Chapter 148: The Arch-Debtor

As September arrived, William White still had to attend school, while the filming of Johnny English had wrapped up and entered the post-production stage.

Life nowadays was quite leisurely: writing books, attending classes, and flirting with young ladies alongside a group of bad boys.

Arcade game sales were still going strong. According to surveys by relevant institutions, next year's arcade sales were expected to break the one-billion-dollar mark.

The appearance of this news quickly set Wall Street ablaze.

What kind of concept was a billion dollars?

No matter how loudly Apple was hyped, its current sales were only around three hundred million dollars.

Even that had already been endlessly touted by the media. What was this they were hearing now?

Well, once again, people were cursing him as a prodigal son. How wonderful it would be to manufacture this stuff yourself! Anyone could calculate the exact cost of the electronic components in a minute.

American math wasn't great—not that this applied to Wall Street folks, who considered themselves the so-called elite.

Regarding the complaints from a group of fund managers, several old-timers were entirely unimpressed. "You lot are the true prodigal sons! Just look at how much credit he secured from Japan!"

A billion dollars!

Could your arcade machines sell for ten years?

Even if they really could sell for ten years, could you guarantee that sales volume would remain constant the entire time?

They knew very well that not a single American bank would dare lend him a billion dollars—not even if he mortgaged all his assets.

It was true he earned a bit less on the video games themselves, but they could only say that because they hadn't seen his profits in Japan. Those old timers were well aware that Japan's stock market was performing far better than America's, and people's fund accounts were already turning a profit. Yet the folks back home were still whining about a prodigal son.

If you asked who had the largest loans in America among individuals, William White ranked right at the top. While the Hunt family also carried heavy debts, they were at least a family, and those loans were split among several people. Even if you added them all up, it didn't seem much higher than his.

Having become public debtor number one, William White felt no psychological pressure whatsoever. In fact, the Japanese were still eager to keep lending to him.

The logic was plain and simple: the money your video games earned was more than enough to cover the interest, and your comic books were making a fortune too. With such robust repayment capabilities, what did the banks have to worry about?

American banks had money too, but unfortunately, their interest rates were so high that William White couldn't even muster the interest to talk to them.

An interest rate of twenty percent?

No matter how good a businessman you were, you couldn't survive that! Unless the government subsidized the interest, they could go drop dead. He might as well just keep borrowing from Disney.

The American economy had entered a vicious cycle. Ordinary people were tightening their purse strings; forget about luxury consumption—even daily necessities required careful budgeting.

Cries for interest rate cuts were endless, but the head of the Federal Reserve turned a deaf ear. Although inflation had eased somewhat, it still hadn't reached his target.

Carter didn't have any grand illusions left; his hope of stepping down with dignity had been shattered. His current election prospects were utterly disastrous, setting quite a precedent.

Speaking of comic books, William White was also extremely happy. A weekly circulation of ten million copies—what a speechless, staggering figure that was!

Not profitable?

Are you an idiot? Didn't you see that even grape juice was being sold in Japan now? Advertisers were practically losing their minds, and heaven only knew what the year-end advertising bidding conference would look like.

Marvel stopped talking about acquisitions; you shouldn't provoke that rash kid, or he might just turn around and buy them instead.

Stan Lee desperately wanted to know how this little guy managed to produce so many script concepts. Did this fellow never need to sleep? He heard a new book was coming out soon, and it was going to be an extra-long epic—that was simply terrifying.

The result of his investigations was that William White was only responsible for the comic book frameworks and character designs, while the bulk of the scriptwriting was completed by other writers. The drafts were only submitted to him after cross-review.

A man who could turn movie production into an assembly line could naturally copy the pattern here as well.

Could you go and imitate him?

Setting aside whether you would crash and burn completely, those veteran writers wouldn't accept it anyway. Those old folks viewed comic books as their lives; how could they possibly accept such a change?

Try poaching talent?

The miserable state of Warner Brothers stood right there as a warning. The people you poached back were basically garbage. Writers suitable for William White weren't necessarily suitable for others; they needed people who could stand on their own two feet, not assistants.

William White was different. His company was more like a large machine, and the most hateful thing was that missing a part didn't affect the machine's operation at all. His reliance on individuals could almost be ignored.

The comic book industry didn't like him, and the movie circle didn't like him either, but Wall Street loved him. Such a transformation was simply fantastic—it reduced uncertain factors to the absolute minimum, and that was the kind of investment project they loved.

Listening to his assistant's report, William White couldn't help but find it amusing. Was it really that simple? He had just wanted to keep a low profile; he was already seen as a monster. If he had done everything himself, he probably would have been hauled off to a lab for research.

"Suzuki, notify the comic department. Publish The Simpsons as a standalone volume, and hand over the serialization work to the newspaper."

"Understood, boss. Do I need to inform the newspaper company?"

"Yes, go notify them and have them arrange the layout."

Sigh, the Japanese really didn't like this art style. Satirical comics like this were best published in newspapers; at the very least, it would boost sales just a tiny bit.

William White had no choice. His primary sales market was in Japan, so of course he had to accommodate those guys—after all, they gave him a lot of tiny little dollars.

Japanese comic publishers hated him with a passion. That laowai was utterly detestable; in just a few short months, he had completely disrupted the landscape of the Japanese comic industry.

Try pulling some dirty tricks?

You must be joking. American Daddy wasn't someone you could bully so easily. With trade disputes constantly flaring between the two nations, the government maintained a supportive stance toward such American enterprises. If they dared to mess around, they would definitely die a horrible death.

At the government level, that was the attitude, and the yakuza gangs were even more ridiculous. Because someone had tried to make trouble, three fingers had already been chopped off, and the gang boss had to go apologize in person.

The guy had hired a bunch of retired veterans as bodyguards. If you didn't want to end up hanging from a flagpole, it was best to behave yourself.

The national character of the Japanese was just like that: if you beat them down hard enough, they became remarkably obedient. You must never swallow your anger and endure it, because those people would just hound you endlessly.

Every single year, students in Japan took their own lives, and the reason was ultimately nothing more than being bullied.

This was their nature: the weaker you were, the more people would bully you. Fighting desperately to the death might give you a glimmer of survival; otherwise, you were completely dead.

Such vicious behavior had a long history. Had you ever seen any of it change?

Well, other countries had this problem too. It was best if you didn't cause any fatalities; if someone unfortunately died, you would be in deep trouble.

Minors were definitely not exempt from punishment; at most, the penalties were slightly lighter.

Well, you mention Heavenly China.

You really couldn't talk about that in too much detail. American law wasn't perfected in a single day, and even as it stood, there were loopholes.

The famous O.J. Simpson case was a prime example: you could kill your own wife and walk free simply because the police entered the villa without a search warrant, rendering all evidence invalid.

Regardless, every system had its imperfect aspects. Thinking about it too much would just drive you crazy. The world was so dangerous; simply managing to stay alive was already pretty great.