It was already the end of the hot season (rainy season), so the heavy rain had stopped early the next morning, and the air outside was fresh.

McKinley's Ming wife had already prepared breakfast. The staple food was polenta, the side dish was fried peanuts, and a poached egg. McKinley went to the ground three times to five to finish the breakfast, turned his head and looked at the door. His two-year-old eldest son was sitting there playing with mud. This was his eldest son and the only son. Two months ago, his youngest son, who was not long after he was born, unfortunately died of illness, which made him very sad and loved his eldest son even more.

"The price of peanuts has increased again, and the eggs have increased," his wife began to complain. "The greedy hawkers have increased their prices every time they come, and they are really bad. Not only have these prices increased, but mangoes and bananas have also increased, but they have also increased very much. Do you government officials ignore it?"

McKinley no longer works in the guesthouse. He was introduced by Pei Suoning and became a clerk in the agricultural technology station. As for why he didn't go to the health center to work, he was still involved in the research and development of antimalarial drugs. However, his family knew his family. McKinley was a farmer, worked as a sailor, worked as a pirate, and dug coal in coal for the sake of his life. He felt that he was not a medical material, so he politely declined the errands at the health center and begged Pei Suoning to ask for an errands at the agricultural technology station. He is currently in charge of the introduction of tropical economic crops in Xinhua Town and Xixiang - of course he still took the initiative.

"I am from the Agricultural Technology Station and can't control economic work." McKinley replied impatiently, and asked his wife to bring her white shirt over. He had an important meeting today, so he was about to wear formal clothes. His wife quickly brought him the so-called formal clothes, which was a white cotton shirt and a pair of black linen pants. McKinley quickly left the house and then headed towards the town government in the city.

When he arrived at the town government conference room, people from all departments of the government were basically there. Of course, the so-called arrival simply refers to people from the civil affairs system. Cadres from large state-owned enterprises such as judicial, police, military, etc., as well as East African Transportation Company and Xinhua Shipyard were not present, so this was just a simple civil affairs work meeting.

The person who presided over the meeting was former assistant to the mayor, Kyle, who was acting mayor, who was born in the Navy, but he was relatively diligent and liked to study, so he was highly valued by Shi Qinjie. This time, Shi Qinjie returned to the local event, and before leaving, he clearly stated that Kyle would be acting mayor and presided over civil affairs work. This made a group of people who were originally on the same starting line as him envious.

"The meeting was held today mainly to discuss the recent price increase." Not long after McKinley sat down, he was greeting her next seat when Kyle's voice came from the top. So they stopped talking and started the meeting.

"According to statistics, the prices of various commodities have risen to varying degrees. Among them, the prices of daily necessities that ordinary residents care about most, such as sorghum, wheat, cotton, beef, palm oil, etc., are relatively stable and the increase is relatively small. This is mainly due to the coordinated and regulated effect of the Xinhua branch of the national reserve material warehouse. We have to admit this point." Kyle said loudly. After years of experience, he is nearly thirty years old and is a relatively experienced bureaucrat, so he is familiar with hosting such meetings.

McKinley was a little surprised when he heard what Kyle said. As far as he knew, Kyle was a firm economic liberal, mainly because his old boss, Schenjie, himself deeply believed in the liberal economy. Therefore, he has always been very disgusted with the government's intervention in the economy and advocates regulation through market mechanisms. Now he has certainly played the role of regulating the material warehouse and controlling prices, which still surprised McKinley.

Due to the harsh natural environment and super high mortality rate of New China, local residents have developed a high desire for consumption. Even those Ming people who are accustomed to frugality have not consumed as many times as those of Irish, French or Tatars due to the dual effects of the environment and the atmosphere, but they are quite considerable. After all, in this place, no one knows whether they will suddenly die of illness in the next moment. Therefore, the demand for various consumer goods has always been relatively strong.

The reason why these daily necessities have not increased much is actually not a one-size-fits-all approach. Among them, sorghum, cotton and other commodities are transported here from Hezhong Port, South Africa, and are sold at a fair price by state-owned stores belonging to the material warehouse. Therefore, the prices are low and there is no change in years. This is mainly due to the local state-owned farms enslaved black slaves.

In addition, part of the wheat is provided by South Africa, and part is imported through the Ottoman Port Suez Port. State-owned stores wholesale wheat to some hawkers. The hawkers then sell it from village to villages, forest farms, factory dependent areas, etc. to make some price difference. Of course, once prices rise to a certain limit, state-owned stores will also actively sell some wheat to stabilize prices.

Similar to wheat, beef is the same. Since the local hump beef population is not large enough, and the demand of the people is increasing day by day, the pitiful beef slaughtered by the meat joint factory every day is in short supply. For this reason, Shiqinjie discussed with the Portuguese in Mozambique on the other side and decided to introduce some livestock from them, but the slaughter must be slaughtered in a designated location on the east coast (Xinhua Port Meat Factory). Since the introduction of Mozambique beef, the supply and demand contradiction has been alleviated.

However, people on the East Coast are also striving to seek self-sufficiency. After all, Madagascar is known as the country of hump cattle in the future. There are more than 10 million hump cattle in the country, which means that the environment here is still very suitable for raising these cattle. However, the population is still small at present, and the number of slaughtered every day is far from enough to the consumption needs of more than 2,500 local residents and nearly 2,000 South African labor workers.

As for the proposed robbery from the indigenous people, it was soon rejected by Shi Qinjie. The indigenous people themselves were still war-torn, and even the Eight Banner tribes who defected to the East Coast people, their people's livelihood was very declining. Therefore, there was no future by looting, so they could only build themselves, but this required a process, so they temporarily imported part of the demand from Mozambique to solve the demand. At the same time, this also strengthened the economic ties with the Portuguese East African colonies and had a positive effect on the relationship between the two sides.

In addition, the owners of the Portuguese estate in Mozambique, the housewives of Zambési, also exported a large amount of palm oil to the east coast, which is another large-scale consumer goods and a necessity for daily life. The national material reserve warehouse is also stockpiled on a large scale, and the operation method is like wheat and beef.

To sum up, the prices of sorghum, wheat, cotton, beef, salt, palm oil, coal and other commodities included in daily necessities are basically well controlled, which ensures that the basic living standards of the people will not drop too much.

"The prices of luxury consumer goods such as tea, pepper, high-end leather shoes, high-end furniture, wine, porcelain, etc. have risen rapidly, and the prices of some of them have even doubled. Taking red wine exported from Zhenhai Port as an example, according to customs statistics, the average price to arrive at the port is about 6 yuan per bottle, but the final market sales price often hovers between 10-12 yuan, almost doubled. What is the reason?" Kyle asked with the materials at hand.

Without waiting for others to answer, he quickly buried his head and asked and answered: "According to the data of Customs, Industrial and Commercial Offices, Tax Offices, Finance Offices and Xinhua Branch of Northwest Reclamation Bank, the number of currencies (i.e. silver coins, East Coast Dollars) on the market in Xinhua Port has grown rapidly in the past year, thanks to the rapid economic growth of our New China region. Since the previous year, the export volume of coal, hardwood, sisal, and coconut has almost doubled in a year, generating a large amount of profits. In addition, with the nearby Portuguese East Africa,

The trade exchanges between the Ottoman Empire and Persia are becoming increasingly close. Some foreign merchants flocked to the town. They also brought a large amount of gold and silver currency, and also increased consumption demand. Under the combined effect of these two, many local commodities are in short supply and prices are rising rapidly, which makes the economic order a little disordered. In other words, the root cause of the problem lies in the market that has influxed too much currency in a short period of time, but our commodity quantity has not increased rapidly, which has led to a rapid increase in prices."

Although most of the goods exported by Xinhuaxia are traded between state-owned material warehouses and local governments, as the output and profits increase significantly, workers' bonuses and benefits also increase. With money, they will naturally want to consume. Especially in places like Xinhuaxia, where people's consumption desire is generally high, but the supply of goods has not kept up in time, so it is not surprising that prices will rise at all. In other words, although the income of workers has increased, the actual purchasing power of the coins in their pockets has decreased. The economy in the region has developed greatly, but they have not shared enough benefits of economic development. The root cause of the problem is here.

In fact, ordinary people don’t care too much about the price increase of these luxury goods. At most, they are amazed, wow, red wine is 12 yuan per bottle! But you basically don’t have to expect that they will often consume red wine, with a monthly income of 4-6 yuan. This is unrealistic. Therefore, trying to adjust the price of luxury goods is actually thankless, because its audience is not wide, and most of the complaints are senior technicians in factories, middle and senior government officials, military officers, wealthy farmers who grow cash crops, etc. As for ordinary people, who cares about the price of red wine or tea? Anyway, I won’t buy it!
Chapter completed!