Chapter 1380 - 448: Detroit Journey_3

Chapter 1380: Chapter 448: Detroit Journey_3

Christopher chose the latter without any hesitation.

After signaling his secretary not to let anyone disturb him, he turned back to his chair, plugged into the headband, logged into the software, and right after a flash of intense light he found himself on a show set.

The chairs around him were all empty; only users on Voice of the Horizon who’d been invited as friends could come in.

Christopher immediately received an invitation, and once he entered, the board of directors and the top executives had already gathered there.

After greeting each other, they all picked seats and sat down, focusing their attention on that guy sitting by the fireplace on stage.

In the spacious studio, on one side were Lin Miao and Pan’an, while on the other side five chairs were gradually filled with figures.

"Good afternoon, everyone, this is the Voice of the Horizon interview program, and I’m your favorite host, Doug!"

Never heard of him.

If Brother Dao could put the name of his underground radio station out there, it’d definitely be a household name, but unfortunately he can’t; do that and you’re just waiting to be hunted down across the whole Earth.

"Alright, today’s topic is: ’What Does the Recycling Industry Really Mean for New America?’ For this we’ve specially invited the source of the whole incident, Minister Lin Miao, Mr. Lin from the Efficiency Department, along with his assistant Panam Palmer."

"And on the other side, we have residents from the lower districts of Detroit. They are: former GM senior executive Walt, vanadium–titanium smelter worker Johnson, Ford assembly line worker Kent, homeless man Todd, and gang kid Tyler."

This line-up is frankly wild, but it basically covers the major constituencies of the lower districts.

Lin Miao stood up and shook hands with each of the five in turn.

The others were fine, but Walt’s heart was about to jump out of his chest.

Pan’an took the chance to sneak a look at the online viewer count—damn, it had already shot past seven digits into the millions; even the highest-rated shows barely reach that.

"Then let’s move on to the first issue."

Brother Dao said from the stage.

"This January, not long after the Federal Government released the Recycling Industry Act, Detroit saw a massive wave of protests. Workers claimed this was the Federal Government trying to take away their jobs. I’d like to ask: is that true?"

"Yes!"

Smelter worker Todd was a textbook Mexican–American mixed blood. He glared at Lin Miao with a nasty look on his face, as if he were staring at his father’s murderer.

"You’d better get that damn shit out of Detroit. We won’t let you lay a single brick. You officials have no idea how badly we need these jobs. I work sixteen hours a day, up before dawn and back after dark, just to barely keep my family fed!"

The recycling industry is basically a destructive blow to the materials sector; raw material transportation and extraction costs are almost reduced to zero, leaving traditional materials industries with no competitive edge at all.

In the workers’ eyes, once these plants go up, they’re bound to end up unemployed.

Especially with media hyping it up, Lin Miao becomes the guy who wants to use this to drive people onto the battlefield as cannon fodder—a pure war maniac.

"So what do you have to say, Minister Lin?"

"I can completely understand Mr. Todd’s concerns. After all, for a man there’s nothing more important than his family’s survival."

"And historically, iterations in production technology do indeed cause large-scale layoffs among workers in old industries. But in my view, this is not a problem caused by technology; it’s caused by inaction from the government in power and from corporations."

"On this issue, let me talk about a few things."

Lin Miao looked at Todd, his tone calm, and deliberately kept his vocabulary roughly within a low level, making it as simple and easy to understand as possible.

"First, the recycling industry is not going to take away Mr. Johnson’s job; in fact, quite the opposite. In the Stone Ridge Mountain Area near Night City, the recycling plants directly provide around 180,000 jobs, and indirectly 220,000, while at the same time revitalizing a huge number of upstream and downstream industries. In total, they’ve provided work for nearly half a million people, including tens of thousands of high-paying positions."

This figure shocked quite a few people. With the production efficiency of semi-automated cyberware factories, and they can still accommodate that many workers—just how much product the hell are you planning to churn out? Can you even digest it all?

And all of Detroit’s current population combined is just over five hundred thousand, which already counts as a big city in today’s United States.

"Second, ultra-low-cost raw material supply can significantly increase profit margins on goods. As far as I know, physical industries across Night City have not shrunk because of the recycling sector. Quite the opposite: just last year alone, corporate profit margins in Night City rose 23% year-on-year, and they’ve continued to climb in the first quarter of this year."

Lin Miao’s ability to run wild and do whatever he wants in Night City isn’t just because he can cut people down; it’s because he genuinely brought benefits to everyone, and that’s how he got special privileges.

"Third, and this is what you, Johnson, and many others worry about most: unemployment. But what I want to say is, the construction of recycling plants will first generate a huge batch of orders that will be placed with local cities. So Mr. Johnson, the thing you should probably worry about most isn’t losing your job, it’s overtime."

"Also, I’m currently preparing a new bill. This bill is aimed at career transition training—providing targeted free training for workers from old industries like Mr. Johnson, so that you can move into jobs at recycling plants seamlessly, with no change in your pay level."

"The only question is whether Mr. Johnson is willing to change jobs."

Because of the plain, straightforward wording, Johnson and the worker audience all understood every sentence Lin Miao said.

No need to worry about unemployment, free retraining to switch careers—this directly pulled out the biggest thorn in their hearts.

Even the board members of the companies they worked for were hesitating.

If this is true, that’s a huge raw material order.

It can’t be a lie, because recycling plants don’t just rise out of bare ground: cement, steel, sand and gravel, industrial machinery, production equipment—these all have to be purchased.

Where do you buy them from?

Of course, from nearby.

While the workers and the homeless man were rejoicing that their lives wouldn’t be disrupted, Walt raised his hand.

"I’d like to ask, Mr. Lin, the vision you promised does sound great, but where does the money come from?"

"The Federal Government’s recycling plant initiative is not limited to Detroit alone. From what I know, nearly every state has related news. At such a massive industrial scale, the investment amount will likely exceed a trillion. That kind of money—who’s putting up the capital?"