Chapter 5: One must always be upright in one's conduct and actions

Zhou Ming took Chen Shuli Yang and Ye Ning back to his study in his room. Since Zhou Ming needs to be outside more often, his study is much emptier than the other students', so Zhou Ming's study is often used as a small meeting room. This time, Zhou Ming needs to have a small meeting here with the three class officers of the finance class and the main person in charge of Wharton.

Once in the study, Zhou Ming first asked Ye Ning to briefly explain the situation with Omar to Chen Shu and Li Yang. Chen Shu and Li Yang both frowned after hearing it.

'How could this happen? We funded his campaign, not only did we do all the work for him, we even promised to pay him a salary, which was already very generous treatment. Otherwise, other candidates have to pay for everything themselves and set up their own campaign foundations to do all the work. What else could he possibly be dissatisfied with?' Li Yang was the first to comment.

Chen Shu shook his head and said, 'I don't think things will be that simple. Li Yang, you've forgotten what Ye Ning said. Omar said he hates the government and all administrative organs, which shows that he personally dislikes politics, not that he is dissatisfied with the conditions we have set.'

'I agree with the teacher,' Ye Ning said. 'But if Omar really hates politics, it will be very difficult for us to convince him to run for office.'

Chen Shu nodded and said, 'I agree very much. This is very headache-inducing, because if it's a matter of conditions, we can still sit down and talk, but if he is inherently averse to politics, it will be very difficult for us to convince him to run for office again, unless we can find a way to change his mind. But how is that possible?'

As they spoke, the three of them subconsciously looked at Zhou Ming, but when they saw the look in Zhou Ming's eyes, they suddenly remembered that they had just promised to find a way on their own and no longer rely on Zhou Ming, so they immediately turned their heads away again.

'It's not impossible,' Li Yang said, picking up where Chen Shu had left off. 'Because as the saying goes in a romance novel, there's no such thing as love without a reason, and there's no such thing as hatred without a reason. Psychologically speaking, every behaviour has its own cause. We just need to know why Omar hates politics in order to prescribe the right remedy.'

'That's true, but it's probably difficult to find the root cause. After all, none of us knows him, let alone understand him. It's not impossible to find the cause in his past life, but it will take a lot of time, and we don't have that much time right now,' Ye Ning said.

Ye Ning's words caused the atmosphere to fall silent. After a while, Li Yang said, 'Why don't we skip the investigation process and just prescribe the right medicine?'

Chen Shu and Ye Ning listened to Li Yang's words with raised eyebrows. Chen Shu tentatively asked, 'Li Yang, what you mean is that we find a way to make him suffer somewhere, so that he understands the importance of power and he will come to us, right?'

Li Yang nodded and said, 'Right now, this is the only solution. For acute conditions, strong medicine is needed. Otherwise, if we dawdle around investigating his past, the election period will be long gone. The US Congress will not extend the election period just for us. Even the president's re-election doesn't get this kind of treatment. And as long as we are a bit discreet, I don't think he will find out.'

'That's a good idea,' Ye Ning agreed. 'And it's not hard to find something about his power. He's a black man, and black people are discriminated against here. Many cases of abuse in the police station or elsewhere will not be different just because he is a Harvard Law School student. So maybe we just need to make a police call or help him create a little conflict to make him understand the importance of power.'

'And there's another point,' Li Yang added, 'Ye Ning just said that he comes from a single-parent family. So being from a single-parent family and being black are both very fatal. I think he must have experienced a lot of discrimination growing up, and he might not be able to tolerate even the slightest thing.'

Chen Shu listened to Li Yang and Ye Ning's words for a long time before saying, 'If this is the only way, then I think it's better to be as ruthless as possible, because a small loss generally won't make him determined enough. Only a really big loss that he'll never forget will make him determined to change.'

Li Yang smiled at Chen Shu's final statement: 'I used to think that the monitor was very kind, but I didn't expect that when he gets ruthless, he's even more ruthless than us! So I think we should do it this way, right?'

Just as Chen Shu, Li Yang and Ye Ning had reached a consensus, Zhou Ming suddenly said, 'I oppose your idea.'

Zhou Ming's words were shocking, and the three of them, Ye Ning and the others, were stunned. They looked at Zhou Ming blankly, completely unable to understand why he had suddenly said that.

'There is nothing wrong with the method of letting Omar know the importance of power through a blow, and then letting him spontaneously run in the election. I also think that if this is done well, there will be a high chance of success. But have you ever thought about one question: what if he finds out afterwards? Will you continue to use lies to cover up and hope to pull it off, or wait for a break and create an election scandal?'

Zhou Ming continued, 'Don't think that this is impossible. As the old saying goes, if you want to keep it a secret, don't tell anyone. Since we have done it, no matter how well planned and thorough it is, we will still have to face this problem.'

No one of Chen Shuli Yang Chen and Ye Ning could give an answer to this question suddenly thrown out by Zhou Ming, but Zhou Ming didn't need them to answer because he immediately continued, 'The best way is not to do it. In business or politics, one must always do the right thing. Only voluntary cooperation is reliable. If it is not voluntary, then no matter if your original intention is for the good of others or whatever, it will ultimately not end well.'

'But Omar really hates politics, and if we don't use some tactics, I'm afraid it will be hard to convince him to run for us,' Ye Ning tried to explain.

However, Zhou Ming still disagreed: 'But that is not a reason for us to use such tactics. Perhaps using some tactics can better achieve the goal, but it is not the right way after all. Although Omar hates politics, it may just be that we find it difficult to convince him, but that doesn't mean we really don't have a chance at all. On the contrary, if we use tactics and he finds out, then there will be no turning back.'

After saying this, Zhou Ming paused for a moment before continuing, 'There's one more important point. Why do you always want to convince Omar? I only said that Omar is the person I have identified as the most suitable candidate, but I never said that we must nominate him as a candidate. If he doesn't agree, we can simply run as candidates ourselves. Are we necessarily worse than that black guy?'

'Of course not,' Li Yang subconsciously chimed in, "Teacher, let's try to invite him again. If he really doesn't want to, don't force him. I can run for the election as a candidate, I'm very confident!'

'And it always feels better to spend money on your own people than on outsiders," Ye Ning also said.

Zhou Ming smiled: 'That's right, as a student in my finance class, you should have this kind of spirit!'

After praising Li Yang, Zhou Ming then changed the subject: 'Our most important task now is to run for office, because the timing is just right, but at the same time we must not forget the business of Wharton Insurance Company. Although the company's books already have hundreds of millions of dollars in capital, more than half of it is the insurance amounts of various policyholders, which need to be returned to the policyholders after the contract expires. In addition, there is a lot of claims work that has already begun.'

'It is precisely for these reasons that the most important task for our Wharton company must be investment, continuous investment to create profits, in order to ensure the company's continuous development, otherwise we will become a financial fraud like the Ponzi scheme.'

Zhou Ming looked around at Chen Shuli Yang and Ye Ning and said, 'So what is the current profit growth of the company like?'

Although Zhou Ming was looking at the three of them when he asked, in fact, what Zhou Ming really wanted to ask was Ye Ning, because he was in charge of statistics with the other girls.

Ye Ning did not disappoint Zhou Ming and immediately replied, 'Teacher, as of the end of the statistics last night, from last week to this week, the company's investment has increased by 1.5%, which is 2 million US dollars. After deducting the company's normal operating funds, commissions, and other expenses, the company's total net income is 1 million US dollars.'

'Less than one percent of the income is only one million dollars? This income may be a lot in other companies, but for a financial investment company, it is still a bit too low. Is there a loss in the middle of any investment?' Zhou Ming asked.

Facing Zhou Ming's question, Chen Shuli Yang and Ye Ning glanced at each other. In the end, Chen Shu reported to Zhou Ming, 'Teacher, it is our investment model that has incurred a loss.'

Zhou Ming let out an exclamation of surprise, but did not rush to say anything, but instead gave a gesture to continue talking.

'Teacher, here's the thing. We have a venture capital model based on the company's stocks and bonds. The ones we selected before all performed very well in the stock market and were very promising. They were all among the top few hundred stocks, but just last week, the middle 100 stocks from different industries all fell at the same time, and the maximum drop has exceeded five percentage points, with losses exceeding 6 million U.S. dollars,' Chen Shu said.

Zhou Ming frowned: 'The investment model lost so much? Didn't the market show any abnormalities before?'

Chen Shu shook his head and said, 'No. These stocks have all performed very strongly in the market before, and their historical performance has also been excellent, which is why we selected them. We don't understand why this happened this time. However, Li Yang and I have already started to track and repair the model in response to this situation. We have temporarily removed the underperforming stocks and added many high-quality stocks that have performed well during this period, which has minimised the losses as much as possible.'

After a moment, Chen Shu added, 'Teacher, originally, Li Yang and I were going to wait until this situation stabilised before giving you a full report.'

Zhou Ming nodded and said, 'That's fine. Maybe this was just an accident. I said that you can handle minor problems on your own without having to report to me. But I need to remind you of one thing: I have no problem with fixing the investment model. I just hope you can be more cautious. If you just replace a few underperforming stocks, that's fine, but if there are too many, it means there was a problem with our original design thinking. The best way is to redesign one, understand?'

Chen Shu nodded firmly and said, 'Please rest assured, teacher, we will be cautious!'