Translator: Dreamscribe
“What is all this suddenly about? Why are they suddenly pressuring us from France out of nowhere?”
After the policy announcent in France, every major corporation was thrown into crisis.
In effect, President Perron had practically declared war against foreign conglorates.
Among them, Kwangwoon was poised to suffer the greatest damage.
“President Perron and his party mbers actually raised the fuel tax once earlier this year.”
“So what?”
“Now that they’re trying to raise it again, they’re afraid of public backlash. So they’re putting on a show and trying to rake in so money at the sa ti by suddenly beating down on foreign companies, including us.”
The recent policy announcent from France was, from any angle, heavily skewed to benefit dostic wealthy individuals.
On top of that, under the excuse of environntal friendliness, they were trying to increase the fuel tax to fill the national treasury.
If they imposed it directly like that, a huge backlash from citizens was expected, so they began attacking foreign companies and spreading a public opinion that these companies were leeching off France.
“In any country, don’t they always bring up external factors and create issues for the sake of approval ratings? This is the sa thing.”
"What a bunch of thugs."
“France has always been known for this kind of thing, hasn’t it? They say it’s the gangster of Europe.”
“What the hell is with Europe and its gangsters? The UK’s like that, France is like that too.”
“But the problem is that this policy seems to be specifically targeting us, Kwangwoon.”
France was blatantly launching a focused attack on Kwangwoon.
Each of their policies seed to have the clear purpose of harming Kwangwoon.
“Why us, though?”
“From the French governnt’s point of view, our Kwangwoon is certainly a threat. Didn’t Lusk, the largest shipping company in Denmark, collapse? And we’ve completely absorbed it. On top of that, we’re penetrating into various sectors like social dia, cryptocurrency markets, automobiles, semiconductors, and so on. They see this as a chance to put us in our place.”
In that case, there was only one solution.
et with the ruling French party mbers currently in power and turn them to Kwangwoon’s side.
Put nicely, it was lobbying.
Put harshly, it was bribery.
“I heard other companies are throwing around quite a lot of money.”
“Yes. That’s the very reason foreign conglorates have managed to survive in Europe until now. They pour enormous sums into lobbying. And it turns out, that actually works out cheaper in the long run.”
“So you’re saying we need to do the sa? No, more like how would we know if we’ve never done anything like that before?”
Hwang Dae-woon had never once engaged in lobbying while running his company.
It was already difficult to do such things dostically, let alone going all the way to France to make it happen.
“As the company experienced explosive growth in a short ti, I think it’s beco an inevitable part of the process.”
The bigger a company grows, the more scrutiny it inevitably attracts.
Especially if a governnt wants to put pressure on it, they can make things unbearably difficult.
But the fortunate part was that those in the governnt always had open pockets.
If you filled them well enough, the pressure they were applying would turn into re gestures and be quietly dropped.
Then once their pockets got light again, they’d hassle the companies and demand to be filled again.
That’s how the entire governnt system operated.
The problem was, how were they supposed to lobby French politicians when they hadn’t even done so with dostic ones? They didn’t even have the necessary contacts, so reaching out was difficult to begin with.
“How is CEO Jung handling this?”
“Well... CEO Jung Jin-ho is currently recovering all the money that had been distributed.”
“Recovering it?”
“CEO Jung Jin-ho had about 10 trillion won available to move within the Pri Departnt. But since he couldn’t just let it sit idle, he had placed it across various safe assets......”
“And?”
“He ordered all of it to be pulled out.”
At that, a chilling thought briefly crossed Hwang Dae-woon’s mind.
“...Why?”
“I’m not sure yet. For now, he’s just recovering the funds. But I hear he’s opening an account on the French stock market.”
“W-wait. He’s not planning to pour the entire 10 trillion won into the French stock market, is he?”
At those words, the executives began murmuring anxiously.
No matter how much larger the French stock market was compared to the Korean stock market, over twice the size, injecting 10 trillion won all at once was an act of violence.
“Isn’t CEO Jung Jin-ho soone who’s gone beyond being a genius investor and reached the level of a god? He wouldn’t make such an extre move, would he?”
“Even injecting 1 trillion won all at once triggers sanctions. There’s no way he’d do sothing like that, right?”
Logically, that made sense.
If so crazy guy showed up with 10 trillion won and started dumping it into the stock market, would their Financial Supervisory Service just sit back and watch?
“......”
But Hwang Dae-woon realized there was one thing the executives were overlooking.
France had poked the whiskers of a sleeping lion.
***
[Due to Brexit negotiations, the US-China trade war, the collapse of Japan’s YCC, and other events, all global stock markets are currently frozen.]
I was chewing on so bread while reviewing the data sent from the Research Departnt.
It was lunchti, but I didn’t have the leisure to head to the cafeteria for a proper al.
Because the French situation required an urgent response.
‘It’s true that all the markets are unstable right now.’
This year was noticeably worse than last year.
Especially the turmoil triggered by the Japanese YCC incident had spread across the globe.
“CEO-nim. We’ve just recovered all the investnt funds.”
“Weren’t you all supposed to be having lunch?”
“With you staying here like this, how could we possibly... Oh, after retrieving all the investnts and doing the math, we made about a 2% return.”
2%.
2% of 10 trillion won was about 200 billion.
“That’s minor.”
“Yes. 200 billion is a huge sum, but strangely enough, when we’re with you, CEO-nim, even that feels small. Haha.”
That was because the funds weren’t spread out with the intention of making profits.
However, earning 2% in a short period was still a aningful achievent.
“What’s the public sentint in France right now?”
“It’s still split. So people support it, so are against it. Since the policy hasn’t been implented yet, there are many who don’t fully understand it either.”
“The Analysis Team says there will be opposition, but the governnt is likely to ignore it and push forward. More than anything, since the dostic wealthy have no reason to oppose it, the governnt’s position will beco even stronger.”
In other words, if the powerful support sothing, the powerless can only suffer.
“But this policy... Beyond attacking foreign companies, it’s actually quite harmful to French citizens. So why is everyone staying silent?”
“Manager Lee, that’s not as easy as it sounds. Like I said earlier, the people with power are backing the governnt. If soone tries to oppose it, they’ll be crushed, even if by force. And it’s not easy for the people to co together in solidarity either.”
That’s why the policy was progressing so smoothly.
Even though most people opposed it inwardly, no one could step forward carelessly.
“CEO-nim, then how much capital are you planning to inject into the French account?”
We currently had 10 trillion won in hand.
An astronomical amount.
But I hadn’t withdrawn it just to put all of it into the French stock market.
If the vision shown by my intuition was correct, a major event was about to unfold in France.
Which ant that the French market would shake, dragging down the entire European market with it, and that tsunami would ripple out everywhere. In that case, no matter where the money went, losses would be inevitable. That’s why I pulled it out.
‘Let’s start with 1 trillion.’
I wrote down the amount in my notebook.
But I didn’t feel anything.
Right. There’s no way I’d be satisfied with just 1 trillion.
‘2 trillion?’
Still no reaction.
We had already played big once before with 2 trillion, so this felt underwhelming too.
‘Then 3 trillion?’
...The problem was that still didn’t trigger anything.
4 trillion, 5 trillion, 6 trillion, 7 trillion.
As the number kept rising, my hand began trembling without realizing it.
‘Am I going crazy?’
Just how high was it going to go?
Eventually, I reached that number.
‘10 trillion.’
The mont I wrote that amount, a powerful tremor struck through my body.
“......”
I couldn’t believe it, so I reached out and touched the number again.
“!?”
Then, as if struck by a taser, a strong current shook through my entire body.
If I pushed once more here, it felt like it might really knock out cold.
“...Let’s go with 10 trillion won.”
“What?!”
“A-all 10 trillion won?!”
But it looked like it was going to be our team mbers who passed out first instead.
***
Marcus, the founder and CEO of FaceWeb, had not been in a good mood lately.
The FaceWeb-exclusive coin he had ambitiously prepared had run into fierce opposition from many governnts. As a result, all the partner companies had pulled out, and the coin project was naturally scrapped.
Because of that, people were now saying this about Marcus:
“The guy who crawled under Kwangwoon’s legs.”
People were saying Marcus had pulled such a stunt just to revive the falling price of Bitcoin.
That was the most frustrating part.
He had never intended anything like that.
Why would he go out of his way to do sothing beneficial for Kwangwoon, a company he’d rather chew up and spit out?
It was simply that, with the coin craze at its peak, he’d wanted to use the opportunity to expand FaceWeb’s utility. It had been a project ticulously prepared over a long period of ti, but in the end, it had only ended up benefiting Kwangwoon.
“And now France is pulling this kind of bullshit too?”
As if things weren’t bad enough already, French President Perron was suddenly playing the role of justice warrior, cracking down on foreign companies.
“If we want to use tax havens, we have to pay five tis more tax than we do now?”
“Yes. Not just us, but they’re trying to slap excessive taxes on all foreign companies right now.”
“What about the money we funneled to those politicians?”
“Well... this current regi is extrely powerful, and President Perron’s grip is at its peak. So it seems unlikely they’ll back off.”
Already dealing with the double blow of security leaks and the coin fiasco, FaceWeb users were steadily flocking to PicPic, and now France was adding insult to injury.
“What are our counterasures? Are we just supposed to take this tax hit lying down? Shouldn’t our own governnt step in at this point?”
“Well... the U.S. governnt is too busy fighting with China right now, and they’ve already dropped a tariff bomb on Europe, so this could also be seen as part of France’s retaliation.”
This damned governnt was no help at all.
But what could he do?
It had always been like that.
Which ant he had no choice but to solve this problem himself.
“So we’re just supposed to obediently pay the tax?”
“If they keep pushing forward like this, we’ll have no choice. But... there are so posts and videos surfacing on social dia recently.”
“What kind of posts?”
“Videos and writings from citizens opposing the current policy. There are especially strong videos criticizing Perron, calling him the president of the rich. They’re being posted more frequently these days.”
Hearing that, a twitch ford at the corner of Marcus’s eyes.
“They’re going up on PicPic too?”
“Yes. Short videos calling for unity and collective action are steadily being uploaded. So have even made it into the trending videos.”
“In France?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a chance PicPic is intentionally boosting the exposure of those videos?”
“...I wouldn’t say it’s impossible.”
That’s when Marcus got an idea.
“You said similar posts and videos are going up on our platforms too, right?”
“Yes. The people posting on PicPic seem to be uploading the sa content on FaceWeb and YouTube as well.”
At that mont, a thought crossed his mind.
Could Kwangwoon be thinking the sa thing I am right now?
Could this be a signal?
What’s the terrifying power of social dia?
It’s that it allows people who are far apart to share empathy, and brings them together as one.
Social dia can simply be used as a tool to trigger dopamine, but in a situation like this, what if massive SNS corporations joined forces for a single purpose?
“From now on, if any post opposing this policy goes up, trend all of them.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. Not just in France, but so people all around the world can see it. And if no one’s uploading, then our company can create the videos and posts ourselves. Make them as provocative as possible, explaining why this policy favors the wealthy, and spread them everywhere.”
It wasn’t certain whether PicPic was really collecting and intentionally exposing only those kinds of videos, but if it was the ticulous Kwangwoon behind it, then there was no doubt they were fully utilizing the power they had.
‘Just this once, Kwangwoon.’
He never imagined there would co a day when he would join hands with those bastards.
And yet, for so reason, thinking of being on the sa team as Kwangwoon made him feel incredibly reassured.
***
President Perron believed everything was going smoothly.
Advocating centrist politics, he had completed his first year in office with overwhelming public support. His approval ratings were high.
That’s why he believed the people would accept his policy without much issue.
But was that belief arrogance?
Or... was soone interfering?
“Th-thirty thousand?!”
“Yes. It’s a Yellow Vest protest. People opposing the recent fuel tax hike and tax cuts for the rich are taking to the streets in a massive demonstration.”
Naturally, every policy brings opposition.
Especially this one, which included tax cuts for the rich and a fuel tax hike, undeniably sensitive issues. So, they had tried to divert public attention as much as possible.
To foreign corporations.
By framing them as thieves looting France, they planned to push the policy while the people were busy cursing and hating those companies.
It had always worked well, until now.
“How could so many people gather all at once?”
“It’s because of social dia.”
“Social dia?”
“Yes. If you go on PicPic, FaceWeb, or YouTube right now, it’s nothing but posts and videos about the Yellow Vest movent, as if it were all prearranged.”
If all three of these giant social dia corporations were simultaneously flooded with those videos, what did that an?
The voice of the people?
No.
Those bastards were manipulating things to make it feel like the voice of the people.
“Th-those bastards...!”
The calm and gentlemanly face of Perron twisted into a fierce grimace.
It was clear that these giant corporations, once too busy competing with each other, had now joined hands.
“Arrogant fools. This is a challenge to our regi!”
“This isn’t the ti to worry about them. You know better than anyone what happens when protests erupt in our country.”
France had the stereotype of being a protest-prone country.
And that was accurate.
Once protests began, it was tradition in this country to start by setting sothing on fire.
The problem was, even with just 300 people protesting, things would spiral into chaos, but now there were 30,000.
“Already, countless shops have been looted, buildings are on fire, and the damage is escalating beyond control.”
Just watching the news footage was enough to grasp how serious the situation had beco.
Rioting mobs in yellow vests were turning the streets upside down.
But they couldn’t be dismissed as savages.
Because this nation had been built on fire and violence from angry mobs like them.
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