After Park Seok’s declaration that he was withdrawing from the race, all talk of a primary inside the Centrist Party vanished overnight.
With Woo Youngsik now the party’s sole candidate, he began appearing on current-affairs programs across multiple broadcasting networks, pouring out views on a wide range of issues.
Naturally, the one who suffered the most behind the scenes was Myungsoo.
He shadowed Woo Youngsik, whose political instincts were weak, and painstakingly reshaped him from Prosecutor Woo Youngsik into Politician Woo Youngsik.
The opinion polls released in between all pointed to Woo Youngsik’s overwhelming victory.
After assigning Myungsoo everything related to Woo Youngsik, I stepped back.
“Ah, this is finally over too.”
KS Group’s Choi Woosik had been driven out, and Yoon Hyunju had officially taken over as chairwoman.
On the very day she assud the position, she shocked the business world by announcing that she would imdiately sell off several affiliates.
The very first business she declared she would clean up was the handset division, which had been tightly shackled by regulations from head to toe.
Just as she had promised , she sold the handset production plant to us.
“Boss, here’s the acquisition contract.”
Eva handed the factory acquisition agreent.
After briefly skimming the neatly organized contract, I nodded in satisfaction.
“You worked hard. Without you, Eva, this would’ve turned into a much bigger headache.”
“All I did was place a spoon on the table you’d already set, Boss.”
Always so modest. Of course, I was the one who drew the overall picture.
Still, it was also true that things had been handled far more smoothly thanks to Eva’s expertise.
“What’s happening with Chairwoman Yoon Hyunju’s slush-fund laundering?”
“It’s still being moved around through multiple accounts. They’re trying to route it in ways that avoid Arican scrutiny, so it’s taking so ti.”
“Is that so? Then wrap it up quickly and hand it over. That way we can cut ties cleanly. And transfer the KS Group shares we’re holding at the right timing too.”
“Okay, Boss!”
“How’s the stock liquidation going?”
“We’re working on selling it off slowly over ti. If we dump everything we’re holding at once, it’ll hit the market too hard.”
This was exactly why capable people had to be entrusted with the work.
The amount being managed by Mirae Investnt under Eva alone was already in the tens of billions of dollars.
If we threw all those shares out at once, the stock market itself could collapse in a domino effect.
“The market’s still a winning hand, right?”
“Of course. Honestly, I still don’t understand it. Why are you telling us to liquidate stocks now, Boss?”
No one yet could foresee the economic crisis that would hit just a few years later.
No—that wasn’t entirely true.
There were already people beginning to predict it.
The U.S. Federal Reserve itself was one of them.
After the dot-com bubble burst, the following year, Fed Governor Edward Gramlich warned about the risks of subpri mortgage lending, and there were already voices expressing concern about a housing bubble.
But in the current market, those voices failed to provoke any aningful response.
“From the way things look now, it’s hard to understand what I’m saying, isn’t it?”
Eva nodded, giving an awkward smile.
Neither Eva nor Han Kyungyeong could understand my decision.
Since she was soone walking beside , I decided to give her a little more of a hint.
“The future I’m predicting is going to arrive soon. A small typhoon that started in Southeast Asia swept across all of East Asia. But before the aftershock even faded, the dot-com bubble burst across the entire world.”
Eva nodded.
She herself was one of the people who had made enormous profits by exploiting exactly that.
“The U.S. had no choice but to slash its benchmark rate from 5.5% to 2% in just one year. To flood liquidity into the market.”
Even so, it couldn’t stop the Nasdaq’s fall.
Only after dropping far beyond half its value did it finally stabilize.
And from that mont on, the seeds of the nightmare began to grow.
The fall in interest rates didn’t affect only stock indexes.
“After absorbing that shock, the global economy began to grow again. China’s growth in particular was astonishing.”
“Isn’t that normal? China’s growth rate is rising every year. With rates lowered, naturally more money flows into the market, and the market responds.”
Eva tilted her head as if asking what the problem was, and I nodded.
“If the money had only flowed into the stock market, I could understand it too. But that’s not the real bomb.”
“Wait. If it’s not the stock market...”
Eva looked startled as she asked back.
“If it’s not the stock market... don’t tell you’re talking about mortgage lending, Boss?”
Only now did Eva finally understand what I was trying to say, and her face turned pale.
“That’s right. Mortgage lending will beco a bomb that shakes not only the U.S. economy, but the entire global economy.”
The desire to own a good ho was a universal one, not just in Arica but across the entire world.
The U.S. governnt wanted the money flooding the system to flow into the stock market.
But once interest rates dropped, global capital instead rushed into the housing market.
That was when people began to fall into a massive illusion.
The belief that the housing market would rise forever.
The mont that belief shattered would mark the beginning of catastrophe.
The clearest example was close by.
Japan, right next door, had already collapsed once because of a real-estate bubble.
Fortunately, back then it had been possible to contain it as a crisis limited to Japan.
But the global financial market of the 21st ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) century was defined by simultaneity.
If sothing went wrong on one side, sothing else would inevitably go wrong elsewhere at the sa ti.
“Is mortgage lending really that dangerous? Dangerous enough to collapse the global economy? I know U.S. housing prices have risen by more than 100% in five years. But Wall Street sees that as a normal rise caused by higher hoownership rates and continuous governnt encouragent of ho purchases.”
The fact that Wall Street—and most investors—thought that way was part of the problem.
Eva belonged to the mainstream too, so she couldn’t escape that frawork.
Well, if I didn’t have the mories of my previous life, I probably would have thought exactly the sa way she did.
“It could be seen as a normal rise. If Wall Street’s hyenas hadn’t jumped in.”
“...Boss. What do you an by that?”
“I still can’t tell you everything. But I can tell you this much—the issue is timing. The bomb will definitely explode. And the shock won’t even be comparable to the dot-com bubble.”
The certainty in my voice left Eva stunned. Since my predictions had almost never been wrong, the shock hit her even harder.
“Not even comparable to the dot-com bubble?”
“Of course. It’ll make the dot-com bubble feel like nothing more than a scratch.”
“The housing market and Wall Street’s greed combining into a bomb...”
Eva muttered to herself, sinking into thought.
“It’s howork, Eva. Find out what the problem is. If you figure it out, I’ll grant you one wish.”
“What? Really, Boss?”
“Have you ever seen lie? Go find out what’s going to explode.”
If it was Eva, she’d grasp the state of the current market in no ti.
Mortgage lending itself was a problem, but the various derivatives built on top of those mortgages were the far bigger disaster.
“This will beco an opportunity that will never co again for us. So slowly pull the capital back just as I instructed.”
“But if you’re that certain, shouldn’t we be betting on the short side?”
“Not yet. Right now it’s still just a small seed. Leave it alone until right before it bursts—let them keep feeding it with greed. The more it piles up, the bigger the fruit we’ll harvest later. You understand what I an, right?”
At my words, Eva’s eyes curved into a smile.
“Got it. I’ll finish unwinding it slowly, without shocking the market. Even then, it’ll probably take until the end of this year to recover all the capital.”
“That’s enough. We’ll be even busier starting next year.”
After talking with Eva a bit longer, I sent her off.
The mont she left, I placed a call to Arica.
— Charlie! Long ti no see.
Steve Jobs answered in a delighted voice.
“Is the launch prep going well, Jobs?”
— Foxconn is already running the factories at full capacity. But the problem is that I’m not sure we can et the volu we want by launch day.
“Ah, then we’ll handle the Korean launch supply through contract manufacturing.”
At my words, Jobs’s voice brightened imdiately.
— Oh, so you acquired the plant? We’d casually tested the waters before, but they quoted such a ridiculous price. After that, we just pulled out. No matter that it was your request, Charlie, they had the nerve to act that bold with ? I’ll make sure that company never sells my iPhone.
As expected, he really did hold grudges. It wasn’t a side of him he showed , but he was famous for being petty by nature.
Laughing, I cald the irritated Jobs down.
“Haha. They don’t even have the ability to launch the iPhone right away anyway. And we already signed an exclusive deal with Korea Telecom, didn’t we? For the ti being, it’s an exclusive with that carrier alone, so even if they wanted to sell it, they couldn’t.”
— I already got the report on that. Good carrier, too. But what are you planning for Japan? We’re reaching the stage where we need to start preparing and promoting.
At Jobs’s words, I sighed inwardly. Tis like this really made wish I had two bodies.
“I’ve been tied up with a few urgent matters lately, so I haven’t been able to focus on it much. Simultaneous launch in the U.S. and Korea cos first. Sales in Japan won’t begin until next year anyway, so negotiations could wait a little longer... but I’ll move on it right away.”
The iPhone, which in the original flow had launched in the U.S. alone, was now set for a simultaneous U.S.–Korea release, followed a few months later by Europe and then the rest of the world.
“And don’t worry about China.”
— Did you already decide on the carrier there?
“No. But there’s sowhere we can work with.”
— They’ll et all my conditions, right? Otherwise I won’t release in that country.
“Of course I know that. Sorry for causing problems with the production schedule because of .”
I had asked Steve Jobs to temporarily shut down Foxconn’s China plants.
Because of that, the iPhone production schedule had already been delayed by several months.
— Don’t worry too much about it, Charlie. Is there anything I wouldn’t do for you? You’re my muse.
His deliberately exaggerated tone made laugh out loud.
“Thank you, Jobs. Then send engineers over. It’ll be better if Apple staff co in person and lead the equipnt overhaul.”
— Good. I’ll send them imdiately.
After finishing the call with Jobs, I took a mont to gather my thoughts.
There really was a mountain of things to do.
Once I’d sorted it out in my head, I imdiately called for Manager Ma.
“Manager. Contact Joongwoo Group and let them know Apple staff will be visiting soon. Every production plant we acquired this ti needs to be converted into facilities for iPhone manufacturing.”
“Yes. I’ll pass it along.”
“And contact SoftBank as well. Tell them I’d like to et regarding the iPhone launch issue.”
“Will you be going to Japan personally?”
I shook my head. There was no need for to move.
“The one who’s desperate should co. Tell them to co here themselves. And tell them that if they don’t, I’ll find another partner.”
“Understood, Boss.”
SoftBank still didn’t own a telecom carrier yet.
I had already heard that Masayoshi Son had contacted Apple several tis because he wanted to sell the iPhone in Japan.
But Apple had given him no indication whatsoever.
“Let’s see how many days it takes Chairman Son to co flying over.”
Masayoshi Son had once been called Japan’s richest man, with assets exceeding ten billion dollars.
But after reacting far too slowly to the collapse of the dot-com bubble, his wealth had shrunk to barely one billion dollars.
On top of that, I had already entered the Chinese market where he should have invested, and the myth of his success was slowly coming to an end.
When 90% of SoftBank’s market capitalization vanished during the dot-com crash, the dia attacked his managent ability from every direction.
A Korean-Japanese man had once been called Japan’s richest person—there was no need to imagine how badly that must have wounded their pride.
The murky Japanese dia had openly delighted in his downfall.
“Welco, Chairman Son.”
“It’s been a while, President Kim.”
Masayoshi Son ca to Korea just one day after I contacted him.
“You arrived sooner than expected.”
“Is it true that you hold the rights to distribute the iPhone exclusively in Japan? Apple refused to confirm it.”
“Why would I lie to you, Chairman Son? Please, sit down. Let’s talk this through slowly.”
He had rushed all the way to Korea based on uncertain information alone.
That ant only one thing.
He had truly been driven to the edge.
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