Overturning the Table

Chapter 731: Overturning the Table

To weather the economic crisis, Austria was the first to open the floodgates of dumping. Starting in September, Austria's exports surged dramatically.

Agricultural products were necessities, so their prices had not fallen too severely; most were discounted by 5 to 10 percent. Everyday textiles, however, saw far steeper drops. Discounts of 20 to 30 percent were commonplace, and products selling at half price were far from rare.

By this point, profit no longer mattered. Selling off stagnant goods and converting them into cash flow was the true kingly path.

You never knew until you acted; once they did, the result gave them a fright. Watching export trade volumes soar by the day, even Franz's heart pounded with alarm.

Austria was the world's number one industrial power, and likewise the world's number one nation for stockpiled goods. After the Prusso-Russian War, it was not only the Berlin Government that had defaulted on its contracts; the Russians were no exception.

With the war already over, orders that had yet to be delivered naturally would not be honored.

In a sense, the Russians also deserved some credit for everyone's current frenzy of price-cutting.

The Tsarist Government had defaulted, so the deposits naturally could not be recovered. Without question, that money became corporate revenue, lowering the cost of the goods.

There was never any shortage of clever people in this world. The state-owned enterprises' cost-be-damned price-cutting exports immediately caught the attention of those with sharp eyes, and the quick-witted instantly realized: "The economic crisis is here."

In times of crisis, cash was king.

Looking at the mountain-like piles of inventory they had amassed, every one of them knew trouble had arrived.

There was nothing to say—they had to follow suit. The market was not yet transparent in this era,