Jonathan screamed in the car as we exited the White House.

“Whoaaahhh!”

The driver stopped the car hurriedly and asked, “Are you okay, sir?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” His eyes glistened with joy.

“This is not something to enjoy,” I reminded him.

“He said even the Chinese ambassador couldn’t do what you did. Hahaha!”

Jonathan looked back at the White House like he was a kid heading to Disneyland. I hated to rain on his parade, but I had to remind him that the White House didn’t back off because they feared us. They would have noticed that our assets would be similar to their annual defense budget. However, the dispute was too worthless to risk the economic life of the country as the secretary had called it ‘such a thing.’ That was why I had been able to harshly attack him, but I realized that I needed even more wealth if I wanted them to fear me enough that they wouldn’t try to pick a fight with me.

In the past, human civilization had declined due to three reasons. First was the idiotic actions of governments and capitalists worldwide, second was the reckless use of nuclear weapons, and the third was the civil war between the Eight Evils and Eight Virtues. If the first and second causes only exerted only fifty percent of their impact on the world, things wouldn’t have been so bad.

As I had mentioned multiple times before, humanity had enough opportunities to improve the situation, but the initial response by the world’s governments to the Day of Advent had been complacent. It was understandable as the monsters that appeared at first could be dealt with conventional firearms. Instead of praising their modern technology and their military, they should have taken that moment to align their policies regarding the new state of the world together. When the monsters could no longer be contained by the military, a sacrifice was inevitable. However…

In 1985, a former U.S. president had once made a remark during a summit with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland.

 「If aliens attack us, the conflicts between people around the world would subside quickly.」

He meant the entire world would cooperate and respond to the invasion, but things were different when it actually happened. That was why money, gold and land had turned into useless pieces of paper, stones and contaminated dirt. The government officials and financiers tried desperately to protect their own power and personal properties without making any sacrifices, heedless of the consequences. The results had been catastrophic as the global economy crashed, and the fate of human civilization no longer existed. Those who held the vast majority of the world’s wealth wouldn’t have expected that things would go that far. It was already too late once we understood the scope of the threat. This was the first step to decline.

In fact, both nuclear warfare and civil war in the second and third reasons respectively had originated from this. Everything had happened according to the law of cause and effect, so I was determined that this time the world would be organized and ready for the Day of Advent! Therefore, the foundation of human civilization wouldn’t collapse this time.

Despite the Great Recession that started in 2008, we would be able to face monsters with our financial system intact. That was the future I dream of, and that was why I needed to earn money.

***

I had been looking out the window to see people going about their daily routine while Jonathan calmed himself down.

“They will continue to keep an eye on us,” Jonathan said.

“Reduce the New York firm’s tax evasion methods to the absolute minimum, and I’ll tell you this since you haven’t noticed. This happened only because I’m Asian. Those racists don’t want me to play in the same pool with them,” I replied.

“Yeah, I knew it. I just didn’t want to bring it up since it’ll only hurt your feelings. Anyway, sorry for bringing you here. I could’ve handled it by myself. This won’t happen a…!”

Jonathan couldn’t finish his sentence as the car started accelerating at the intersection while ignoring the stop signal. Other drivers blasted their horns.

“What the heck is wrong with you?” Jonathan yelled.

The driver continued driving dangerously despite the traffic jam.

Jonathan screamed, “Almighty!”

This was the first time I heard the driver’s name.

“Someone is following us. Do you see the black Explorer behind?” he asked.

Jonathan’s face became rigid and he looked at me. Then, he said with distaste, “They must be really pissed. What do they want by following us around?”

The car shook once again, and the car pulled to the right at the junction of the highway with a sudden brake and squeaking noise. A black SUV was chasing us, and they had been swept into the expressway entrance of number eighty highway due to Almighty’s sudden maneuvers. I hoped they would get lost and head the wrong way.

“That’s a warning for me to stay quiet since they are watching me,” I said indifferently.

However, Jonathan seemed to have taken it as a big deal and was glaring at the car as if he was staring at monsters. A visible warning was better than them frantically rummaging through the New York group’s tax returns. If the IRS started a special audit, the New York firm couldn’t do anything for a while. I would fight back, but still it was a hassle.

After we were driving on the highway for three hours, Jonathan’s phone rang. It was Kim Cheong-Soo, and Jonathan’s eyes were lost in thought as he ended the short conversation.

“It started. GOL collapsed.” Jonathan smiled.

“The dotcom bubble has finally burst, Sun. The time has come!”

He looked like someone who was watching his enemy’s house burn from fire.

***

Wall Street was frozen as if vitality never existed, and it might have felt that way because of the sudden cold wave. Today was the beginning of January 2000, and things happened a few months earlier than history. Stock prices in the IT industry that had been continually on a high march plunged all at once, and the street was filled with the faces of those that had lost.

Jonathan didn’t enter the building and stayed in the car to enjoy the despair of losers on the street. They were investors who had not yet escaped from the market, thinking they had one more chance to make a profit. Some of them were rich, and some were Wall Street managers. Regardless of their gender, age and occupation, they wandered the street like zombies. However, this was just the beginning.

“How far will it fall?” Jonathan asked in an excited tone.

I didn’t know. If I had not intervened, the dotcom boom would have peaked on March 10th, 2000. The NASDAQ, where the IT companies were concentrated, went up to over five thousand at its peak, but then spiraled down after some fluctuations to under 1000 by October 2002. In other words, the market dropped by eighty percent, going from five to one thousand, and all the bubbles broke at once. The government had begun to increase the federal reserve interest rate starting in 1999. Once they decreased it in response to the crash, the market realized that they had been chasing after an illusion as the Internet was still slow and that the system and infrastructure had not been established. The glory of the twenty-first century that the fantasy had created was still a long way off.

“What was the NASDAQ index yesterday?” I questioned instead of answering Jonathan.

“5239,” he replied.

Things were different from history as the number was greater than in the past. In addition, the biggest multimedia group in the world called Kurshon Group purchased GOL at a hundred sixty billion dollars to fuel the dotcom boom earlier, which was different from the history I knew. That was why I couldn’t reply to his question. I wanted to ask that same question myself, but one obvious thing was that the profit made from the bubble would be at maximum.

“We’ll have to believe that the index will go below one thousand,” I said vaguely.

Jonathan smiled in satisfaction. No one would know that right now was just the middle of dotcom collapse since it was the middle step to the 2008 Subprime Mortgage Crisis. It was the time to tell Jonathan the truth because we needed to prepare from now to gain the biggest possible profit.

“Everything started two years ago with the Asian financial crisis when it attacked my country,” I said.

“The dotcom bubble? Why are you bringing up the crisis out of nowhere?” Jonathan tilted his head.

“The puzzle pieces are coming together. You know how so many things in the world make sense after a long time, and people regret doing something,” I replied.

“Yes. Well, I have never regretted anything since I met you,” Jonathan responded.

“Stop being ridiculous,” I said.

“Haha, you’re embarrassed,” he laughed.

“You should know that the Asian financial crisis would spread to Russia and Mexico, especially due to Korea’s struggle,” I continued.

“Are you saying that the dotcom bubble started because Korea was attacked?” Jonathan asked.

“Major hedge funds had nowhere to go with the increased interest rate. Bedazzled with the promise of Information Technology, the hedge funds started the dotcom bubble. However, the past isn’t important. Let’s…” I added.

I glanced at the driver’s seat. Jonathan told Almighty to stay outside, so he left the car. Jonathan even turned off the radio, and I said, “The FED[1] will continue lowering its benchmark interest rate at least for now to alleviate the shock from the stock market.”

“They have already lowered the rate by one point due to the possibility of a recession, and with the crash, that’s plausible. How much?” Jonathan questioned.

“As soon as I return to Seoul, I’ll write one short and one long-term proposal. I’ll tell you about the long-term one, so listen carefully.”

Jonathan nodded, prepared.

“I estimate that the federal reserve interest rate will start dropping drastically from 2001, and most likely the trend will continue up to 2008. It will hit one percent at approximately the halfway point and hold,” I explained.

“Then, it must be real estate,” Jonathan muttered.

“Real estate will naturally become more expensive, but the biggest problem is that it’ll seep through between 2007 and 2009. The biggest bomb will explode, and it will be beyond your imagination,” I said.

“Give me a guess.” Jonathan looked at me.

“To the point where the world’s economy will lock down,” I responded candidly.

Jonathan’s eyes widened since he had only experienced the beginning of the dotcom bubble. I thought of a tragedy that would inevitably occur before the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. I could see the World Trade Center from the spot the car was parked, and I still vividly remembered the news when a plane crashed into it.

“Nothing has happened yet. It’s just my assumption,” I said.

However, events were linked in cause and effect, especially in the field of economy. South Korea’s IMF crisis, dotcom bubble and crash, 9.11 terror attack, Iraq war, and the Great Oil and Real Estate Ages happened in domino effects. Everything would come to an end in 2008 with the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, and when putting the aftermath of the Hong Kong shock and the Russian financial war into a calculation….

Things were getting bigger or happening faster, so I had to be on my guard. Now was just the beginning.

1. Federal Reserve(US central bank) ☜