Chapter 71 The Excessive Silver Price

If I could do it over again, I would definitely choose not to go to the Kazim family's thank-you banquet!

Three days later, Carter sat at the Kazim family's dining table, staring at the familiar trio across from him with an extremely eerie expression.

Rewind to the banquet just three days ago, everything started off fine. Seeing the two gang members, Duderick and Barry, again wasn't surprising for Carter, as they were Duke's friends, after all, practically brothers.

Celebrating Duke's exoneration, their presence was only natural! But after a few rounds of drinks and dishes, things took a turn.

"Duke, have you heard about what happened at the Orvik Street Brewery recently?"

"No, you know, I've been busy studying with the lawyer on how to speak in court. I haven't had the energy to care about what's going on outside. Has something happened in the gang?"

Duke put down his knife and fork, looking puzzled at his old friend. Meanwhile, Carter continued eating his food, showing no interest in the gang-related conversation between these old men.

"It's not our guys, it's O'Neal's people. Wasn't that brewery supposed to be settled with those rednecks? It's a free market; anyone can go in there and sell stuff."

"Are you saying Triffelli broke the agreement?"

"No no no, it's not that. Here's the thing, there's a guy under O'Neal, named Hadley, who lives on the street next to yours, you might even know him. He went to the brewery two days ago to sell some leaves and had already negotiated with a customer inside, but the customer didn't have enough money on him, so Hadley told him to go home and get it."

Duderick explained to Duke, with Carter present, making no attempt to conceal the meaning from him.

"Everything was fine initially, the guy came back to the brewery as promised. But instead of coming back with money for Hadley, he directly gave the money to Triffelli's people and bought the leaves from them. Hadley happened to see this when the guy came back, and he thought Triffelli's people had snatched his customer."

"I'm full, Uncle Duke, you guys carry on with your chat. I'll go watch TV with Kazim!"

Finishing his food hastily, Carter immediately left the dining table. While maintaining good relations with Kazim was beneficial for peace at school, delving deeper into gang disputes was not his cup of tea.

Sorry, whoever wants to pry into it can go ahead!

Not interested and wanting to steer clear of gang affairs, Carter left to avoid suspicion. Seeing Carter leave, Kazim wanted to stay and listen, but after a glance from his father, he reluctantly followed Carter out of the dining room.

"Kazim, are you full?"

Rubbing Kazim's little head, who was squatting on the coffee table eating, Carter asked with a smile.

"Yeah, I'm done. This is enough for me. I'm just a kid; I don't eat much!"

Pleased with Kazim's obedience, Carter ruffled his hair before taking the TV remote. Moving closer to Carter, Kazim handed him the remote.

"Carter, you might not like cartoons; you can find the channel you want to watch."

"Tsk tsk, Kazim, you're being a bit much! Usually, whenever I want to watch something else, you cling to the remote and don't let go. How come you've changed so much as soon as Carter arrives?"

Laughing, Kazim's elder brother, who followed Carter into the living room, teased. He was quite satisfied with his brother's behavior.

"Carter is a guest, he's different from you!"

"Hehe, then I'll thank Kazim first. Let's watch the news. Kazim, watching news will be helpful for your future. Same goes for you, Kazim, watching too many dramas is not nutritious."

Thanking the two brothers with a smile, Carter wasn't shy. He took the remote from Kazim and switched the channel to the New York station. It was October 1979; Volcker had been in office for two months. If there were any movements from him, the first place to react would undoubtedly be New York!

Not only because New York was the financial center of the United States, but also because it was Volcker's stronghold. Years of working at Chase Manhattan and the New York Federal Reserve had made Volcker familiar with the New York market and its people.

Trying to curb the current high inflation was as difficult as a financial revolution. Any reform would inevitably face immense resistance. However, looking across the United States, only New York might offer slightly less resistance to Volcker.

During this time, whenever he had free time, Carter liked to turn on the New York channel to see if he could catch any signs from the news.

"Well, I understand. I'll watch more, but I might not understand much."

Kazim, who silently noted Carter's words, smiled awkwardly and lowered his head, looking embarrassed.

"Haha, it's okay, take it slow. Maybe after watching for a while, you'll start to understand a little."

Chatting with the two brothers while watching the news, Carter suddenly furrowed his brows.

"Wait a minute, Kazim, hold on, I need to do some math."

Pausing the conversation, Carter quickly calculated in his mind. An ounce roughly equals about 28 grams, so on average, it's about $4 per gram of silver. Comparatively, it seemed not much different from the future price of silver.

But Carter understood very well that it couldn't be calculated like this!

Firstly, inflation, need I say more? These years happened to be the most severe inflation years in the United States. The price level and wage level were almost changing every year. Thirty years later, would today's dollar be comparable to tomorrow's dollar?

Even if converted into Chinese yuan on a year-on-year basis, it's the same! Could today's 4 yuan be compared to the future's 4 yuan?

Though Carter usually didn't wear jewelry and hadn't speculated on futures, he, with a keen sense, realized the problem:

The price of silver was too high!

As the saying goes, when things go against the norm, there must be a demon. Gold prices skyrocketing, Carter could understand, after all, gold as the precious metal anchoring currency, the more severe the inflation, the more valuable it became. Demand was high.

The national treasury needed more gold to maintain currency credibility, and ordinary people wanted to buy more gold to fight inflation, shifting the risk of currency devaluation. Therefore, no matter how much gold rose during this period, even after Nixon announced the detachment of the dollar from gold a few years ago, Carter didn't find it surprising.

But silver, it didn't have this effect!