Chapter 871 - Government Storage

Chapter 871: Government Storage
Translator: 
Nyoi-Bo Studio 
 Editor: 
Nyoi-Bo Studio
This police officer was very effective, and with those few sentences, he got in the car and left.
Li Du opened the envelope. The purple and red invitation read,

Dear Du-Li and Hans-Fox,
You have been cordially invited to join the press conference for the annual old stock auction that will be held in the state office lobby on the first of July, at 1430 hours.

The commissioned signatures were of the Arizona Storage Auction Committee and the State Department of Public Services. There was even a person to contact along with his phone number.
Hans asked with much interest,
Yo-ho, the Arizona state government is learning from California. Now they have to hold a press conference before storage auctions?

Li Du asked,
They haven’t done that before?


California has done it before, and actually in California, they still do it,
Hans said.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger brought his act from Hollywood to Sacramento, so he held press conferences for all the events to attract people’s attention.

A lot of people knew about Los Angeles, and a lot of people knew that Schwarzenegger had been the governor of California in the past, but a lot of people did not know that the state capital of California was Sacramento. All of the official events were usually held in that city.
Li Du asked,
What is this press conference for? For us to interact with the press?

The playboy laughed.
It’s for us to act as role models. The government found a bunch of fellows who made a fortune from storage auctions and showcased them to everyone through the media in order to attract more people to participate in the auction.

Li Du wondered and said,
I still haven’t joined the million dollar club, and I am already a fellow who made a fortune?

Reeves laughed as he said,
This list of names was probably handed to the state government by the Association of Auction Hunters. And within the association, you are, without a doubt, a legend. You are a fellow who made a fortune.

When they came back it was already the end of month, and the press conference was happening two days after that. The storage auction was set for the second of July, and it would go on for two days. There would be some items auctioned on eBay, too.
This was different from the other storage auctions, because the items confiscated by the government, police station, or banks would be tallied and appraised. Thus, the information for most of the auctioned items was very clear.
Under such circumstances, it would not be easy to take advantage of missed items in the storage units. The possibility was there, but the probability was much lower compared to normal storage auctions.
Even though the odds of finding missed items were low, due to the fact that the official auctions were larger and had better goods, the chances to earn some money were actually better.
Most of the items were directly listed on the website. There was a link to the list of items on the Arizona state government official website. Everyone could download the information for viewing.
Hans found the list of items being auctioned for Li Du. There were things from a Ford Mustang sports car, jewellery, and laptops, to airplane engines, light bulbs for traffic lights, and a military stretcher. It could be described as a wide variety of things, and it was definitely all-encompassing.
These items were sourced from stolen goods seized by the police, prohibited goods confiscated at the airport, and second-hand stuff used by the various departments of the government.
Browsing through the items on the list, Li Du wondered aloud,
I say, there is quite a lot of good stuff in here. How come the government couldn’t auction it off before?

Hans said,
One possibility is because the price was not right, and nobody wanted any of it. The second possibility is because the government doesn’t have the time and energy to organize too many auctions.

The things on the list were very good, but for sure they would not be able to grab them at a low price, or else they would have been bought by someone who really wanted them. In other words, looking at the items on that list, he was sure he could not make much money off of them. Li Du still had to visit each and every storage unit.
There was an Arizona official storage facility in Phoenix, and the storage units covered a large area of almost 20,000 square meters. Its purpose was to keep the things that the government had no use for but that would be a waste to throw away. It was managed by the Public Service Department.
Governments across the United States had relatively large financial stress. With the economic depression, the government could only get money from taxes, and it was already difficult to make ends meet.
Li Du soon understood that the state government of Arizona currently had a fiscal deficit of almost 2,000,000,000 US dollars, and the California state government’s deficit was even greater, at more than 4,000,000,000 US dollars.
Governor Schwarzenegger was an outstanding bodybuilder, and he was also an outstanding actor, but he was not an outstanding governor. Now that he had left the position, he had also left a mess for the new governor.
The next day, Li Du drove to the where the storage facility was. It was located in an area at the center of Phoenix. The storage company was in between a musical instrument museum and an art museum. It was also very close to a subway exit. This was a prime location, the land was very expensive.
Li Du shook his head and said,
What kind of government is this, wasting such a big area of land for storage? They should use it to build an upscale apartment, then the 2,000,000,000 deficit would probably be covered.

Hans huffed.
You think the state government didn’t want that? It was the museum and the citizens who were not willing. Now that they are emptying the storage, they probably have plans to move out now.

There was no difference between the government storage units and normal storage units. They were differentiated into five sizes: extra large, large, medium, small, and mini. Different sizes of storage units were used to keep different things.
Li Du let out the little bug, and then he went to the extra large units first. He saw there were a few cars inside, which was not a surprise as there were already two Ford Mustangs on the list.
The government was very cunning. They were not bound by the law that did not allow people from entering the units like normal storage companies. The items were put in storage by the government, and the placement of the things in the units also done by the government.
Looking in from the storage door, first of all they could see all the good cars. However, there were also broken cars, scrap cars, and other messy things inside. This was not Li Du’s goal. There was no profit to be made, and the unit would be difficult to clean up. He controlled the little bug to continue flying.
In the end, the first few extra large storage units were mainly filled with cars, yachts, machinery tools, and such. They were all visible from the outside, and these things did not even require good eyesight to see.
When he continued searching, he saw that there were ores in the storage units. Looking at these ores, Li Du was really impressed. The government really collected everything. Where did they get these ores?
Inside the first storage unit, the ores were a dark green color. Their surface was uneven, and the sizes were not uniform. Some were as small as a fist and others as big as a basketball.
Li Du checked online, and according to his description of the characteristics of these ores, they were iron ores. There were a lot of iron ores, so much that they completely filled two storage units. The unit after that had fewer ores, and mostly there were two or more types of ores kept together. Some units even had building materials kept together with the ores, such as ceramic tiles, blue bricks, and other stuff.
Li Du was stunned by the view. The Arizona State Government was really unkempt. They literally couldn’t throw anything away and kept everything there in storage.
The little bug flew past a pile of ceramic tiles, where he suddenly noticed there were some small bricks that seemed different among the tiles. The bricks were over ten millimeters long, and four or five millimeters in width and thickness. The color was brownish-black, and the exterior was rough.
Li Du felt that these were not bricks. How could bricks be so rough if they were to be used for construction? He looked carefully, and then he had a theory. He used the little bug’s time traveling skill…