God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 448: We’re Victims Too!

[Viscount Roster is right. We’re just a mine. We’re only responsible for mining. The price of steel isn’t up to us—our mining speed is always fixed.

Price increases or decreases theoretically shouldn’t concern us. We just need to complete our tasks on time.

However, we’ve noticed that many people don’t seem to want that much steel. Producing it all might impact the market.

Once goods flood the market, the ones who really get hurt are us producers, because prices really won’t hold, and if market demand drops, we produce stuff we can’t sell—that’s a huge problem too.

If there’s no work, do we lay off the miners or keep them on...

After discussions with our board of directors, we’re willing to buy back steel futures at the price from before the steel futures market appeared. Anyone interested can negotiate with us to complete the transaction.

Note!!!!! Today only!!!!!]

Foster Iron Mine’s announcement was incredibly long—thousands of words—but it all boiled down to saying they were just miners, and they’d sell however much you wanted to buy at whatever price.

Now that there’s a problem, you can’t come after them.

The orders already placed still had to be fulfilled.

But after they completed those orders, they were victims too.

So what now?

To solve this current mess, they were willing to pay a certain price.

That price was—they’d buy back these futures at the original price, then just not produce anymore. This fit within the rules of the futures market anyway. They could deliver to themselves to complete the futures transaction.

But when this announcement came out, everyone lost it!

Are you kidding me?

The original price?

That’s less than a tenth of the current price!

Why should we?

Recently, steel demand had exploded so much—shouldn’t steel prices keep climbing?

Even if it couldn’t be as crazy as the futures market, there’s no way it could drop back to the original price.

Immediately, tons of people started raging.

"Are you kidding me!?"

"You’ve got some nerve!"

"Absolutely not. Even if prices drop, they couldn’t possibly drop that far!"

"We don’t believe it anyway."

"..."

All over the Magic Net, everyone seemed to think Foster Mining Company posting this announcement right now was just them rubbing it in their faces.

At this price, how was it different from robbery?

Never mind the people who came in later—even the early investors would lose money at this price!

But thinking about it carefully, it seemed like there wasn’t really anything wrong with what they were doing.

They thought this was the right price, so that’s what they set from the beginning.

The producers must have thought it through. If they could sell at a higher price, why wouldn’t they?

Trying to curry favor with Viscount Roster so they had to raise prices?

That’s nonsense!

You have to remember, Foster Mining Company was backed by the Hill Lands Commonwealth—a union of over a dozen hill country nations.

Would all those top-tier elites take a loss producing stuff just to please Viscount Roster?

How’s that even possible?

Thinking about it more, Viscount Roster seemed to have been warning everyone from the very beginning not to pay inflated prices...

Watching these people discuss it on the Magic Net, Viscount Roster’s lips curved into a slight smile. He knew this would be the result.

These people had their entire fortunes riding on this. How could they possibly compromise now?

How could they compromise?

If they returned the futures to Foster Mining Company at the original price, these families would lose all their mortgaged assets!

There’d be no way to pay even the interest at a tenth of the price.

They couldn’t even try the old "pay old debts with new debts" trick.

And right now, they weren’t desperate enough yet.

So why do this?

Simple.

To separate Foster Mining Company from this whole mess.

With something like this happening, these enraged nobles could do just about anything.

Their families had accumulated wealth for generations, and it was all riding on this.

Right now they were practically insane.

They needed an outlet.

That outlet could be Viscount Roster, the biggest buyer, or the dragons who provided the futures market, or Foster Iron Mine that dug up the ore, or... the wildly hyped and highly sought-after actuary Johnny from Futures Trading Report.

Viscount Roster had been constantly warning people online from the very beginning that steel futures prices were wrong. Now everyone could see he was right. Plus, he was the biggest buyer—maintaining what little price remained depended on him. Right now, the nobles wouldn’t think about going after him.

Besides, he had the Church of Technology backing him.

The Church of Technology’s combat forces were currently fighting like crazy north of the watch wall, and Viscount Roster handled their logistics.

With combat power that strong, they weren’t people to mess with.

As for the dragons... would anyone dare?

So the first thing these people would think of, or the first target they’d attack, would definitely be Foster Mining Company.

Viscount Roster’s whole operation was designed to extract Foster Mining Company from this situation.

Sure, right now it seemed like everyone was cursing Foster Mining Company, but after today? Things might be different.

And indeed, things went exactly as Viscount Roster expected.

These people gradually turned their attention to Johnny the actuary from Futures Trading Report. If it weren’t for Futures Trading Report, if it weren’t for Johnny the actuary, how would they have gotten crazier and crazier?

That Futures Trading Report kept saying every single day how vast the steel market was, how steel futures would keep going up, laying out incredibly detailed data, constantly proving that steel prices were still at a stable level.

That they’d definitely go up later.

Then so many people supported Futures Trading Report. Under those circumstances, they believed it would keep rising, and then they...

Suddenly it all became crystal clear.

So it was all Futures Trading Report’s fault!

All Johnny the actuary’s fault!

Most people would never admit that the person who made such a stupid decision was themselves, especially when tons and tons of people made the same stupid decision—then they’d really believe someone else caused it.

Of course, they wouldn’t dwell on this question for too long.

Because right now, the most important thing was to unload their steel futures.

Right now, prices on the futures market were dropping steadily, falling faster and faster. Selling there was obviously impossible.

But these nobles didn’t only have the futures market as an option.

Earlier, when they were buying up futures on a massive scale, they’d privately investigated who had the most futures, who else was interested in buying futures...

Quite a few people had even made private contact, wanting to buy each other’s futures. Now they only had one idea: negotiate privately and sell their futures to others at prices lower than the futures market!