Chapter 236: The World Economy
Within a year of moving to Country U, the world's economy had undergone a seismic shift. Since the two most powerful families in the world had a world-renown marriage that was broadcasted to the world, the merger between the Lee Family's Car company, TJR Mobile and Tabola Family's Car company, Jaxus was a well-predicted move by business analysts. TJR Mobile had taken in Jaxus and retained its name. With this move, their rankings had stabilized in 2nd place in the world, just below Gale Foundations, that was owned by the Tobion Family. The gap between the two companies was infinitesimally small. Especially after the newly merged TJR Mobile had announced their latest car model release, the Voyager.
The Voyager had the latest state of the art self-driving state of the art technology that was comparable to the Gale X driverless car made by the Gale Foundations. In addition, the price of the vehicle was shockingly two thirds of the price offered by Gale. This meant that the car was more accessible to the general public and now upper middle-class consumers would be able to purchase the vehicle. This did not spell good news for the Tobion family, but such news had already been predicted by Alex Tobion. He long had the foresight to see that the combination of technological research between the two huge conglomerates would spell disaster for their company.
In terms of good news for the Tobion Family, 6 months ago, Sato's company, Era, had been released onto the international market. The collaboration between Era and the Black Box Space Program was a well-known topic within the Aerospace Industry. Since Era was registered as the first space mining company in the world, new government sanctions had to be created so as to allow Era to mine resources in outer space. As it was acquiring materials from outside of Earth's boundary, the best part was that Sato was not bound by taxation laws. Such profitable prospects resulted in an uptick of share prices. The space mining industry was a hundred percent a bullish market, where Era was the sole monopoly in the world. Within 2 months of registration as a company, the company's net worth had already exceeded 200 billion dollars.
Usually, such prospects of space mining would be low and shareholders would not hold much hope that space mining was possible. Yet, for Era, Sato and his business department had released its patent to renowned engineers and scientists around the world and asked for their predictions on whether Sato's invention would be viable for space mining. Of course, the results came back to be extremely positive amongst everyone and the prospects became very good.
The first official space mining machine after the prototype was built finished within the six months of Sato being in Country U. Every few days, Sato would pop by the Black Box facility and inspect the machinery. Everything went smoothly on the technical and business aspect. Sato had the first machine named as Leah, since the little girl at home wanted the machine to be named after her. By March of year 2107, the first ever space mining machine, Leah was launched into space through Black Box's rocket. Everyone that day was nervous, even Sato could not help but hold his breath as the rocket flew out of the Earth's stratosphere. Eventually, Sato could finally relax as the machine started to fly through space according to the flight path. Two days later, the rocket landed on the moon and the space mining journey officially begun. Sato monitored the progress of Leah and the ores that were obtained on the mission. As it dug downwards, the biggest profit was when the machine struck a platinum lode that was estimated to be worth 200 million dollars.
After a month of mining, the precious metals that were compiled by the machine was scheduled for return in a few days. The parachute machine was attached to the materials and was propelled off the moon's surface. Sato once again awaited nervous on earth for the return of the material pouch. Even though he had tested it out in simulation thousands of times over, there was still a chance whereby the returning machine would deviate from its trajectory. Though, such worries were all for naught as the counter measures performed on the machine resulted in its safe return to earth. On early April, the first ever space mining mission had concluded successfully and the materials had accurately crashed into the large pool of water in the backyard of the Black Box Space Center. The metals were retrieved the next day and sent for refining. In the end, the total profits from just this mining trip were around a billion dollars. Since Leah was still going to be on the moon and would be able to carry on mining for another three trips, the estimated profits after taking away the initial setup cost would be 3 billion dollars. To earn 3 billion dollars within four months of its first space trip, Era had easily become the most profitable company in the world.
In terms of whether Sato was happy with such results, the young man was glad that he was finally able to contribute to his family's business conflicts. His first business had finally started to take off in the right direction. In his free time when he was not monitoring the space mining machine, the 27-year-old man would spend his time with the other Leah. The Leah on Earth was now essentially his blood and soul. Everyday, without fail, the man would spend at least an hour with the little girl, nurturing her to become a happier person. Today, marked the first year anniversary since Leah was adopted into the Tobion family household.
Weekly Power Status
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