Money as God: A Korean Perspective

The Super Bowl, the final match of the National Football League (NFL), is the largest sports festival in the United States that enthuses 350 million Americans. The 32 teams in the NFL are divided into the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC) and compete in league matches for six months from September to February of the following year every year, and then the winners of the NFC and AFC face off in the Super Bowl. The number ’49’ of the ’49ers’, a prestigious NFL team and based in San Francisco, California, is impressive.

Among Americans, ’49er’ is commonly referred to as ‘a person who seeks to make a fortune’ or ‘a person who chases luck’, and appeared in the mid-19th century against the background of the American Wild West era. In 1848, when the rumor that gold panner was first discovered in California spread, over 250,000 people, or 5% of the total population of 50 million in the United States, flocked to the West in a short period of time from 1849 to 1850. This phenomenon was called the ‘gold rush’ and those who joined this group were called 49ers. The gold rush was a major contributor to the birth of the continental nation of the United States, but most of those who visited El Dorado (the city of gold) at the time died or went bankrupt along the way, and only a very few hit the jackpot. These people were the typical American type of rich people who ‘earn like dogs and spend like dogs.’

Even in Korea, there is a strong tendency for money malingering, with the belief that ‘money will work in the afterlife’. In the face of financial interests, there are many cases where lawyers ignore Dicke, the goddess of law and justice, and medical professionals who deal with life dismiss Hippocrates’ teachings to be faithful to the interests of patients as a myth. The general public must be appalled at the fact that high-income professionals with long bag straps and enviable occupations have gone too far in their addiction to gold. Thanks to the 52-hour workweek and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, jobbers, in which office workers work one or more side jobs in addition to their main job, have become common, and cases of even transporting drugs for money have been confirmed. It is known that the college student who died in Cambodia last August after being tortured by a criminal group suffered the tragedy while looking for a high-paying job.

The stock investment boom in the era of low interest rates is rampant. As of the end of last year, the number of people trading stocks in Korea was about 14 million, or 27% of the total population. It has rapidly increased three-fold in 10 years from approximately 5.07 million (10% of the total population) in 2013. The United States ranks first in the world in terms of the ratio of people investing in stocks to the total population at 55%, and Korea is ranked 6th in the world, following Canada (49%, 2nd), Australia (37%, 3rd), the United Kingdom (33%, 4th), and New Zealand (31%, 5th), and is by far the top in Asia. Japan, the world’s third largest economy, ranks 13th with 15%, Hong Kong, one of the world’s three largest stock markets, ranks only 19th with 14%, and Taiwan (13%) ranks 20th. In Korea, which has just emerged from the developing world, the proportion of the population investing in stocks is very high compared to its economic power. As of the end of last year, there were 9.7 million virtual currency investors (19% of the total population). The market capitalization is 107 trillion won, and the largest trading age group is in their 30s.

The higher the mountain, the wider and deeper the shade. As the Lee Jae-myung government is talking about the ‘KOSPI Index 5000’, saying that domestic stocks are undervalued, the likelihood that more citizens will be exposed to ‘high risk’ in the future has increased. Even at this very moment, countless ant investors are traveling around the country and abroad, flocking like moths to wherever they smell money.

Although it is not possible to confirm the number of cases of bankruptcy after participating in money games such as investing in stocks, bonds, and derivatives, the household credit balance as of the end of the third quarter of this year was 1968.3 trillion won, the largest since related statistics were compiled in the fourth quarter of 2002. A series of warnings from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank of Korea are attracting attention. It is painful to think of the 1997 foreign exchange crisis, when domestic companies went all-in on ‘debt-invested management’ and the Korean economy collapsed. Household debt is holding back the Korean economy.

Almost everyone in Korea feels like they are buried in golden omnipotence and low-class capitalism. Jo Jeong-rae, a novelist from the Taebaek Mountains, deplored the tragic feast of humans who worship ‘golden paper’ (money) as their only god.

/Lee Han-gu, professor emeritus and guest editorialist at Suwon University

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