財閥之哀歌

In my previous writings, though I refrained from designating specific conglomerates by name, S Group was already hard at work liquidating its real estate assets just last year, and has now entered into a phase of aggressive restructuring. Meanwhile, yet another S Group is delivering an internationally embarrassing report card, doing nothing more than fattening the assets of foreign hedge funds. This truly is an entertaining nation.

IT entrepreneurs like myself can only execute our work when the market remains favorable. The IT sector has now become a realm where commencing without investment capital is extraordinarily difficult. As evidenced by numerous senior IT enterprises, the vast majority follow a financial logic of enduring persistent deficits, holding out until they can dump their stakes through an initial public offering. While this defies my primal common sense, this market has been distorted in this exact shape for a long time, and given that other business models mirror similar patterns, it is no easy task to comprehend a financial market where deficit management is taken for granted.

Much like currency that is issued without limit, I feel a profound anxiety regarding this perpetuating history. Having already navigated through multiple existential crises in my life, I keenly realize that success is not achieved merely because I am competent; it demands fortune and the assistance of those around me. For the microeconomy to gain vitality, the macroeconomy must first revive—but will an era where the macroeconomy recovers ever dawn? The macroeconomy, which has been shattered for over two years now, when exactly will it stage a recovery, and will a mere reduction in interest rates truly resolve this?

To resolve a problem, one must occasionally scrutinize the dilemma with absolute precision rather than gazing into the distance. Just as when a house appears immaculately cleaned yet a foul stench wafts from somewhere, there is invariably a corner that has escaped proper cleansing. To examine a problem with such granularity, one must unearth the origin of the stench, and to do so, one must draw near to that very odor while enduring its malice. This is precisely why I harbor no fondness for those who practice finance. Because they merely pursue the lust for capital, a multitude among them have bartered away their souls to line their own pockets rather than resolving societal issues to construct public value. A colossal bubble birthed by moral hazard, and the masses who are deceived by it, living their lives paying rent to the banks. With the rent thus collected, they issue yet more loans, and with the capital returned from those amortized loans, they issue loans once again. How long can a world that demands the repayment of unpayable money continue to function? It will conclude only when someone perishes.

Much like Jesus bearing the sins of all humanity and being sacrificed, a financial collapse invariably triggers a massive slaughter. During the Lehman brothers crisis, AIG survived. Because it was managing the 401(k), the American retirement pension system. No matter how morally rotten they were, they held the future of the citizens as a blackmail card, declaring, "If I die, you die with me." It is a thoroughly grotesque world. Conversely, a fantasy world might be a far better place to inhabit. A fantasy realm generally features an explicit evil, such as a demon king or a dragon. There exists a process to resolve that explicit evil, and once it is vanquished, those liberated from long-standing anxiety enjoy happiness.

Are not the dragons and demon kings of the modern era none other than finance itself? They never incur a loss. And because the system ensures they never suffer a loss, every individual must conform to the currency, which is the rule they have issued. While acknowledging currency, the power invisibly ceded to them constructs a reality where society has no choice but to tolerate their atrocities, evolving into a world where cutting away merely a fraction of the rotted root occasionally is deemed the absolute best effort.

On the other hand, the chaebols of our nation do not possess the wealth and authority of their American counterparts, so they must labor with desperate diligence. They must read the countenance of the government, and they must walk on eggshells when conducting overseas enterprises. Whenever a mad incident unfurls from the North, they must soothe those gripped by anxiety; and should the owner happen to pass away, they must launch a defense to prevent foreign funds from seizing the position of majority shareholder and turning the firm into a foreign enterprise. To achieve this, they must covertly secure slush funds, construct architectures, and move capital, which requires hiring accountants; they must read countenances accurately, so they must plant informants within the Financial Supervisory Service; and they must line up connections at the National Tax Service to avoid tax audits. They are living with such desperate industriousness, so why does the world fail to recognize that fact?

Rather than the absolute chaebols, it is the semi-chaebols or the entrenched local clans who have forged moderate systems that live in comparative tranquility. Because they are not drastically wealthy, they attract less public scrutiny, and people remain oblivious to the immense value of the archaic factories or infrastructure situated in the provinces that serve as their bastions. Watching those locally affluent individuals live in serene peace might well provoke envy. Regrettably, as the macroeconomy fluctuates and society drifts in such insecurity, all values grow uncertain. Young people must be agonizing over how they ought to live. No profession guarantees one's future, and the stable state positions that appeared secured promise a mere pittance as compensation, frozen for years. With four million individuals residing in the economically inactive population—resting voluntarily or involuntarily—can a nation truly function properly? If those four million are idle, who is laboring to deliver the value provided to sustain them while they rest?

Yet, even if I curse Korea on a daily basis, I believe that Korea is putting up a decent defense in its own right. It is a resilient race, and because it possesses a survival instinct emerging from a DNA of extreme competition and comparison, I believe it is barely holding on. Even as its largest trading partner, China, crumbles, it endures; and even in a reality where Russia, which accounted for roughly ten percent of its trade, faces trade sanctions due to war, it holds its ground. It is an utterly astonishing nation that perseveres even while the psychopath Kim Jong-un destroys joint liaison offices and dispatches filth balloons, and while the public clamors with "No Japan" rhetoric against Japan, a remaining trading partner. In that regard, Korea is a formidable nation, and if we weigh the absolute magnitude of the agony or hardship we endure, it is likely not grand when compared to other nations. However, whether that "guarantees a better future" is a separate narrative entirely.

On what grounds could there be an aspect that improves? Is there any reason for foreign capital to pack up bags of money and enter Korea? Conversely, is there any reason to take capital and exit? The merits of entering Korea include high public safety and superior medical services, but those are advantages that merely serve the wealthy to utilize the country like a villa for specific purposes. Is there any room for large capital to invest in corporations, enter the country, and aid economic circulation? Consider Temu, which entered with bags of capital from China. Presenting hasty marketing to breach the Korean market alongside sub-par products, Temu has now become an object of ridicule in Korea. Seeing that the CEO of Temu is hailed as the entrepreneur representing China after Jack Ma, the situation borders on a comedy; regrettably, they cannot survive in the Korean market. Korea is not a market where one succeeds merely by bringing capital; it is an arena where enterprises fight to the death within, and swindlers stand waiting inside and outside prison walls to defraud them and strip them bare.

While the case of Temu is a rather cheap instance, the same applied to corporations that thrived in the United States. Twitch was driven out over network usage fees, and America's colossal retail giants or platforms like eBay could barely even present a business card. Korea possesses an intense exceptionalism, and given the numerous precedents where foreign enterprises courageously entered only to perish, there is no loophole through which foreign capital can easily enter. When, then, will it enter? They will likely sweep everything up only when a situation akin to the IMF crisis arrives, where corporate values are reduced to scrap paper. In other words, the ruin of the nation may arrive far faster.

If not that, it will merely remain as foreign volume traded on the domestic exchange at a moderate level as it does now; and should even that lose competitiveness, the percentage within the portfolios of financial institutions will be adjusted, diminishing the volume of capital entering. It is a predictable trajectory.

What we must contemplate at this juncture, then, is "where lies the answer?" The simplest response is America. The United States likely possesses the power to sustain Pax Americana for a good twenty to thirty years. As Ray Dalio states in his book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order, an empire possessing absolute power peaks and subsequently descends; whether this represents America's zenith or whether it is still ascending, we do not yet know, but the contemporary era belongs unequivocally to America. Furthermore, as Ray Dalio noted, it was a reality that China posed the greatest threat to this balance of power. Yet, China appears to be plummets from a menacing competitor to a pathetic one. The CCP is corrupt, the youth have lost hope, and a real estate bubble several times grander than that of South Korea is bursting. It is a nation where societal trust has degraded further, and since many who conducted business in China endured scenarios where they could not even extract their entire capital, they, at least, will never look favorably upon China again.

Who is it, then? The first place rests at the peak, and the second place is voluntarily descending from its rank. The nations that could be called third place are failing to grow for diverse reasons. When the world's finest minds fail to find an answer, wandering and focusing entirely on squeezing out whatever yields money, declaring with a clear vision "let us go here" might be an arrogant statement. I believe this anxiety is not a groundless one; hence, a grand recession would be entirely permissible. It ought to arrive as a matter of course. Someone must assume the role of Jesus, bearing the debts of the masses and perishing. A foolish financial institution emerges to shoulder that debt, and they moderately write it off as a loss, burning the debt away. Convenient, thoroughly convenient.

From whence did this originate? The Jewish capital that supposedly rules the world, and the Talmud that the Jewish people follow. Nowhere within its pages did it command the collection of interest. How did they cast aside their own identity and come to construct this Tower of Babel that is bound to collapse? I hope that even for those living like kings, like deities, somewhere in a peaceful Europe, the future is something to be feared. If that be the will of the divine, I wish to cheer that divine will on. If the head is to be severed, agony will be required until a new head emerges.