The Calculation of Trust

Professor Kim Won-wook.

He had risen to stardom as an analyst by predicting the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.

For a man like him, the past ten years had been nothing short of tedious.

No crash worth the name had ever arrived.

It's about time another big wave rolled in.

The KOSPI had been a box-range market, pure and simple. The Nasdaq had climbed eightfold from its lows. There had been dips, large and small — of course there had — but looking at the big picture, a true crash had never come.

"So you're saying this is still just a correction…?"

"I'd say we've only just entered the opening stage."

The moment was ripe for a Great Depression that would shake the entire world. No — it had to happen that way.

This time for sure.

Predictions. They weren't always right. You couldn't nail the timing with precision either. It had been the same with the subprime mortgage crisis. He had hammered the point home relentlessly since 2005.

The result had come in 2008. For three years of a bull market he had been treated like cold leftovers. In the end, he had hit the mark. That was how he became a star analyst and earned the moniker Dr. Doom.

This makes another three years.

It would go the same way this time. The crash he had been forecasting since 2016 was about to bear fruit.

"So you're saying another crash is coming, just like 2008?"

"I said as much on the previous broadcast."

You couldn't milk a ten-year-old reputation forever. Sooner or later, another crisis had to break at a convenient moment.

That's just how the economy works.

He was an economics professor. But making money in the stock market was an entirely different story. If that had been possible? He wouldn't have been grinding through economic talk shows.

"In 2008, the U.S. government flooding the system with money was what caused the bubble to collapse."

"Sounds exactly like now, doesn't it?"

"A sharp rate hike was the trigger then — and the Fed is hiking rates aggressively right now as well."

You couldn't time when a bubble would burst. But you could be certain that it would burst.

In sixty years of life, this isn't my first or second rodeo.

When the moment looked ripe for a bubble to pop, you just kept hammering the claim. Eventually, you would be right. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠That was the secret behind Kim Won-wook's rise as a star analyst.

Another opportunity had come knocking.

A flow that looked a lot like 2008. Additional bad news was piling on top — the debt ceiling and more. The Nasdaq was genuinely crashing. The fire would spread to the KOSPI soon enough.

"A viewer just made a pretty dangerous investment~ Is that okay, Professor?"

"I think it's fine."

"Oh — really?!"

"Once a recession starts, real estate is the first thing to crumble."

No — the global economy itself. If a historic catastrophe big enough for the textbooks unfolded…

There won't be a single Korean investor who doesn't know the three syllables of Dr. Doom.

The more intense the memory, the longer it lasted. The bigger the disaster, the better it was for him.

"Still, isn't inverse pretty risky?"

"In a period like this, I consider holding stocks or real estate the more dangerous position."

"Wow… holding stocks is far more dangerous!"

Even a small crisis would do. The people who made money because of him…

These days, with YouTube and the communities and all that, word spreads faster than before.

They would spread it for him. If he simply sat still, followers would sprout up nationwide.

…

…

…

That was exactly how it was going. The recent bear market was polishing Dr. Doom's reputation to a shine.

No wonder the communities were in an uproar. His predictions were genuinely coming true. Investors stuck holding underwater stocks heard the rumor that someone had predicted the crash — and went looking for Dr. Doom.

They were desperate enough to grab at any straw. Dr. Doom's following was growing.

Of course, the opposite case existed too. Until recently, public sentiment had been favorable —

As the market shook again, she came under suspicion. Investors' hearts were as fickle as reeds. That was only natural. A person gripped by fear could not respond rationally.

They wanted someone to save them. That was why she had started streaming in the first place — but…

Haa…

Right now, she felt the same way. Sora's chest felt tight, as if something were lodged in it. Not because she was stuck in stocks. She had bought on her own judgment, so whatever happened, she had no regrets. But as a broadcaster, it was different. She was tasting the full weight of being a stock expert.

U.S. equities. There was something more important than data or the Fed's stance.

"The political side of things?"

"Yeah."

"I hate political theme stocks…"

"No, not theme stocks."

She had no idea. No wonder Sora was slumped over like a deflated balloon.

At least her chest hasn't deflated.

Unlike their owner, they stood proud and defiant. Her nipples pointed toward the sky as if they had never heard of gravity.

"Stop messing around!"

"I'm not messing around."

"I'm seriously dying over here."

"Trump isn't messing around either."

"What?"

She was a lot like him, in that way. Trump wasn't raising his voice for nothing either.

The times have changed.

The debt ceiling. Definitely not a major issue on its own. In the past, that had been true. You just compromised reasonably and moved on — unless you actually wanted to run the country into the ground.

"Politics has gone full fandom."

"Fandom?"

"You know — the Taegukgi ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠brigades, the hardcore party cultists, that whole scene?"

"Well… I've seen it on the news…"

That kind of compromise no longer worked. It was because of the polarization that had taken root in the Trump era.

Inevitable, in a way.

It locked into the broader shift of the age. Politics was no longer something that only showed up on the nine o'clock news.

You saw it everywhere on YouTube. The algorithm automatically recommended videos that matched your tastes.

"They have that in America too?"

"Trump is the original."

"Ugh…"

"You rally your base with whatever sounds good to them."

Fandoms had existed in the past. The one thing that had changed was the injection of lies and demagoguery.

It's YouTube, after all.

Unlike newspapers or traditional news, there was no real editorial filter. If it boosted approval ratings, distortion was fair game. And the supporters believed it. Inside political fandoms, fake news was accepted as fact.

"Politicians have to deliver on it — whether it actually works or not."

"Like the border wall?"

"Exactly."

An undeniable fact they saw on YouTube! The vicious cycle of swallowing it without a shred of doubt kept spinning.

A politician's highest priority is approval ratings.

Whether the country burned or not came second. That was the real reason the debt ceiling negotiations were deadlocked.

"You should try going full Taegukgi girl or hardcore cultist girl while you're at it. You'd lock in a concrete base and the donations would pour in."

"Oh, fuck off."

It worked that well. Plenty of YouTubers were raking in astronomical sums doing exactly that.

She has no idea how to monetize her own talents.

A little hip-swaying and the middle-aged uncles on either side would lose their minds.

"So is America actually going to… shut down? Then the KOSPI would get hit too, right?"

Sora's head was full of nothing but stock worries. With a face like that, I could cosplay a cracked skull and vacuum up money.

Anyway.

Day by day, the importance of politics kept growing. It was hitting stock prices hard in real terms. And yet the reason for still trading U.S. equities — ironically — was also tied to politics.

"America's still fine, though."

"They're at each other's throats — how is that fine?"

"Because that's the kind of country it is."

"?"

Because America was the strongest nation on earth.