Chapter 1104 National Interest

Chapter 1104 National Interest

"Women's Generation", a radio program under MBC, the type is not easy to determine. Listeners can call the radio station to share their troubles, and the host shares it with all listeners in the form of complaints. Every once in a while, the radio station Relevant figures on issues that the audience is more concerned about will be invited into the live broadcast room for the audience to complain.

Simply put, it's a radio show that raises questions but mostly doesn't solve them, can be subsumed into current events, or can be subsumed into emotions.

Cheongnyangni 588, a red-light district with a long history, has survived from the era when South Korea was full of custom places, and has become the first of the three red-light districts in Seoul.

In the 1980s, with the rise of South Korea's economy and the end of the curfew, South Korea allowed residents to go out at night, and Qingliangli 588 became the must-choice place for many (male) people to go out at night.

There are more than 200 customs places in 588 in Qingliangli, and hundreds of practitioners do business here. They are also the most beautiful group of all red light districts, so they become one of the most attractive red light districts in Seoul, and Qinghedong, the other two red light districts. Itaewon is as famous as Miyari.

During the 1988 Olympic Games, in order to enhance the image of the city and make it easier for foreign tourists to visit, Seoul also borrowed from Amsterdam’s practice and installed windows in the shops. The shop’s signboards would stand in the windows and pose to attract customers.

Nanyi was sitting in the car, and the car was parked at an intersection in Qingliangli. On the right was a custom shop in operation, and on the left was a crew that was filming. "connect together.

After Ms. Huixiu's confirmation, it's true. The heroine is Shin Eun-kyung, a somewhat familiar actor.

In the car, the front row is the monkey Wei Houdong who is in charge of driving, Tianxian is the co-pilot, and Nanyi and Jin Huixiu are in the back seat. At this time, Jin Huixiu is very quiet on the surface, but a volcano is erupting in his chest.

Sick, definitely sick, the man sitting next door is very sick, President Bai solemnly ordered the man who was his escort to bring him to this kind of place, just come, let alone find a bar to sit, but Just being a voyeur on the side of the road is something that a healthy person can't do.

Nanyi: "Monkey, what's going on here?"

Monkey: "The cheap one is 50,000, and the expensive one is 300,000."

Nanyi: "Have you been here?"

Monkey: "No, there are quite a few customers in the store who come here often."

Nanyi: "Is the business in the store not as good as before?"

Monkey: "Not only are there fewer people eating, but also fewer people are sending money to the country. The work is not as easy as before."

Nan Yi: "I will leave two of your men to protect the girl next door to me."

Monkey: "OK."

After finishing the short conversation with the monkey, Nan Yi turned to look at Jin Huixiu, "Hui Xiuxi, did President Bai tell you that there will be rewards for being my playmate?"

"Inside."

"A film co-produced with Xiang Xing, with you as the heroine, the role is very important, and there is a lot of room for development. This is the reward I give you, are you satisfied?"

After hearing the reward that Nanyi promised, Jin Huixiu did not appear happy, but was wary, "Just playing with you?"

"Of course not. If it's just an escort, the reward I'll give is too high. You need to do something for me." Nanyi was not interested in leading Jin Huixiu to think in a wrong way, and pointed directly at a custom shop and said, "Borrow your two In a few days, you talk to the practitioners here in the name of experiencing life. I need to know the changes in the business here. Is there fewer customers this year than last year? Is the customer becoming petty? Is the temper becoming violent? With less money and more things, it becomes difficult to serve.

Also, carefully inquire about the time required to entertain a guest now and the previous changes..."

Seeing the word "abnormal" appearing on Jin Huixiu's face, Nan Yi directly explained: "Ah, don't get me wrong, I'm not a pervert, life is stressful, and being irritable will not only affect appetite, but also affect that aspect.

The role you will play is related to this kind of place, so experiencing life is not an excuse. If you agree, get out of the car and start working immediately, and someone will follow to protect your safety. "

The entertainment industry does not exist in the entertainment industry, let alone the South Korean entertainment industry. Jin Huixiu has been in the industry for many years, and has seen everything in the dye vat. The exchange terms proposed by Nam Yi are simply exclusive promotions for VIPs. After hesitating and struggling, he pushed open the door and got out of the car.

When the economy is good, it will be reflected on the bottom people quite slowly. When the economy is not good, it will be reflected on the bottom people at the speed of light. The custom industry is a relatively sensitive part of the economic barometer. Observing its scale is faster than looking at it. Economic data reports must come true.

Of course, this kind of investigation does not require Nanyi to do it himself. The intelligence team has already started to do this kind of statistics, and it is constantly being updated.

Life needs to be adjusted, and the ways of picking up girls must be diversified. This is not a joke for Nam Yi to Kim Hye Soo. The investigation is fake, but the experience of life is true. , and at the same time, in order to create a conflict point, the situation of the male second and the female second in the film is exactly the opposite;

In order to send his girlfriend to study abroad, the male second became a usury thug to collect bad debts. The trend of the story is that the male student studying abroad and the female second student studying abroad came together. The male became the head of the criminal department of the Seoul Prosecutor’s Office. When handling a case, Cleverly turning the male second into a scapegoat for a chaebol son.

In order to avenge the first girl, she took her posthumous son to hide her name. Eighteen years later, in order to avenge her father, the daughter became an idol.

Unexpectedly, before seducing the male one to the bed, the male one has already mastered all her information, spoiled her for a night, and sent her to the chaebol princess who happened to commit a crime as a scapegoat. On the same day, the female one was regarded as a North Korean lurker She is a high-risk agent, her hermitage house was blown up, and the film ends here. When the subtitles drift over, there will be another easter egg. The female one is reborn to the day when she meets the male one for the first time.

In this way, the foreshadowing of the sequel is laid. The first part can be called "The Superior Man", and the second part can be called "People's Justice".

After leaving Cheongnyangni, Nanyi went to Hanjiang Park in Yeouido and found a better location for lure fishing.

Fishing is allowed in the Han River, but it has to be divided into river sections. This section of the Han River Park is where Taiwan fishing and lures are allowed. I heard that you can catch bass fish and grouper.

Bass fish is what the South Koreans call it. It is called largemouth bass in China. In the early years, South Koreans had a hard time with the species imported from North America. Now life is easier. Bass fish is regarded as an invasive alien species. Anyone caught/ If you catch bass fish, you need to deal with it yourself, and you are not allowed to release it. Once you find it, you will be fined.

The location of Nanyi should be frequented by fishermen. Just as he threw the bait into the water, a group of wild cats had already arrived in front of him. They were lying quietly beside him, waiting for the catch. .

Seeing this situation, Nanyi's mentality of killing time changed, and he became serious. If he didn't catch a few fish to feed these wild cats, he would be easily despised by them.

He was serious about his work, and the fish in the water didn't give him face. An hour passed, and there was no smell of fish, and the wild cats beside him began to be restless.

Nanyi didn't know if he could catch the fish next time, as the saying goes that a knife is hard to get into the sheath, so he quietly sent the monkey to buy cat food, if it had a fishy smell, the shape of the fish would be better.

When Nanyi was fishing, the Blue House, headed by the Chief Secretary of the Economy, was holding a financial reform meeting. The deputy minister of the Ministry of Finance, the head of the financial department, the governor of the central bank and other economically related departments attended the meeting.

There is no doubt that there is no one who can reach a high position without a lack of brains, and South Korea is no exception.

Any in-depth analysis of one of the conglomerates in South Korea reveals a strange phenomenon—a high degree of diversification.

The top five consortiums have an average of 40 affiliated companies, with a total of 210; the top 30 consortiums have about 616 affiliated companies. This extraordinary diversification has been achieved mainly through the establishment of new subsidiaries.

The chaebol's large and unusually diverse operating structure, and public calls for the Cheong Wa Dae to intervene in lending to the conglomerate, has been critical to South Korea's success in gaining market share globally, as one company's losses can be offset by another's profits.

This broad diversification is one of the main public criticisms of consortiums, but these criticisms should perhaps take at least three points into account.

The first point is quite obvious, although consortiums are accused of not fostering core competencies, in order to take fuller advantage of the benefits of economies of scale, to capture the benefits of economies of scope, dynamic synergies between firms, these are diversification across many different sectors There is no doubt that asset diversification reduces risk.

The second point is very easy to forget that diversification is usually inseparable from the division of labor. Among the 50 affiliates of Bastar, 49 of Hyundai, 53 of LG, 25 of Daewoo, and 33 affiliates of SK, only a few companies in a few departments account for a large share of total sales.

The sales of the 3 affiliated companies of Gae-sung accounted for 67% of the total sales, while the sales of the 5 affiliated companies accounted for 70% of the total sales despite the fact that Hyundai was more evenly distributed in different sectors of the manufacturing industry, and the 4 companies of Daewoo The sales accounted for 85% of the total sales.

The third and final point about the pros and cons of diversification has to do with corporate governance structures.

As soon as the structure of the consortium changes due to the separation of the firm from the group, the firm immediately becomes specialized. In the past few years, Cheong Wa Dae has tried to use a carefully crafted credit control system to restrain the trend of consortium diversification and induce conglomerates to specialize, but with little success.

This kind of diversification has made the consortium companies heavily in debt, the highest of which has reached more than 2,000%. The debt of Hyundai and LG exceeds 500% of the equity, and the other three are not much lower than them.

High debt coupled with low profitability inevitably led to the brink of bankruptcy for a large number of enterprises. It can be said that even if a global financial crisis does not occur, South Korea itself will have a financial crisis. Its internal conflicts have accumulated to the critical point of outbreak and cannot continue.

Ten years ago, there were only a few consortiums in South Korea who could clearly explain what their main business was. Take Daewoo as an example. In 1967, Daewoo was just established as a textile trading company. Until 1972, South Korea began to implement In the third five-year plan, vigorously supporting the heavy chemical industry, Daewoo started to expand with Dongfeng.

Its expansion is not due to the expansion of Daewoo's own development needs, but to act according to its will. Qingwatai waved his hand and pointed at the poorly managed companies such as Shuangmei Industrial, Sanzhou Building, Xincheng Trading, and Dongyang Securities. Said to Jin Yuzhong: "Xiao Jin, it's up to you to tell the truth."

Jin Yuzhong was not happy at the time. Firstly, he looked down on some of the companies, and secondly, he didn’t have so much money in his pocket. However, the Blue House thought he liked it, so he had to like it. Jin Yuzhong’s arms couldn’t twist his thighs. If you can see it, you can see it, but what about the money?

South Korea’s strategy of supporting the development of consortiums was not a brainstorm. During the decades of Japanese colonization, many high-level government officials have been influenced by Japanese culture and have a better understanding of Japan’s economic system.

When walking forward, faced with two forked roads, the first one is the one that has been walked by the predecessors, and the traps have been marked, and the second one is an unfamiliar road with no experience to learn from. There is no doubt that South Korea chose the first one. One, touch Japan to cross the river.

Support, of course, cannot be blind. It must be supported at the point and controlled at all times. For this purpose, the Blue House has designed a credit-based industrial financial system to establish consortiums. In a country lacking capital, consortiums cannot Do not rely on loans from banks controlled and owned by Cheong Wa Dae.

Due to the high debt ratio of the enterprise, even surpassing that of Latin American and Southeast Asian enterprises, in order to avoid bankruptcy, the consortium had to maintain a good relationship with the Blue House. Cheong Wa Dae controls the credit-based industrial financing system, so that it can influence the investment pattern of the economy and guide the trend of the sector.

The highly indebted nature of South Korean companies, which has been the case throughout South Korea's history, means that small changes in discount rates or preferential lending rates between sectors can have a huge impact on resource allocation. Because at high debt/equity ratios, these instruments have a significant impact on business cash flow. Therefore, the macroeconomic policy goals of the consortium and the Blue House are highly consistent.

In fact, all conglomerates in South Korea have shares in South Korean banks, which are controlled by the Blue House.

From 1962 to 1972, South Korea formed a trickle-down effect in the process of economic development. It did not give special preferential treatment to the poor, disadvantaged groups or poor areas, but concentrated on the development of consortiums, which in turn led to a large number of wealthy groups. Benefit the poor classes or regions through consumption, employment, etc., and drive their development and prosperity.

The supported consortiums have a large number of employees. In an era when the social security system was completely lacking, the welfare level of the consortia directly affected the living standards of the people in South Korea. Due to the barren arable land in South Korea, it was impossible to accommodate too many farmers, and there was no State-owned enterprises that can accommodate too many workers are therefore hard-pressed to withstand the onslaught of job losses.

Even if the consortia continue to die, it will be difficult to cut off their credit and make them go bankrupt. The consortium will always be under the supervision of the Blue House, which in a sense has become "never bankrupt".

On the one hand, Cheong Wa Dae had to keep saving the consortia in trouble to prevent the banking system from being paralyzed and massive unemployment. During the debt crisis in 1972, Cheong Wa Dae allowed the consortium to postpone repayment of debts and provided rescue loans for the consortium.

From 1979 to 1993, Qing Wa Dae provided financial subsidies to enterprises in the heavy industry and chemical industry; from 1984 to 1988, it carried out debt restructuring for overseas construction, shipbuilding, textile, and machinery manufacturing enterprises. The Blue House became the underwriter and duty bearer, providing guarantees for the consortium and its own investment.

The Blue House has enacted countless rules and regulations, trying to dominate and tame conglomerates through regulation. Cheong Wa Dae has been very strict, constantly urging companies to reform.

After the financial crisis in 1972, Cheong Wa Dae rescued the consortium by urgently suspending the repayment of the consortium's debt in the off-exchange market. The Cheong Wa Dae singled out what it considered "blue chip companies", forced them to go public, and threatened to impose a 40% corporate tax on disobedient consortiums. (Normal case is 27%).

The Seoul Stock Exchange was suddenly flooded with new public offerings worth as much as $48 million, and the number of listed companies jumped to 50%.

In 1974, the stock market received another push. Park Chung-hee issued a special order to strictly order banks to strengthen the audit and supervision of loans to non-listed companies. In the 1970s, many such policy measures were promulgated in one go.

Now the consortia are in a dilemma. On the one hand, there are punitive measures, and on the other hand, there are huge losses of listing, such as autonomy, cheap loans, and the equity is seriously undervalued, so they cannot raise much money.

In this case, their reaction can be imagined.

Some consortiums believe that disobeying the order of the Blue House is the best policy, and would rather pay 40% of the tax than enjoy the preferential treatment that the Blue House gives to listed companies. The market size is small.

Under such circumstances, the Blue House also tried to use the most difficult method of "credit control" to limit the consortium's access to bank credit.

This credit control system originated in the era of industrial policy. In a system where bank credit is granted not according to whether it is economically feasible but according to the requirements of government industrial policy, the only way to prevent enterprises from defaulting is to constantly strengthen supervision and control, including Supervise the use of loans at all times, supervise the reform of the consortium financing structure, and formulate a set of loan ceiling restrictions.

In order to prevent the concentration of loans, Cheong Wa Dae has formulated complex regulations, limiting the amount of loans to the same lender, limiting the amount of loans that a single bank can give to large lenders, and stipulating the upper limit of loans to consortia-affiliated companies.

In order to prevent arrears, the Blue House has established a set of early warning programs, modern credit evaluation procedures, and complex default management rules; the Blue House has issued a set of special laws and regulations that only apply to consortiums to control the equity and debt ratios of various industrial sectors, Financially, companies are encouraged to go public.

Since 1980, the Blue House has closely supervised the use of bank loans by the consortium and expanded external audits; by the mid-1980s, a series of policies had also been established under the Fair Trade Act.

In 1992, the Fair Trade Act was further strengthened, loan guarantees between subsidiaries were restricted, and the Blue House relaxed the loan ceiling to encourage consortiums to develop core industries.

The result of Cheong Wa Dae’s actions was to create a regulatory albatross, which failed to achieve its goal in the end. But Cheong Wa Dae has had to create regulations to offset the worst effects of its own development strategy.

During most of the 1980s, Cheong Wa Dae chose to use bureaucracy instead of the market to restrain consortiums, resulting in expansion of regulations and prevalence of nepotism, and many mothers-in-law squatting on the heads of consortiums.

In the 1990s, South Korea’s military rule ended and it entered the era of civil management. The newly elected Kim Young-sam tried to break the confrontation and economic stagnation caused by the dual roles of Cheong Wa Dae as the guarantor of the consortium and its regulator. Therefore, Cheong Wa Dae decided to downplay its role. role as regulator.

In order to eliminate confrontation and to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Cheong Wa Dae greatly relaxed the supervision of the banking sector and lending behavior, and opened up the domestic financial market between 1993 and 1994, and lifted the direct control of the Ministry of Finance on credit allocation. Prerogative to intervene and appoint bank leadership.

The division of financial regulatory power between the Ministry of Finance and the central bank (the Bank of Korea) has resulted in a large gap in regulation. In other words, the pendulum has tilted too far toward conglomerates.

In the 1990s, if the bureaucrats had receded into the background, the politicians had not. With powerful political forces, members of major parties or people close to the president could still veto the appointment of the president of a commercial bank. Bank leadership had to listen to politicians and make loans to their campaign donors.

The Blue House also removed barriers to entry and other restrictions on the financial sector, which had long been divided into several parts, and, at the call of the consortium, removed asset restrictions and lowered reporting requirements for banks and non-bank financial institutions.

As a result, non-bank financial companies were quickly deregulated, no longer subject to the supervision of the Blue House, and were instead controlled by consortia, and loans were no longer supervised, and the South Korean credit system was in chaos.

For the Cheong Wa Dae, the biggest problem is that the government must not only guarantee the consortium, but also restrain them. From 1962 to the present, the real miracle created by South Korea is not the miracle of the Han River, but the process of walking a tightrope , without being schizophrenic by two conflicting identities.

After entering the 1990s, the reason why God stood behind the consortium was not unrelated to the self-liberation of the consortium. In order to get rid of the control of the Cheong Wa Dae and gain more autonomy, in the 1980s, consortiums began to rush abroad to establish new industries, mortgage them to the South Korean credit system, build new ones, and mortgage again, and so on.

In the process of circulation, the consortium strips off high-quality assets, borrows dollars from foreign banks or absorbs investment with high-quality assets, and in the process, connects with the controlling shareholder through cross-shareholding or chain ownership.

The traditional chain ownership model can be Byzantine to circumvent ownership regulations, including the prohibition of holding companies, the prohibition of direct chain ownership (company A owns company B, and company B owns company A), and various types of consortium equity investment. Cap regulations.

The result was a roundabout model in which several holding companies actually owned substantial shares of affiliated companies.

It is through this kind of shareholding method that can make people stunned that the consortium has gained more voice, and this is how the consortium and the Blue House have not lost the wind in the continuous confrontation, and even started to counterattack.

In the era of military rule, the Cheong Wa Dae naturally noticed all kinds of small actions of the consortium, but it was hard to do anything about it. It is also a butt of debts. Under this situation, facing the disobedient consortium, can Cheong Wa Dae beat the consortium to death?

Knock dead, how to do the economy? What about the unemployed people? Who should bear the foreign debt?

Moreover, for the president of the Blue House, he has to face another major problem, a more personal problem, that is, the general election is about to happen, so what should he do with his personal interests?

National interests, consortia and family interests, bureaucrats' personal interests, and people's interests are all intertwined. It is difficult to sort it out, but no matter how difficult it is, it is reasonable. If the danger is not ruled out, the explosion is just around the corner.

What is the danger?

A huge foreign debt, and the "export" of South Korea's lifeblood is dead.

How to repay the debt and how to increase exports are issues that need to be discussed and resolved by the relevant departments of the South Korean economy.

In the conference room of the Blue House, the heads of various departments are arguing in full swing, with multiple interests on their backs, making them timid and cautious when choosing strategies.