The -34% plunge—greater than the stock market crashes during the IMF foreign exchange crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic—was truly staggering. The reports that hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even over a million, retail investors had their accounts liquidated due to forced liquidation, along with the story of a department head weeping in the office hallway, left me with a heavy heart. It brought back memories of a time long ago when I had made substantial profits trading cryptocurrency but, blinded by greed and arrogance, ventured into leveraged trading—only to eventually have my collateral liquidated. I was working as a delivery driver at the time, and the terror I felt when I received a warning message on the app telling me to add more collateral within a few hours is almost impossible to put into words. It felt as if a creditor had come to my door, repeatedly ringing the doorbell and threatening to repossess my home if I didn’t pay back the money immediately. I vividly remember how, a few hours later, when I was unable to provide additional collateral, I watched the coins in my account balance vanish before my eyes, leaving me so dazed that I could barely focus on my delivery work.
It’s a scenario I’d rather not imagine, but something similar actually happened to many people in South Korea. It was overwhelming to think of the fear they must have felt as the lump sums that form the foundation of their lives—several months’ worth of salary, jeonse deposits, wedding funds, or retirement savings—vanished right before their eyes. I found myself wondering what I would do if someone’s parents, a friend, or perhaps even I myself were to find ourselves in such a situation. There had been news reports since the beginning of the year that foreign funds had made net sales of over 100 trillion won, and since I’d seen the pattern of buying in hopes of a rebound after a market crash many times before, I understood it intellectually. Yet, when it actually hit home, it felt strange. I wondered if this was the same feeling the ancient prophets must have had when they delivered warnings and counsel to the people of Israel.
Meanwhile, I was suddenly reminded of a Korean-American venture capitalist who, when the exchange rate skyrocketed and the cryptocurrency and stock markets crashed following the declaration of martial law, had blamed the then-president for all of it. He managed a fund that invested in domestic startups with capital from a Korean government-backed fund, and after learning of his political leanings, I found myself wondering anew how he’s been doing lately. Since he’s good with numbers, he surely knows the “law of large numbers,” and I assumed he must have his own views on how the early voting and overseas voting rates in last year’s presidential election yielded results that were difficult to explain statistically.
As someone whose profession is investing, I assumed he would understand better than anyone else where the blame lies for the market overheating—caused by the government’s declaration of the “5,000 era” for the KOSPI (which had been hovering around the 3,000 mark just a year ago), real estate regulations, and the president’s direct call to expand the National Pension Service’s allocation to domestic stocks. In the end, just like the foreign funds that lured countless retail investors into debt-fueled investing, reaped the profits, and then cashed out, I imagined that he, too, would be “sipping a drink at Mojito, thinking about the Maldives” by now.
Deliveryman's Blog 
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