Chapter 4407

With the promulgation of the new tax law and the concerted efforts of the US Internal Revenue Service, the Justice League, and A. R. G. U. S., before Christmas arrived, the United States had basically returned to the path of state capitalism. To be more detailed, it was capitalism with strong state intervention, which was the so-called "visible hand."

The free market emphasized by capitalism actually reallocates social resources through the market itself. But just think about it, this kind of allocation must have inertia.

Just like what the Kent farm experienced, when taxes were high and subsidies were also high, farm owners could only rely on farm revenue; and once mandatory subsidies were canceled, farm owners wouldn't take cash to invest in reproduction, but would take it to engage in finance.

This wasn't because they were bad, nor because they were stupid; this was the nature of the free market.

Just think about it, working hard in the fields for a year, although the United States is mainly mechanical agriculture, it is equally exhausting during the busy farming season. Even if you don't have to plow or harvest yourself, all kinds of farm chores will take up most of the farm owner's time. After working hard for a year, the money earned is just that much, and most of it has to be spent preparing for the second year's production, and there isn't much spare money left in hand.

But if you invest all the money earned in a certain year into the financial market, and catch up with a good market, you can instantly make a fortune; earning more in one year than in ten years. In the bubble expansion period, it is simply too easy to get rich by relying on finance.

Especially for farm owners and factory owners with real industries, they can obtain considerable principal by selling assets, and after investing in the financial market, the profit is much higher than doing real industry.

People are all inclined to seek profit and avoid harm; if you can get rich by staring at the market and moving your fingers, why go to work? In that era, many people would choose to sell their real industries and gamble in the financial market.

And these real industries they sold would be acquired by big landlords. For example, Bill Gates, who holds an astonishing area of land, bought many of his lands from these real industry holders who sold assets. The harm of land annexation goes without saying, and at the national level, the biggest problem is that these big landlords and monopolists won't invest more money in reproduction, but continue to create bubbles through the industries in their hands, which will lead to deindustrialization.

It can be said that pure free-market capitalism will become less and less productive, letting more and more people blow the same bubble, until the bubble finally bursts, leaving a mess.

And state-regulated capitalism can better avoid this problem, while maintaining the free market, by maintaining the share of real industry through various policies, avoiding the financial bubble from blowing too big.

Some people may think that it is because an excellent leader appeared that they could walk on the right path, but in fact, it is the opposite; it is because a sufficiently powerful enemy appeared, forcing them to have to choose a leader who would walk this route, and then walk on such a path.

Because that time was a war period, and the Far East giant had already taken shape. The pressure brought by war and ideology forced them to have to walk this way. And now it is the same.

Although there is no ideological confrontation, the war pressure is much greater than before; what they have to face is not humans like them, but Martians who are far stronger than them in both physical fitness and technological development. Therefore, the leader selected this time is more powerful and excellent, and the policies are implemented more thoroughly.

To put it bluntly, it doesn't look much like state capitalism anymore. To describe it with a lyric, it is "After I grew up, I became you."

I have to say, this is actually a kind of path dependence. Under Bruce's leadership, the big lie fabricated by the Justice League cannot be said to be completely without flaws. However, just because there was such experience before, no one went to check it carefully; a wave of emotions went to their heads and they just did it, which can also be said to be fooled once and limping.

Of course, it may also be because the fabricated story is not important, and the solid evidence that has fallen on Earth and surpassed human technological level is important. Even if you break the sky, this nail cannot be built by humans. Regardless of who is behind it, he dared to do this; exterminating humanity is just a wave of his hand, and the pressure is still there.

Nevertheless, Bruce still prepared a lot of detailed evidence, such as more and more photos of Martian cities, some Martian literary works left on Earth, and even some family videos they found in Martian cities that were still well-preserved.

This didn't make humans feel at ease, but instead made them more panicked. Because they realized that Martians were very similar to them, and humans knew very well how anti-human humans were, then Martians who were very similar to humans would definitely not be soft when opposing humanity. The alien saints in fantasy do not exist; there are only two endings between them: you exterminate me or I exterminate you.

And as more and more details were released, this also attracted Clark's attention. He was also quite curious about Martian civilization, and, unlike ordinary humans, Mars was very close to him; it could be said that he could get there with a big jump.

He hadn't gone before, partly because being president was a bit busy; even if he was just sitting in the office signing documents, there were too many to sign, and he had to accept interviews, give speeches, handle diplomatic events, etc., and he was busy in the dark for a breath, without even half an hour of rest time.

On the other hand, facing Martian civilization, he didn't have full confidence, because the three nails the Martians hit on Earth had already proven that the other side's basic scientific level was very high, at least there were materials that could completely immunize its laser, so perhaps they wouldn't be far behind in weapons.

His physical fitness was indeed good, and he could even use magic energy, and partially immunized against Kryptonite, but he wasn't invincible. Once the other side had sufficiently powerful weapons, he couldn't avoid getting hurt.

If he were just the superhero of the past, then he would have to go over and test it even if it meant getting hurt. But he was president now, shouldering the hope of all humanity; once he fell into a disadvantage facing the Martians, the other side would launch a wave of public opinion offensive, and humanity would definitely panic, and the new policies just pushed forward might also be shaken. He couldn't take this risk.

However, after struggling for a long time, Clark still decided to go see it, but he couldn't go with great fanfare, but had to go secretly. Fortunately, after a period of training, his mastery of magic energy was becoming more and more mature; he could use magic energy to hide himself, and generally wouldn't be discovered, and could run if discovered.

Thus, Clark took half a day off, and this happened to be the afternoon of Christmas Eve. He came to the vicinity of the Martian city without a sound.

Although the Martian city was already eye-catching enough, what first attracted Clark was the huge spaceship parked above the Martian city. Was this probably the Martian main ship?

Although the style of this spaceship was a bit different from the city below, the style didn't explain anything. What really attracted Clark was that this spaceship shielded his perception. Clark's super senses couldn't penetrate it at all.

And precisely because of this, when Clark approached the Martian city and didn't find any signs of life in the city, he didn't think that there was no one in the Martian city, but thought that the development of Martian civilization's materials science was just that amazing, capable of shielding his perception, which was why he couldn't feel the existence of Martians.

Compared to entering the Martian city directly, Clark actually preferred to enter the main ship, because what he was more worried about was the main gun. He thought that probably only the firepower level of the main gun could hurt him, so as long as he entered the main ship, the main gun definitely couldn't fire at him. And there were more people in the city, and the martial power level might be higher; the main ship was powerful in space combat, but there might not really be many people inside.

Thinking this way, Clark gradually approached the spaceship. Of course, he didn't dare to walk through the main gate. Fortunately, such main ships all had launch ports for frigates; he circled around the bottom of the spaceship and found a boarding gate. The material strength here wasn't that high, so he broke off a corner and drilled in.

This spaceship was very large, and the lights were very dim, and it could shield perception; Clark circled around the bottom for a long time, almost not walking out. Fortunately, he was lucky and found the ventilation port of the air circulation system, and then came to the upper level from the ventilation port.

After coming to the upper level, Clark felt something was wrong; judging from the videos, Martians should be about the same size as humans, but the various facilities in this spaceship didn't look like they were designed for humanoid creatures as big as humans. Some things were simply giant-sized; even if Martians used them, it would be very inconvenient.

Not to mention the lighting design of this place was a piece of shit; it didn't look like it was designed for a race with vision as the main sense. Although Martians could read minds, they also had to watch the road; what good did it do them to make the cabin pitch black?

Walking toward the center of the spaceship all the way, Clark finally heard some movement. He became nervous, continued to hide his figure with magic, and carefully approached the area ahead.

When he got closer, the movement became clearer; it seemed like someone was walking around, and there seemed to be the sound of eating. There might also be the sound of conversation, but it couldn't be heard very clearly.

Continuing to walk inside, the lights finally weren't so dim. However, Clark keenly noticed that some lights were added later; the models of the lights were completely different from the original ones, and the circuits were all connected later; although they were connected quite neatly, they couldn't deceive his eyes.

Continuing to walk forward, finally getting rid of the darkness and returning to the normal brightness for humans, it instead made Clark feel uncomfortable for a moment. And the scene that appeared in the bright hall made him look like a fool.

At this moment, in the center of the spacious and bright hall, there was a huge Christmas tree, hung with all kinds of exquisite decorations. Under the Christmas tree, there was a pile of gift boxes and dolls, all the walls were hung with colored lights, and Christmas wreaths were hung on the cabin doors.

A young man with a tender face was sitting on the sofa packing gifts, a tall green-skinned person was carefully stacking Oreo towers in front of the kitchen island, a green figure was flying at the top of the Christmas tree putting a shining star on it, a tall man with lush hair was wearing gloves stuffing spices into a turkey's belly, a black man with half his body flashing with mechanical light was debugging the colored lights on the wall, three women were arranging the dining table, one holding a table flag, one putting a vase, one organizing tableware, and a man with white sideburns and another man in a suit were picking red wine in front of the wine cabinet.

With a "pat," the star in his hand fell to the ground, the Oreo tower collapsed in response, the ribbons of the gift boxes were all scattered, the turkey's belly was pierced by a punch, the colored lights "swished" and went out, the dining plates fell to the ground, and the vase shattered all over the floor.

Only the figure holding the red wine turned around, looked at Clark, and said with a smile: "You're here."