The Water Rocket Professor
The professor was being cocky.
Water Rocket.
A neologism meaning that past achievements no longer hold much value in the present.
Sports has all sorts of controversies about this.
Simple comparisons are impossible.
Take Pelé, for example.
If modern fans watched his play from back then, it might look a little lacking.
But just as you need an egg before you can hatch a chicken, dismissing a pioneer’s contributions outright is pure nonsense.
That is how it settles in sports, at least.
"Water Rocket?"
"What does Water Rocket even mean?"
"That thing they launch on Science Day?"
In the economic world, people in the industry largely agree the term has a point.
Especially the older generation that built their careers the easy way.
Come on—back then, succeeding was ridiculously easy.
Korea—the Republic of Korea—is a country that grew at breakneck speed.
Barely fifty years ago it was a backward nation worse off than the African hinterlands.
Anyone born in that era had life on easy mode.
Even if they just sat there breathing, they got promoted automatically, like riding an escalator.
"No, not that other meaning. It means the logic that worked in the professor’s era doesn’t work anymore."
"…Try explaining that."
"If it’s not too rude, may I step up to the podium for a moment?"
To hold a professorship at Hankuk University, he must have breathed pretty hard in his day. That much was true.
But even so.
Kids these days study more than twice what his generation ever did.
Ability is lacking.
Yet the title is high.
That is why, among young people in securities, there is an honest undercurrent of contempt.
"A rise in U.S. per capita GDP usually happens in the latter half of the cycle, after the peak has already turned…"
If those people had been born now, they would struggle to get into any In-Seoul school, let alone Hankuk University.
You could not help feeling they were simply not on the same level.
A society that promoted people automatically, like an escalator.
What could adults who lived such lukewarm lives possibly understand?
"And the latter half of an economic cycle means money was already pumped in once before, right? You have to reel it back in. That means rate hikes come with it, and given Americans’ habit of buying on installment, demand for real estate and cars generally falls. Because of compound interest, even a one-percent rate hike has the effect of raising prices by ten percent."
"Hmm…"
"Right? Nothing to refute, is there?"
Except for a tiny handful, they put in zero eeeeffort.
They have never updated themselves on how complex the economic world has become.
"I hadn’t thought as far as installment purchases."
"Professor!"
"Yes, what is it?"
"Why buy on installment? Just pay lump sum."
"In America they place a lot of importance on raising the FICO score—credit score. So even if it costs more, many people still choose installment plans."
Well, he’d know at least that much.
Even a rotten croaker is still a croaker.
A Hankuk University professor might well have studied abroad in the States.
Even if not, knowledge piles up with age.
Around the lecture hall, the way the students looked at me began to change.
They might have thought I had simply come forward to spin a plausible story.
But—
"It was an interesting perspective. Still, as grounds for the stock price not rising—or rather falling…"
"No, that’s just the basic background."
"What?"
"You have to factor in the political stance as well."
What I do is pure live combat.
When America’s per capita national income rises sharply, what actually happens to the stock prices of our auto exporters.
It’s not as if only our country sells cars.
Current market share in the U.S. auto market.
First place belongs to Japanese companies.
This is a “political problem” with a long history.
"If Japanese car share rises further on the back of increased U.S. consumption, political regulation is inevitable."
"Uh—uh? Dragging politics into it is…"
"Of course we drag it in. It’s America’s panic button."
It was an event that once threatened American hegemony.
It was also the reason the famous Plaza Accord was signed.
That whole Lost Thirty Years thing.
The trade deficit with Japan.
Number one item on the list: automobiles.
Japan had practically owned the U.S. car market.
So it is still sensitive.
Whenever Japanese auto share looks ready to climb past a certain line, import-restriction bills appear.
And right now it’s the Trump era.
He goes completely berserk over trade deficits.
He will push domestic companies; there is no way he does favors for foreign ones.
"…For that reason, Korean auto stocks have no choice but to get wrecked."
And so the product is short selling.
When you can print money, there is no reason not to.
This is live analysis.
A basic inference grounded in complex-systems theory, the foundation of modern economics.
"Politics is a bit…"
"Isn’t that over the top?"
"Right, right! He’s just force-fitting it!"
They dared to talk back.
The dissatisfied voices rising from every corner of the hall had to be my imagination.
Do they really think one part of the economy can move without affecting anything else?
I called it live combat, but real combat is far more complicated.
The will of market participants creates butterfly effects.
Effects that can whip up a storm on the other side of the planet.
That is usually how the high-flying famous investors meet catastrophe.
"Hey!"
That world of investors.
Ordinary people cannot know it.
Because they do not know, education is supposed to teach them.
Click. Click.
Low-heeled shoes.
Yet those long, straight legs made ordinary jeans look deliberately sexy.
You’d think she was doing a model walk.
Sora came striding down the center aisle.
Was it just me, or did she look angry at me?
"I’ve listened and listened, and I really cannot take this anymore!"
"Listen listen I can’t listen?"
"What are you even saying. The grammar is completely wrong."
My perfect lecture.
I had given an answer that was practically the answer key to how the real economy works.
Unbelievably, she had a problem with it.
"The professor was speaking on the premise of ordinary conditions, and you just twist it however you like!"
"So what?"
"You’re talking economic theory and then you drag in politics, drag in history, and spin pure fantasy!"
"That is exactly what the economy is."
Economy.
In modern society the economy is human life itself.
Therefore economics must be realistic, and more than that, practical.
"The professor was only assuming a one-in-a-million scenario."
"Is that so?"
"Do you understand now?"
"But there is no ‘if’ in the economy."
This is not armchair theory.
Economics that is useless in live combat is not worth learning.
I do feel like I was being a little spiteful.
That professor character only ever spouts unhelpful talk.
No—that itself can be forgiven.
A professor’s job is to teach.
He is free to emphasize foundational theory; I understand that fully.
"Wouldn’t the professor have left those parts out because he simply doesn’t know them?"
"Yeah."
"…What?"
"If he knew, he would have said so."
The problem is that he does not know.
When she answered as if my reply were strange, I honestly got angry.
A professor is not allowed to not know!
If the one teaching does not know, the ones being taught cannot know either.
Only dead knowledge piles up.
I know the process of becoming a smart-headed idiot all too well.
It simply mass-produces more humans like that professor.
"How arrogant. Just because the professor gave you a little credit, you think you’re better than him?"
"I am better."
"W-what did you just say?"
"The professor is from the Water Rocket generation."
Unlike that era, if you lack competitiveness now, you do not survive.
Anyone who heard my analysis should already know.
See? Even the professor can’t make a peep.
Career?
Years of experience?
Even Warren Buffett and Ken Fisher get called has-beens the moment one prediction misses—that is the economic world.
In this world, skill is everything.
After hearing the answer just now, no one should be able to make a sound.
"What have you been saying this whole time? Water Rocket?"
"I mean, in the professor’s generation…"
Back then, doing it that way would have worked!
In the old days the structure of the economy was simple.
Markets and politics reacted slowly.
Now the reaction is instantaneous.
Even if they do not react, market participants price it into the actual stock price themselves.
"So that’s what Water Rocket meant?"
"Yeah."
"So you insulted my father too? Looking down on him."
"Good comprehension."
The massive current created that way can move even America.
That is why the economy is the life we actually live.
"That’s right. When he was young he shot one Water Rocket and landed on Wall Street. Then his foundation got exposed and he got kicked out."
"Have you… finished talking?"
"If it hadn’t been a Water Rocket he’d still be active today—ebebe!"
That is why living knowledge must be taught.
At least at one of Korea’s top universities.
Ah, I wanted to get along with her.
The milk cartons and the baby bag are both excellent.
It is deeply regrettable that a wrong career choice has turned into this bad connection.
"Who are you to dismiss the lives the older generation walked?"
"I’m not dismissing them."
"Then what is it?"
"He shot a Water Rocket, so I’m just saying he shot a Water Rocket."
Still, I had to say what needed saying.
The milk was already spilled.
I might as well get everything off my chest.
"Even if the professor shot a Water Rocket, what right do you have—"
"Because he’s Water Rocket generation."
"Whether the professor shot a Water Rocket or not, what business is it of yours!"
"Yep—Water Rocket, ziiip~!"
Her shoulders were trembling.
She really was full of anger.
Teasing her was surprisingly fun.
Might as well enjoy the reaction.
A good-looking rice cake.
Even if I cannot fry it, I can at least admire it.
I had been needling her for a better reaction when—
"Both of you, out of the classroom!"
Hearing it over and over was starting to get on his nerves.
"Wow, that guy is a real psycho."
"But he’s a senior…"
"Senior or not! Talking back to a professor like that—is that even allowed?"
The lecture hall after class.
The moment one student left, the back-channel roasting ignited.
An unprecedented incident had just occurred.
A student talking back to a professor?
It kind of sounded like he had a point, though…
Of course public opinion could not be favorable.
I was on the side that agreed with those friends.
But not everyone thought the same way.
Yeon-woo was a little curious.
Tap, tap!
Whether that psycho senior had actually been right.
The professor never mentioned it again afterward, so there was no way to know.
So he decided to ask.
Collective intelligence.
If he posted it on social media, someone might answer.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"Huh?"
"It’s nothing."
He had secretly filmed the heated debate just now.
At his friend’s question he hurriedly hid the phone.
Just in case.
That was all.
Simply to settle his own curiosity.
What butterfly effect that tiny curiosity would set off—
No one could have known.