Chapter 869 South America (1)

Back in Berlin, Yannick learned that President Wilkie was critically ill and had submitted his resignation, and the vice president also resigned.

"Tsk, this poor guy." This unfortunate guy had been in office for less than nine months.

Of course, there is no worst in the world, only worse. Wilkie's tenure was not the shortest. William Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, encountered extremely cold weather at the inauguration ceremony on March 4, 1841, but still insisted on giving his inaugural speech. As a result, he caught a cold and died just one month after taking office, becoming the shortest president in American history.

There is also the 20th president, James Garfield. This president, who was born as a mathematician, did not like to bring bodyguards every time he went out, whether for the sake of being close to the people or because he felt it was troublesome. Four months after taking office, he went to the train station one day, with only a secretary of state beside him, and an assassin named Guiteau shot him. The injury was not serious, just a shot in the back, but when he was sent to the hospital, he met a quack doctor and the president was cured to death.

And even if President Wilkie did not resign voluntarily, he would not have survived his term. In the original time and space, he died of a heart attack in 1944.

Now that the president and vice president have resigned, the United States has to hold a new election. It is not new to hold elections during wars. In the original time and space, presidents were replaced during World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Even during the American Civil War, elections were held as usual.

I don’t know which unlucky guy will take over this mess this time.

“How is the airport in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon?”

Marshal Kesselring said respectfully. “It has been completed and our bombers are gradually arriving. The ME-264D bomber can cover the entire United States, and other bombers can also bomb most of the northeastern industrial areas.”

“Not bad.” There is no need to think about landing on the US mainland for the time being, so let’s continue bombing and blow the US industrial areas into ruins first. “What about South America?”

This time it was Marshal Raeder who spoke. “Our fleet is about to arrive in French Guiana.”

In fact, the fleet’s destination is Venezuela, and French Guiana is purely a detour. As mentioned above, Charles de Gaulle occupied French Guiana and became a local emperor. Although Yannick asked Vichy France to issue a wanted order and even offered a reward of 1 million euros, there has been no news so far; it is said that Charles de Gaulle lives in seclusion and dares not show up all year round.

Although Charles de Gaulle can't make any big waves now, this guy often makes remarks about counterattacking France to show his presence; it feels like a toad crawling on the instep, not biting people but disgusting people. Therefore, Yannick ordered the fleet to solve this trouble by the way.

Soon, the German fleet arrived in the waters of French Guiana. As soon as the shrill alarm sounded in the port of Cayenne, the attack aircraft taken off by the German fleet had already flown over the port. The "Bearn" aircraft carrier and several other old warships anchored in the port were bombarded, and then the Marines began to land.

In Venezuela, which is adjacent to Guyana, the German ambassador came to the Venezuelan presidential palace to visit the current president, Isaias Medina Angarita. "Mr. President Angarita, what do you think?"

Speaking of countries that made a fortune from the war during World War II, many people will think of the United States. But in addition to the United States, there is another country that also made a fortune during World War II. It is Venezuela, an inconspicuous small country in South America.

Because the main battlefields of World War II were in Asia and Europe, life in America was relatively stable at that time. For the people of America, no matter how fierce the fighting outside was, it had nothing to do with them. They only needed to guard their own territory and develop the economy. And Venezuela was particularly smart and found a way to make money.

That is oil, which is indispensable for every country participating in the war.

In 1939 alone, Venezuela's oil production reached nearly 30 million tons, and almost all of this oil was used for export. During the entire World War II, Venezuela definitely made a fortune.

The endless supply of oil symbolizes endless wealth, and the country's cash reserves are so much that it can implement communism. Venezuela once became the country with the "highest happiness index in the world".

With more money, they began to float, and the top government officials began a series of suicidal behaviors.

Especially after Hugo Rafael Chavez Frías took office, he simply stepped on the accelerator and took Venezuela to hell.

After he took office, the first fire he set was to the private economy, which was the most economically dynamic and innovative at the time. He expanded state-owned enterprises, used state money to acquire private enterprises and then put them into the system of state-owned enterprises. More and more industries such as banking, steel, communications, and energy were completely monopolized by state-owned enterprises. Not only that, he also issued dozens of difficult laws against private enterprises and private business owners. As a result, private enterprises were in mourning.

The second fire was to vigorously promote the planned economy. The most typical example is oil. In this country, gasoline is cheaper than mineral water. The logic behind the price of oil is the sky-high government subsidies every year. Rice, flour, grain, oil and more and more commodities are restricted by the government. Similarly, the logic behind price control is the huge fiscal subsidies every year. Every year, the fiscal subsidies for food alone are as high as more than 600 million US dollars.

The third fire was the launch of a number of welfare security projects that the country's finances could not support for a long time: for example, the universal free medical care that was once envied by people in many countries, and the construction of free houses for the poor, and one million houses were built at a time!

With the continuous development of large-scale oil fields in the Middle East and other places, world crude oil prices have been falling, and Venezuela's national fiscal revenue has been declining, making it difficult to maintain such a high welfare policy. Coupled with the sharp drop in government revenue, in order to make up for the fiscal deficit, the Venezuelan central bank had to start printing money. The proliferation of banknotes will naturally cause inflation to soar.

At its worst, the inflation rate reached over 740%. People carrying 100,000 yuan went out not to buy a car, but just to buy a small bag of flour; there was even a strange phenomenon of using brand-new banknotes as paper towels, because this A piece of paper money can't buy a tissue. Even if you have enough money, it's hard to buy anything in this country. The entire country is short of everything except paper money. From necessities such as flour, cooking oil, cornmeal, and medicines to daily necessities such as soap, toilet paper, razors, and batteries, everything you can think of is missing.

Not only for daily necessities, because domestic printing plants lack paper and metal, this country cannot even print its own currency. It has no choice but to outsource the printing of money to other countries. Then... when dozens of heavily armed Boeing 747 passenger planes delivered dozens of tons of the country's banknotes, the printing plants responsible for printing the country's banknotes sadly discovered that the country had no money at all to pay for the printing money. of orders. This country is so ridiculous that it “can’t even afford to print money.”

In this way, in just a dozen years, Venezuela has gone from being the country with the "highest happiness index in the world" to being the country with the "highest weirdness index in the world."