America 1982-Chapter 252 - 1: Why Tommy Didn’t Sneak a Snack_2
"So I shouldn’t need to remind you that it was my damn effort that sold Gabon’s three million loan for thirteen million," Tommy roared at Jim:
"It was me who made the debt more complicated, it was me who set various traps in the contract, to make sure Gabon couldn’t pay the fuck back even with money, ultimately gaining the mining rights to some of their manganese deposits and logging rights! And here I just wanted to film a documentary for KeyBank to record its acts of charity, totally without any self-interest, and you assholes have the nerve to make me pay out of my own pocket? F*ck! You damn vampires!"
Jim spat out his cigar, pointing at Tommy and cursed right back without fear, "It was my fucking effort! Your girlfriend just played angel, bringing wells and toilets, only spending money. I’m the one who takes care of the finish, I have to make all the connections! Do you know I danced with some dark and ugly old women from a UN African organization for this debt deal? It was me who made all the connections, turning three million of principal into thirteen million! You didn’t do a damn thing; you just figured how to include the fucking cost of a condom in the company expenses!"
"F*ck you! Jim Manzi! I swear I’ll kick you out! You’re fucking fired!"
"F*ck you too! I sure as hell won’t leave. I’ll join forces with the board to kick out you miserly, ignorant, lazy ass!"
"Whoa, whoa... cool it, guys~" Seeing the two growing increasingly fierce in their argument, Stephen quickly stood up to calm them down, as they glared at each other like fighting cocks, ready to come to blows at any moment:
"Calm down, it’s just three million, no need to get so worked up over such a small number."
Stephen Binns didn’t finish at Stanford, officially dropping out a year before graduating. Of course, the reason he wasn’t killed by his rigid and stubborn father was that he no longer needed a diploma to prove himself.
His two most successful college investments included investing twenty million to establish KeyBank with Tommy Hawk and investing five million with Tommy Hawk, Benjamin Benson, Jason White, and a few other investors to establish the Dell Computer Company.
There’s not much to say about the Dell Computer Company. In 1985, it launched its first product, the Dell-PC, which was cheaper than personal computers of equivalent configuration from other brands in computer stores. It also offered customizable options. In short, users could get a decent computer for 750 dollars, but essentially, after some persuasion, they tended to upgrade some components and purchase software packages, taking advantage of Dell’s flexible assembly and bundle sales model. Dell’s turnover reached sixty-nine million in its first year—not sensational in the industry but at least a solid footing.
However, compared to KeyBank, Dell’s return seemed inconsequential. It was Stephen Binns’ first time seeing charity done the Tommy Hawk way.
They took hold of Professor Yunus’s small bank, eventually swallowed it up, successfully adopting its concept as their own, leaving Professor Yunus to continue poverty alleviation in Bangladesh with the title of vice-chairman of the board and head of the Asian region. Jim, under the guise of charity, began KeyBank’s charitable operations in Africa and Europe.
Typically, the business started with Ottelia and various American charitable organizations under the United Nations. They presented themselves as angels in countries plagued by poverty. Ottelia and those people would naively offer interest-free loans, hoping to help the poor people who even lacked basic water resources, offering loans for building wells and providing toilets and other infrastructure.
When local government officials saw these silly Americans with plenty of cash willing to help the poor dig wells, they thought they could swindle the money into their own pockets; they often volunteered to collaborate with Ottelia. They would propose that their government and KeyBank set up a joint venture to receive the loan and then offer the necessary help to the poor in the name of a local company.
The officials sought to deceive these seemingly naive Americans into handing over their money for water wells. Yet when it came time to establish the company, Ottelia wouldn’t attend; instead, Jim would arrive with a team of American litigators. Through various methods such as corruption, bribes, and persuasion, they achieved their goals, which is to say, the government recognized that they represented the poor who borrowed an interest-free loan from KeyBank, and then those officials who were only good at taking bribes and couldn’t understand the contracts would sign them.
The contract would have a repayment period that seemed long enough that the officials thought they’d never have to pay back. And if they couldn’t pay back by the deadline, no one needed to take responsibility, just that some of the country’s resource extraction rights would temporarily belong to this charity-focused American bank until the debt was repaid.
Of course, Ottelia and Jim would assure the other party that KeyBank had no capacity to extract any resources, nor were they interested in doing such things, only in being passionate about charity.
Then, within a year or two after the contract was signed, Jim would come up with a bunch of excuses. Anyway, the bank had too many bad debts, there were liquidity problems, they were insolvent, and were forced to sell the debt to an American company that happened to be willing to help and also just so happened to be able to extract those resources.
