Chapter 1150: Chapter 375: Money Is a Bastard—If You Don’t Make It, Others Will

West Fire Grass drew his hand back, picked up a fork, and tapped it on the table to gather everyone’s attention.

"This lousy thing called money, when it’s hard to earn, it’s damn hard to get fat too. When you’re poor, you wish you could spend one dollar like two. But as long as you find the right path and add a little courage, pal, that can make more than you earn running a printer at home."

As soon as money was mentioned, the agents stopped eating, staring at West Fire Grass with burning eyes, wishing they could melt this golden Buddha.

Eighty thousand — what does that even mean?

The money they’ve earned in their lifetime combined doesn’t add up to this.

"I haven’t got any other hobbies, just love making money. What’s the use in just admiring those wealthy people? We’ve got to take action ourselves, make ourselves richer than them!

On the way to Cuba, I asked around and found that we have two inherent advantages here, perfect for making money, and we can make big money! As long as we can handle it, you brothers won’t have to worry about wealth and prosperity for the rest of our lives, but it surely requires a little cooperation from you."

McCarthy didn’t agree, but just looked at West Fire Grass.

"Let’s hear it first."

West Fire Grass chuckled, "Firstly, aren’t those Europeans hoping we’ll go to war? They’re sending all that military equipment our way every day. If we can sneak out a bit, it’s an endless pile of cash..."

"Impossible, those Europeans are strict, they won’t let us touch it at all."

McCarthy outright rejected.

"Besides, getting caught means you’re dead. If someone made money off that, it wouldn’t be us. Let’s talk about something else."

As everyone knows, when presenting options, no one typically chooses the extreme ones.

Smuggling arms indeed seems daringly reckless. West Fire Grass hadn’t expected them to agree. Even if they did, as newcomers, West Fire Grass wouldn’t dare to do it — that’s asking for death.

The real deal is ahead.

"Well, to make money, we have to look at Cuba’s specialties."

"Specialties? You mean tobacco?"

"No, no, no, tobacco makes money, but we’re in wartime now. This year’s crop will surely fall short, with so many eyes watching from top to bottom, it’s hard to manage. To make money, it has to be drugs. Drugs are where the real profit lies."

West Fire Grass stood up and poured McCarthy a drink.

"Drugs?"

McCarthy furrowed his brows, thinking West Fire Grass meant narcotics.

"Now our stuff is piled up in the warehouse and can’t be sold, you’re counting on making money from those things?"

"No, no, no, what’s that amount of money? I mean... generic drugs."

West Fire Grass took out a few bottles of medicine from his bag, including injectable immunosuppressants, neurotoxin slow-release agents, and several other high-priced market medications, two of which are even military necessities at the front line.

"Anyway, due to Horizon Corporation’s adjuster and the anti-drug war, Cuba’s drugs can’t be sold, the production lines are idling, we might as well produce something else to sell. Many raw materials are ready-made, and I can find ways to bring in the rest.

I had someone calculate it, those pharmaceutical companies earn at least ten to a hundred times the profit. We’re not talking about the original price; even at a tenth, it’s already money raining down."

The most expensive part of medicines is the research phase, usually spending billions without seeing a splash. Hence, to prevent pharmaceutical companies from going bankrupt and motivate them to develop new drugs, they are typically allowed to hike the prices to recover and profit once the new drugs are developed, while the production cost is actually minimal.

Once the patent expires, generic drug companies in the market will successively launch many generics. The efficacy may be slightly lower, but the price drop can benefit the public. National governments often step in, negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, make large-scale purchases, and include special drugs in healthcare to reduce their economic burden.

But in the cyber world, those biopharmaceutical companies don’t care about patents expiring or not. Once a drug is developed, it’s considered theirs. There’s no concept of a price drop after patent expiration, nor is there national healthcare, only exorbitantly priced insurance companies collaborating with these pharmaceutical companies, where prices decrease slightly.

However, these insurance companies form a monopoly consortium with hospitals and doctors in every city. These doctors and hospitals will only prescribe high-priced drugs from pharmaceutical companies partnered with insurance companies.

Meanwhile, your insurance only works at these designated hospitals.

If you scrutinize the economic transactions of these pharmaceutical companies, you’ll be shocked to find insulin research pharmaceutical companies have close ties with candy manufacturers, heavy metal poisoning drug developers are connected with chemical and smelting plants, artificial lung exoskeleton companies strongly support the tobacco industry.

There have even been cases of vaccines preceding viruses...

In short, one sentence: they just want money.

As for where the disease came from and whether the drug can truly cure your disease? Don’t worry about that.

The profit potential of narcotics pales in comparison to these high-priced drugs.

"Generic drugs..." McCarthy hadn’t considered this path at all.

"What if we’re caught with our generics? These medicine bottles all have serial numbers."

He was tempted.

"We won’t be caught."

West Fire Grass laughed eerily.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a medicine bottle, almost identical to the genuine article.

He switched positions in front of everyone and continued:

"Everything leaving here is labeled as genuine medicine. How can they trace it?"

Europe is continuously aiding Cuba, including military supplies, of course, they also include military medications.

As long as the efficacy gap of the generic drugs isn’t too wide and by bribing doctors and nurses to form a network of vested interests, no one will speak against us.