Money Keeps Piling Up No Matter How Much I Spend

Chapter 216

Translator: Dreamscribe"......"

Everyone working in finance right now was probably wearing the same expression.

"Wh-what the hell is......"

The market was collapsing, literally.

A collapse on the scale of the Great Depression. All they could do was swallow hard and stare blankly at their screens.

The U.S., Europe, Asia.

Every market was crumbling in unison, and there was nothing anyone could do.

"Director-nim. What are we supposed to do about this?"

Reynolds, a Director at Gold Reagan, had prided himself on having rolled around this industry long enough to have seen it all, but this was a first.

There had been plenty of financial crises up to now, truth be told.

But none of them had risen to the level of a global Great Depression.

They had always been recoverable, to some degree.

"But this......"

A thought even crossed his mind unbidden.

What if the financial markets simply shut down for good?

Most Asian countries had already closed their markets, and the U.S. and Europe were planning to shut their exchanges as well until things stabilized.

That was how thoroughly the Great Depression had engulfed the entire world.

"This isn't the time for everyone to sit around slack-jawed. Hurry up and give me a briefing. What's the situation?"

"As you can see, everyone's dumping everything right now. The chaos has only deepened with Russia going the way it has, on top of the collapse of China and North Korea."

The global stock markets had already shown signs of collapse during the fall of China and North Korea, but the death of Russia's dictator, Patin, had been the trigger.

"China is noisy with civil war at the moment, but a rough power structure has taken shape, and more importantly, control of their nuclear arsenal hasn't fallen into anyone's hands yet. Even if it does, the likelihood of it being used is extremely low."

Russia, on the other hand, had seen declarations of independence springing up left and right since Patin's death.

"Siberia, Chechnya, Dagestan, Kaliningrad, and others. Multiple regions have declared independence as if they'd been waiting for this moment and decided to run their own governments. In Moscow, Sergei, Patin's right-hand man, has established a provisional government, but it doesn't look like it'll last."

"Why not?"

"It's come to light that Sergei was the one who killed Patin. That's sparked infighting on the inside. The problem is that during the civil war, control of the nuclear weapons has passed to someone, and word is spreading fast that they might actually be used."

Even if command of China's nuclear arsenal changed hands, the chances of it being used were low.

But in Russia, rebel factions had sprung up like weeds the moment Patin died, and a creeping anxiety was spreading that an incident could happen anywhere, at any time.

If those rebels seized a nuclear base, even if they couldn't launch immediately, they might eventually solve the technical problems and fire.

"That's exactly what dealt the direct blow to the markets."

All of these crises erupting simultaneously had the world bracing for the end times.

Doomsday, the kind of thing you only saw in movies, might actually be around the corner. That fear had everyone dumping their stocks and converting to cash.

"Idiots. Even if they cash out, it's all meaningless if the world actually ends."

Judging by the stock market alone, it looked like the world would end tomorrow.

"So you're saying we should be buying, Director-nim? There's that saying about buying when there's fear in the streets."

"......"

Reynolds hesitated at those words.

Buy when there's fear.

One of the most famous maxims in the stock market.

Reading it on paper, anyone would think they could buy during a panic, but...

"When you're staring real fear in the face, you just can't."

On top of that, this wasn't merely fear. It was reality.

The entire financial system might genuinely collapse from here.

So what should they do?

"......What is Kwangwoon doing?"

* * *

Boom!

Crash!

Was the end of the world approaching?

Turning on the news showed nothing but footage filled with explosions and gunfire.

The Chinese civil war was essentially just getting started. In North Korea, UN peacekeeping forces, U.S. troops, and Korean military had been deployed and were rooting out the coup forces. And across Russia, shocking declarations of independence were being issued from every corner following Patin's death.

Russia was especially alarming. Unlike China, there was no clear power structure. Everyone was ignoring the provisional government and devolving into rebel factions, creating a situation where no one could predict where a nuclear weapon might go off.

"More importantly for us, the biggest problems are North Korea and the global stock markets."

North Korea was the country right above them.

The Kim dynasty had been wiped out and the dictatorship was over, but armed Chinese forces had slipped in among the refugees, and military factions trying to establish a new dictatorship in North Korea still remained. Allied forces were currently working to clean them up.

"Fortunately, the U.S. military quickly bombed the nuclear launch sites, so an immediate launch is unlikely. The problem is chemical weapons. If the military factions fire those at our country, the damage would be catastrophic."

"They're keeping a close watch to prevent that, right?"

"Yes. The U.S. is monitoring the North Korean military factions closely to make sure they don't try anything reckless, and they're bombing immediately if they detect any suspicious movement. Another fortunate thing is that North Korea has almost no fuel reserves left, and all supply lines are cut, so military operations themselves are difficult."

Should they be grateful that the Kim family's greed had completely ruined the North Korean economy?

Thanks to that, military supply lines were so broken that the coups erupting elsewhere were being interpreted as outbursts from people who simply couldn't endure the hunger any longer.

"So North Korea will sort itself out with time?"

"That seems to be the U.S. military's assessment at the moment. The country was barely holding its shape to begin with, so there are plenty of North Korean factions who think they'd be better off accepting help from the U.S. and South Korea. If we cooperate with them and work through the problems......"

What came next was obvious.

"The two Koreas would truly be unified."

I had thought reunification would never happen in my lifetime.

But just as West and East Germany had unified so suddenly.

Korea and North Korea now found themselves on the brink of reunification, swept along by the rapidly shifting geopolitical tides.

"But reunification is harder than you'd think. The gap in per-capita GDP alone is staggering, the systems and ideologies are completely different, and the lack of education and infrastructure means that even if reunification happens, people in the remote regions won't even know about it because they have no media."

"On top of that, North Korea would have to operate under a provisional government for a while, and if real reunification happens, it would take about thirty years of stabilization."

But if all of those steps were pulled off like a miracle, the story would change entirely.

"Then the picture really changes. A population of over eighty million, nuclear capability putting military power in the top tier, massive job creation from developing North Korean infrastructure. And South Korea is already serving as Asia's financial hub, right? That role could expand significantly."

But the problem was that the process would be agonizingly difficult.

"And before we even talk about an Asian financial hub, the global stock markets are on the brink of apocalypse right now, and a Great Depression of historically unprecedented scale could hit. The peacekeeping and U.S. forces could even withdraw due to the economic fallout."

Finance played the most critical role in the world economy.

So what would happen if the financial markets stopped?

Banking payment networks would freeze, stocks would become worthless paper, everyone would rush to banks to get cash, but no institution would hand any out.

Then international trade networks would grind to a halt, wages would go unpaid, food and energy supplies would collapse, and eventually even cash itself would become useless.

Only gold, silver, food, and energy would serve as currency.

"Then massive social upheaval would follow, cities would fall apart, and maintaining a functioning state would become nearly impossible. Civilization would collapse."

That was a nightmarish future no one wanted to imagine.

"Right about now, everyone who was running their companies on bank loans secured by stock collateral is probably in a full-blown panic. And a chain of bankruptcies is already underway."

When the markets dropped this far, cascading bankruptcies were inevitable.

If only it would stop there.

The problem was that if things went further, it would lead to the collapse of civilization, just as the Department Head had said.

"So we need to restore the markets, fast."

"Yes. But that's easier said than done. The media is in a frenzy as if nuclear war could break out tomorrow, and the rich are fleeing to their bunkers."

In other words, something was needed to calm this global chaos.

What could possibly restore the world economy as it spiraled out of control?

"You flood the market with an overwhelming amount of money. You force the markets back to life, even if it's brute force."

"But isn't the global market far too massive for that?"

"If someone steps up and delivers a big enough shock, other players will follow suit, and the market could start functioning again, couldn't it?"

For that dreamlike scenario to work, it would take an entity with both deep pockets and worldwide influence to step up and take the lead.

A place with enough money and influence to shock the global markets......

Wait. A place that could actually pull that off......

"!?"

Right on cue, intuition struck with force.

There was nowhere but Kwangwoon that could even attempt this insane scenario.

* * *

"Board Chairman. The banks have called again. They say if you don't post additional margin soon, they'll have no choice but to proceed with liquidation."

Four hundred dollars.

That had been Tesla's beautiful stock price.

But it had begun to waver with the collapse of China and the North Korea crisis, and the Russia situation had delivered the finishing blow.

Tesla's stock, which had soared to four hundred dollars, had now fallen below one hundred.

Milon Tusk sat with his eyes glazed over, staring at the ceiling as his secretary's reports kept coming in one after another.

"Can we even post the margin? The amount we've borrowed from the banks is astronomical."

Milon Tusk had been running his companies by taking out massive loans from multiple banks, using his stock holdings as collateral.

The reason was simple.

Taxes.

If he wanted to fund a venture or buy something, he would have to sell stock.

That would dilute his influence over his companies. People would criticize him for selling, which could drive the stock price down further.

And that wasn't all.

The gains from those sales would be converted entirely into hefty tax bills owed to the government.

That was why billionaires like Milon Tusk chose a different approach.

Bank loans.

They would borrow hundreds of billions of dollars against their skyrocketing stocks and spend that instead.

No taxes owed.

The money he spent was all borrowed, after all.

He just had to keep up with the interest payments.

"......"

But he hadn't anticipated this.

The fatal flaw of this elegant system of borrowing against stock.

That flaw was a scenario where the stock's value plummeted to rock bottom, forcing him to post additional margin and repay the debt on top of it.

But for Tesla to drop this far, the entire stock market itself would have to collapse, so he'd never even considered such a scenario.

And yet, here it was. The global Great Depression scenario had come to pass.

Every stock was turning to scrap paper.

"Forget the debt, we can't even cover the margin. For that to be possible, you'd have to sell every company you own. World Link, Space T, and all the subsidiaries too."

But who would buy them now?

Not when everyone was scrambling to liquidate and survive.

"If it comes to this......"

Milon Tusk sat rooted in his chair, unable to stand, hollow with disbelief.

He had only ever thought about going to Mars, terraforming it, and building a new empire there. The possibility that he might go bankrupt had never even crossed his mind.

"How did it come to this?"

Everything had been going according to plan.

He had acquired a tunneling company for the underground city he'd build on Mars, he was developing the robots he'd send for terraforming, and the rocket launch schedule had been going perfectly.

And yet the end of it all was bankruptcy.

He hadn't even set foot on Mars yet!

"Board Chairman. There's, well... word is that Kwangwoon is going to carry out a bailout to save the collapsing markets."

"Wh-what?"

Who had caused this whole mess in the first place?

Kwangwoon.

They were the ones who had reduced China and North Korea to that state. Russia, too, was undoubtedly their doing. And now they had the nerve to come along and talk about a bail...

"Wait."

A chill ran down Milon Tusk's spine.

"So this is what Kwangwoon was after."

If Kwangwoon wanted to seize control of the global stock markets and swallow up all the major corporations they had never been able to conquer, what would they need to do?

Destroy the world economy itself.

When everyone was groaning under debt and their companies were worth less than scraps of paper.

That was precisely when Kwangwoon, sitting on an overwhelming fortune, could scoop it all up.

"If what you're saying is true, Board Chairman, then Kwangwoon collapsed the world economy just so they could take everything......"

"Nothing else makes sense. They're not some messiah. Why would they suddenly start talking about a bailout? This was their plan from the very beginning."

China, North Korea, and then Russia, toppled one after another, all for this single play.

To bring every corporation to its knees before Kwangwoon.

"And on top of that, these bastards are coming for my companies too......!"

His companies, the ones Milon Tusk had built with his own blood and sweat, were included in their plans.

But the terrifying part was this: even knowing their scheme, there was absolutely no way to stop it.