in the past two years due to high taxes and the economic crisis, his net worth is still more than 42.7 billion US dollars.
What he cares about most now is not how much money he can make, but how to survive.
Buffett, who was born in 1930, is now 94 years old. He has suffered from prostate cancer. Although he recovered with money, it definitely damaged some of his body functions.
In the past few years, he has felt increasingly powerless, his health has been getting worse day by day, and the feeling that he may die at any time makes him very uncomfortable.
At the founding ceremony of Sapiens yesterday, Li Qingye mentioned the technology that could extend lifespan by 42%, which made Buffett very eager.
However, he discovered in despair that things that were easily available to ordinary employees of the Intelligent Company were difficult for him to obtain.
Unless he is willing to give up Berkshire Hathaway and his $42.7 billion fortune and join Sapiens, even though he is one of the top three richest people in the world, he will not be able to buy the symbiotic microorganisms that can prolong life.
In life, it is hard to escape fame, wealth, power and sex.
For Buffett, he has enjoyed these things for most of his life. Now he is asked to give up everything and become a retired employee of Homo Sapiens. He cannot do it.
He looked at Vice President Robert and said, "Robert, how is the investigation going on with the genetic biology company I asked you to investigate?"
"Mr. President, I have learned something. Three genetic biology companies are indeed developing drugs that can rejuvenate people." Robert took out a research report from his briefcase.
Buffett took it and read it .
The three biotech companies are Aurora Genomics in California, Tiga Biopharma in Florida, and Windsor Pharmaceuticals in Britain.
"Windsor?" Buffett took a look at the company's equity structure and immediately understood who owned it.
In fact, Aurora Genetics and Diga Bio are also backed by large pharmaceutical groups such as Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
After all, life-extending drugs or technologies are definitely a powerful tool for reaping the benefits of the rich, so how could major pharmaceutical companies possibly give up this field?
Buffett looked at the product development situation above, and a hint of disappointment appeared on his face.
These three companies have researched several areas of life-extending drugs or technologies, but none of them has high value.
Either the life-extending effect is not obvious, or the side effects are serious, or even directly harm the human body, or the cost is extremely high and the therapeutic effect is shockingly low.
He thought for a while, picked up the phone and called the chairman of Johnson & Johnson.
Beep...
"Hello, Mr. Buffett, it's a pleasure to speak to you."
Buffett didn't exchange pleasantries, but got straight to the point: "Anthony! Is your company holding the controlling stake in that Dijia Biotechnology?"
"Diga Bio?..." The person on the other end of the line seemed to be confirming something. After a while, he asked, "Mr. Buffett is also interested in life extension technology?"
“Who’s not interested?”
"To tell you the truth Mr. Buffett, the research results of Tiga Bio are very mediocre. They can't even reach the 42% life extension effect of Sapiens." Anthony explained helplessly.
If it were any other investor, Anthony would definitely fool the other party, but Buffett is different. His network of relationships is too strong, and Anthony does not want to offend such an old fox.
After hearing about Sapiens' life extension technology, Buffett asked, "Anthony, do you know how those symbiotic microorganisms extend life?"
"According to our researchers' guess, it is most likely some kind of artificial microorganism that can combine with organelles. As for what it is, no one knows now because we have not obtained any samples."
"I think your company should be doing relevant research?" the experienced Buffett asked very affirmatively.
"...You are worthy of being called the stock god. Our company actually received , all of which require us to research life extension technology."
“Is a 5 billion investment enough?”
Anthony on the other end of the phone was also shocked by Buffett's generosity: "Mr. Buffett, I can't guarantee that there will be results within 10 years."
What this means is that if you die before the life-extending technology is successful, Johnson & Johnson will not be responsible.
"Don't worry, I know."
"OK, then I wish us a pleasant cooperation."
“It’s been a pleasure working with you.”
Buffett hung up the phone. Although he did not join the board of directors of City on the Hill, he knew Thomas Morgan.
He knew that the major families on the council would not accept this and would certainly increase their investment in the research of biochips and life extension technologies.
As for surrendering to the Homo Sapiens company, this is not the first choice of these tycoons unless they are forced to do so.
Ordinary people can go to work for the Homo Sapiens company, but these wealthy families and big families obviously won’t give up everything easily.
Not being able to defeat the Celestial Dragons is more painful than killing them.
Although Wall Street financial groups are feeling some pain from the global stock market crash, it has not caused them any serious damage.
After all, no matter how you play financial games like stocks and futures, the dealer will always make a profit, it’s just that it will become increasingly difficult for ordinary people to reap the benefits in the future.
Now the global pharmaceutical stocks are basically polarized.
Some pharmaceutical companies that produce common drugs and medical equipment are basically experiencing a continuous decline.
However, a small number of pharmaceutical companies related to life-extending technology bucked the market trend and rose.
At this time, after a night of discussion, the Hilltop City Council finally came up with a complete set of plans to deal with the Sapiens Company.
This includes completely prohibiting the Homo sapiens company from entering the market of the Free Association, establishing an internal market exclusively for the Free Association, and cutting off most of the external optical cables in the private sector.
In other words, from now on, the civilian Internet within the Free Union will not be connected to other places.
Apparently the Hilltop City Council had made a choice that had to be made.
In order to avoid being poached by the Sapiens company, they finally resorted to their signature trick - unplugging the network cable.
