“Bak Seongcheol! Are you going to keep saying things beyond your station?”
Two days earlier, Director Bak Seongcheol had once again gone head-to-head with the pension fund chairman.
Lately, whenever their eyes met, the two of them exchanged heated words, but that day their argument had been worse than usual.
“Do you not know what your duty is?”
“That is why I am saying this with my position on the line. It’s impossible. Chairman, you have to step forward.”
“You little—!”
The chairman slammed his desk and glared.
“Is the chairman of the pension fund a position for playing politics?! The ruling and opposition parties have more or less agreed on the pension law amendment. Whether it’s the ruling party’s proposal or the opposition’s, there’s practically no major difference!”
“That is exactly why you must speak frankly to them.”
“What?”
“You’re right. Both the ruling and opposition proposals are nothing more than deciding how many more years to keep the patient on a ventilator. Why is no one talking about structural reform?”
“You bastard!”
“The baby boomers have already begun receiving their pensions. But in ten years, twenty years from now, the side effects of the low birthrate will begin. It won’t work. It’s impossible. We can’t do it. In the end, someone has to say that we must pay out less, and the political sphere cannot keep turning away from that.”
Bang!
“You really have lost your mind, haven’t you?”
The chairman’s eyes were filled with killing intent.
“The moment you so much as open your mouth about that, every kind of political controversy will explode. What is it you want? Do you want to use your career as director of the pension fund to enter politics? Or do you want to drag the organization called the pension fund right into the middle of politics?”
“If even we, the party directly concerned, turn away from it, then who is going to say it...?”
“You bastard, don’t forget your duty! You’re an investor. Your job is to grow money! Don’t push our organization into a political maelstrom!”
Bak Seongcheol stared silently at the chairman for a long while.
In truth, the chairman was absolutely right. Korean politics had seen countless controversies surrounding pensions, but the pension fund had always maintained political neutrality.
For a director appointed to do a good job investing to spout such words was a foolish act that invited controversy upon himself.
“...Recently, Bank of Korea Governor Sin Huiseop said this.”
But he did not abandon his stubbornness.
“Korea’s prices are not because of the exchange rate; we need measures for agricultural and marine products. Unless the myth that Gangnam never falls is broken, Korean housing prices will always be unstable. Even if we must introduce regional quotas by university, we must achieve balanced development.”
“What?”
“They were effectively remarks hinting at an FTA and relocating the capital, and they were extremely political. They were not things the Bank of Korea governor should have said.”
“You bastard!”
“But he said them because they were necessary. If we don’t change the root problems, the same issues will keep repeating.”
He raised his voice.
“Our pension fund is in a more urgent situation than the Bank of Korea. Whether it’s the ruling party or the opposition, in the end, someone has to say that someone will have to receive less, but no one is saying it. Then who on earth is supposed to? If we are not making political calculations, shouldn’t we be the ones to speak frankly?”
In truth, there was no one who did not know the future. How serious Korea’s low birthrate had been for nearly twenty years, how quickly we were racing toward a super-aged society...
The population aged sixty-five and older currently receiving pensions was twenty percent, meaning four people supported one elderly person. But soon, an era would arrive in which one person had to support four elderly people.
Korea’s population structure had already entered an inverted pyramid.
“You came here today fully determined, didn’t you?”
The chairman glared at the director.
The two of them had often had minor arguments over this issue, but today, the director seemed to have come truly resolved.
“You said you’d stake your position on this, didn’t you? Fine, then you leave.”
“Are you really going to do this?”
“I saw the recent news. They said the pension fund recorded minus seven percent this time. If the pension problem is so serious, why are your results in such a state?”
“...How were we supposed to predict the Russo-Ukrainian War? Even that level was good compared to global sovereign wealth funds. And thanks to our recent purchase of defense stocks and portfolio reorganization, we’re now practically the only global institution in profit territory. Is this still our fault?”
“Yes, it is your fault. Why didn’t you do better?”
“...Pardon?”
“You should have done better. The fact that you didn’t do better is your fault.”
“Chairman!”
“If I speak frankly to the political sphere, that is exactly the answer I’ll get back. And you still expect me to make such a dangerous statement?”
The director could no longer open his mouth.
Seeing that, the chairman turned his chair around.
“Director Bak. No matter what anyone says, the person who trusts you most is me. Who was it that strongly recommended you for that position?”
“...”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear what you said today. If you do not give up your stubbornness, you really will have to step down from your position. You may leave.”
The director could not move his feet for a long while.
It seemed this was as far as he could go today.
He bowed his head and left the chairman’s office, then got into his car. Outside the window, a clear sky without a speck of fine dust adorned the tail end of spring, but to his eyes, it somehow looked like an ashen sky.
He had no intention of giving up his stubbornness. It was a problem someone had to take the bullet for.
He counted the time remaining in his term in his head.
It seemed unlikely he would be able to complete it.
*
“Seeing you up close, you’re quite a handsome one. Do you have a girlfriend?”
When I entered the director’s office with a tense expression, he spoke in a friendly tone while throwing out a very unexpected question.
My face flushed.
“No. I don’t.”
“Is that so? Then that’s a relief. Most of the guys who left the pension fund quit around the time they were getting married. I suppose they didn’t want to start newlywed life in Jeonju?”
“Haha...”
“If you want, shall I arrange a meeting for you? There are plenty of fine young women among Jeonju’s local notables. I’m sure you’d like them too.”
Thanks to his joke, I was able to shake off my tension completely.
To my great embarrassment, I remember that in my previous life, I never got married. To put it nicely, I had married the pension.
But to think that wife would pass away before I did...
“I said it to make you laugh. But I’m half serious. Whenever Manager O talks about you, he practically begs. He strongly recommended you for the risk team.”
“M-Manager O did?”
“Yes. He said something about you being strong in a recession. So I’d like to hear your opinion. What do you think?”
I answered without hesitation.
“I’m honored by the offer. But the investment team suits me far better. I would like to remain on the investment team.”
“I thought as much. I expected you would say that.”
The director picked up a paper, and his expression grew more serious.
“But you see. Looking at your recent portfolio, I found myself having the same concern as Manager O.”
“What do you mean...?”
“What you said to buy went up, and what you said to sell went down. But the people I know in the financial industry would never remain at the pension fund with a career like that. Why would an eloquent announcer spend their whole life at a company? If they became an entertainer, they could earn dozens of times more.”
“...”
“I truly am curious about the reason. If promotion were your goal, there’s no way you’d refuse a spot on the risk team. If investing were your purpose, you have enough skill to start your own fund company. Why are you staying at the pension fund?”
With my face flushed, I lowered my head.
“...I want to change it.”
“What?”
“It’s still a distant dream, but I want to change our country’s industrial system into a sustainable one.”
The director raised his eyebrows.
“That is a truly unexpected answer. What do you mean by that?”
“That’s what I learned during new employee training. That while investment performance is important to the pension fund, promoting domestic industries to create jobs and enhancing national competitiveness are also important.”
“Is that why you asked to be allowed to invest half the money meant for overseas defense stocks domestically?”
“Yes. Rather than earn one hundred trillion outside, we must earn ten trillion inside. Korea, with its weak domestic demand in particular, must create a sustainable economic structure somehow in order to survive.”
“Even though the return differs by ten times?”
“Only by creating jobs that way will there be more people paying into the pension, domestic consumption will be stimulated, and a solid domestic market will form. That benefit is a hundred times greater.”
“Hoho. Yes. We do brainwash new employees by saying that cultivating domestic companies creates a greater consumption-inducing effect. But that’s a principled statement on the level of ‘let’s live righteously.’ In this world, there is absolutely no investor who would insist on earning ten trillion domestically when they could earn one hundred trillion. So why do you keep spouting textbook answers?”
I clenched my fist tightly.
I don’t remember precisely, but I think I had tried it before. I think I had become an investment monster, drastically reformed the pension fund’s portfolio, raised the rate of return threefold, and even achieved first place among global sovereign wealth funds, all in an attempt to somehow prevent the pension from running dry.
But pouring water into a bottomless jar was meaningless.
All I had done was keep the ventilator attached for a few more years at most.
“I felt it while watching the Mrs. Watanabes.”
“Japan?”
“Yes. Japanese investors borrow money at low interest rates and invest overseas. Their investment performance is good too. Japan’s financial power is so mighty that when the yen carry trade unwinds, the international market shakes.”
“And?”
“And yet their real economy has remained stagnant for decades. The GDP gap with Germany, which had once been a rank below them, has widened greatly, and we have also overtaken them in GDP per capita. Since their next-generation growth engines are unclear, the Japanese stock market is unclear as well.”
Of course, the KOSPI was hardly in a position to talk about others right now, but Japan’s economy certainly looked strange.
Just twenty years ago, Japan had been overwhelming in every respect—GDP, technology, culture, growth engines—and yet, for some reason, it kept making one think, Couldn’t we take them on?
Where had the Japan that could sell Tokyo and buy America gone?
“Hoho... So in the end, you’re saying the real economy is important?”
“Yes. If we revive the real indicators, investment returns will inevitably follow as a byproduct.”
“So that is why you are reinvesting the money earned overseas directly into domestic companies?”
“Yes. Even if we fail, we have to keep reinvesting. Until we succeed.”
The director burst into laughter.
“Fine. I enjoyed your lecture on Introduction to Macroeconomics. It’s been quite some time since I graduated, so I haven’t heard one in a while.”
“Director...”
“Manager O’s prediction was wrong. You’re not the kind of guy who’ll start a fund company; you’re the kind who’ll get a doctorate and become a professor. Hoho.”
He laughed, then folded the paper.
“Manager O told me to send you to the risk team, but after listening to you, it seems you truly want to stay on the investment team.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Understood. I’ll discuss your personnel matter again and decide. In a way that respects your wishes as much as possible.”
“Thank you!”
“I enjoyed our conversation. You may go now.”
After Sejun left like that, the director sank into thought for a long time.
Today, he understood exactly why Manager O was always so confused about this guy.
He was a strange one. He had spent two straight hours doing nothing but talking about an introduction to macroeconomics.
Why did a man who called himself an investor seem more interested in running a country than in companies?