Creating America: My campaign manager was Roosevelt

Chapter 182 Fundamental Axioms of Finance

After the awards ceremony.

Leo sat behind his desk, holding a list that had just been printed out.

That's a detailed personnel list for the "Pennsylvania Industry Alliance Trust" bill flat technology operations team.

He read on, line by line.

Chief Architect: Former Vice President of Quantitative Trading at Goldman Sachs.

Head of Data Analytics: Former Senior Manager of Risk Control at JPMorgan Chase.

System Operations Director: Former Technical Advisor at Blackstone Group.

The list is long, and each name is followed by an impressive resume.

They all come from Wall Street, from the top institutions that control the global financial lifeline.

They were the technical backbone carefully selected by Evelyn St. Cloud for this project.

To ensure the stable operation of this vast and complex financial system, Leo initially agreed to Evelyn's personnel arrangements. However, he was not entirely unprepared.

Leo filled the deputy positions on this list, as well as the oversight committee, with his own people.

These people were accountants from the city hall's finance department, senior auditors from the audit office, and even a few statistics lecturers recruited from universities. Leo thought that with these people watching, Evelyn's people wouldn't be able to cause any trouble.

As it turned out, he was wrong.

And it's wildly wrong.

The city hall accountant knows how to verify the authenticity of invoices, how to check the compliance of budgets, and how to find extra coffee invoices from a pile of expense reports.

But they don't understand what a liquidity trap is, what delay arbitrage in high-frequency trading algorithms is, or the priority settings hidden in the underlying code protocols.

They thought they were in charge of regulation.

In reality, they were just watching a magic show that they themselves didn't understand.

Evelyn's people used the barriers of financial technology to exploit the ignorance of administrative bureaucrats and carried out their plunder.

"Even professionals make mistakes, Leo."

Roosevelt's voice echoed in my mind.

"Any complex system will have vulnerabilities in its early stages and needs to be debugged; this is common sense."

"Wall Street's models often break down, and the Federal Reserve's forecasts are frequently wrong. There's nothing wrong with the system needing to be corrected and the parameters needing to be adjusted."

"However, making a mistake and concealing it are two completely different concepts."

Leo stared intently at the list in his hand, his eyes blazing.

The chief architect is from Goldman Sachs, and the head of risk control is from JPMorgan Chase.

These people have spent half their lives in the financial world, and their sensitivity to numbers is even more acute than a shark's craving for blood.

Even Marcus, a sophomore, could spot the risks at a glance, so why can't these Wall Street elites see them?

They must have seen it, but they chose to remain silent.

They reported impressive growth figures to Leo every day, showcasing perfect trading curves.

They watched Leo travel between cities with the passion of a salesman, watched him as he assured mayors of win-win outcomes, and watched him stake his political credibility on the system bit by bit.

They stood in the shadows, observing coldly, waiting for that tipping point to arrive.

Then they can rightfully step forward and take over everything as saviors.

"This is betrayal."

Leo's fingers tightened suddenly, and the paper instantly turned into a crumpled ball in his hand.

"Prepare the car."

Leo slammed the wad of paper into the trash can.

"Where are you going?" Ethan chased after them.

"Philadelphia," Leo said without turning his head, "Chestnut Hill."

The iron gates of St. Cloud Manor slowly opened, and Leo's car drove onto the gravel driveway.

In the study, Evelyn St. Cloud sat behind her desk, flipping through a report titled "Investment in Emerging Markets in Asia".

Hearing the door open, she didn't look up, but simply swirled her wine glass slightly.

"You're three hours later than I expected, Leo."

Leo strode to the desk.

"Explain."

Leo's voice was filled with suppressed anger.

"You knew it from the beginning."

"You knew this would happen when you sent those quantitative experts from Goldman Sachs and Blackstone to build the system."

"You know Pittsburgh will siphon off surrounding cities, you know Erie and Scranton will end up with nothing but a pile of bills."

"This is a trap you set."

Evelyn put down her wine glass.

"explain?"

Evelyn chuckled softly.

"Does this need explaining, Leo?"

Evelyn stood up, walked around the desk, and went to Leo.

"That's common sense."

Evelyn's voice was indifferent, as if it were perfectly natural.

"Capital always flows to where efficiency is high."

"This is an axiom of finance, as natural as water flowing downhill."