On November 17, on this day, the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, one of Japan's top ten commercial banks, announced its liquidation, which was effectively a collapse, the largest bank failure in Japan since World War II. Takushoku Bank of Hokkaido suffered a huge bad debt loss of about 7.8 billion US dollars, or about 780 billion yen. As the central bank of Japan, the Bank of Japan provided a huge amount of unsecured loans to the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, transferring the assets and liabilities of the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank to a regional commercial bank in Hokkaido, the North Pacific Bank, so that the news of the bankruptcy of the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank had the impact on the capital market to be minimized.

As the central bank stepped in, the market's risk expectations for Japan's financial sector were greatly reduced, and the Tokyo stock market soared 1,200 points on this day, an increase of 8%, the largest increase this year. At the same time, the market believes that the simultaneous intervention of the Bank of Japan and public funds will help the Japanese financial industry, which is currently in trouble.

However, in South Korea, where the sea is crossed, the general concern about the financial industry has not stopped, on the contrary, due to the incident in the Japanese financial industry, the market has generally increased the market's concern about the Korean financial industry. Since there is already a precedent for the central bank to bail out the financial sector in Japan, the eyes of the entire money market are now focused on the Korean financial sector, to be precise, on the Korean government's financial rescue bill, which will be voted on in the National Assembly today.

The National Assembly Building at 1 Yeouido-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoulseong-gu, was completed in 1974 as the seat of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. If you ignore the huge blue dome, the whole building is a boxy rectangle, and there is nothing to be said about in sight. On the periphery of the council hall, there are 24 thick granite columns, symbolizing the 24 solar terms of Korea. Other than that, the rest of the design is architecturally unremarkable.

The main chamber of the National Assembly, facing the entrance, is a modest rostrum, where the general chairman of the parliament and the members who make the proposal will sit, and the seats of the other voting members are fan-shaped around the rostrum, and there are huge fluorescent screens on the walls around it. It is possible to project the situation of the rostrum in real time to members who are far away.

The conference hall is divided into two floors. The upper floor surrounds the main chamber with seats for the public and the media, and on the ceiling of the top floor, there is a circular lighting area with glittering glass chandeliers that illuminate every corner of the main chamber. Besides. The ceiling outside the lighting area is also surrounded by lights of various sizes. It symbolizes the unity of the Korean people around the parliament.

At this time, in addition to the chairman and vice chairman of the ROK National Assembly, Wu Haokang, president of the ROK Academy of Finance and Economics, was reading the speech in his hand with great enthusiasm. The content is, of course, the financial reform package that has attracted much attention recently.

What was supposed to be an ordinary routine meeting, on this day, countless media came, and they set up long guns and short guns on the second-floor observation seats aimed at the rostrum or some parliamentarians, because the trend of the won has recently attracted a lot of attention from the market, so the enthusiasm of the media has also been mobilized.

The reactions of the lawmakers who listened to Oh Ho-kang's account on the stage were mixed, and most of the lawmakers from the ruling party, the New Korea Party, had solemn faces. Due to the current South Korean economy has attracted much attention from the market, domestic financial industry scandals have broken out frequently, so that they are under increasing pressure, and this year is another election year, and a new president will be elected in December.

On the other hand, other opposition parties, such as the New Politics National Assembly Party, the Grand National Party, and the United Korea Party, are also not relaxed. They also know very well that although the current economic situation is a little unbearable, only by muddying the waters can those who intend to reach the top of the treasure have a chance.

Both sides have their own careful thoughts, and in this case, they are naturally distracted, and they have already prepared the corresponding means, waiting for the bill to be voted on and take the opportunity to make trouble.

It took half an hour to read Wu Haokang's plan on financial reform, which had already been put on the desks of various congressmen, and now it was just a formality to read it again in public.

As soon as Wu Haokang's words fell, a loud voice was heard in the audience, "I oppose this reform plan!" ”

Although the Standing Committee, which presided over the agenda of the National Assembly, did not announce the free expression link, Li Huichang, a member of the Grand National Party, could not wait to jump out, first expressing his opposition hoarsely and accurately, attracting the attention of the audience and the focus of the camera, and then slowly stood up and said loudly: "This financial reform plan is extremely unreasonable, and it is bound to waste taxpayers' public money to solve the problems caused by the consortium by the method of government management." I personally disagree with this bill, and I believe that legislators with a modicum of conscience and responsibility will not sacrifice taxpayers' money for the benefit of big corporations. ”

Although it does not fit the agenda, the committee presiding over the meeting has no means, and if they impose a block at this time, they may be charged with interfering with freedom of expression.

Taxpayers are a big killer of partisanship, and any bill can be implemented or opposed in the name of taxpayers, but in fact, public opinion can be manipulated. However, as long as the name of the taxpayer is added, any reason can be justified. It has to be said that Li Huichang's reasons for opposition are strong enough.

"It's coming!" Most of the members of the New Korea Party "grunted" in their hearts, and sure enough, they encountered the expected situation, which was different from what was previously envisaged, but in fact it was not much different.

Although Li Huichang only expressed his personal opinion, how many people among the parliamentarians would easily believe his words? In fact, Lee Hoi Chang is the presidential candidate of the Grand National Party and has already been nominated by the party. The demand for election is quite high, and the current poll test is second only to Kim Dae-jung, the candidate of the New Politics National Assembly Party.

Although he kept claiming that it was his personal opinion, if he had not been unified within the party, I believe he would not have said it for no reason. As soon as they thought of this, the members of the New Korea Party glanced at each other one after another, and felt a little bitter in their hearts; although they occupied the majority of seats in the National Assembly, this bill was only passed with a 60 percent approval rate in the party's preliminary vote.

With the first beginning. Naturally, there will be the following follow-up. With the opposition of Li Huichang. A succession of opposition lawmakers also stood up to express their opposition, but most of them opposed it because of their opposition and did not really point out the inappropriateness of the bill, so most of them just rushed to express their opinions and then sat down and kept silent. It seems that the image is only to show in front of the camera.

Nature. There are also quite a few legislators who come prepared. Comment on one of the shortcomings of the bill. Since most of the members of the Korean National Assembly represent the voices of the people of a certain district or a certain dong, many opposition parties have expressed their support for the opinions put forward by the ruling party.

The disruptive congressional bills went on for a full hour. The pro-fors and opponents are like the aunts of the wet market, saliva, spitting, hoarse, and red-faced arguing, and the cameras broadcast live to the whole country have faithfully recorded all this scene.

Agitated parliamentarians blamed each other in the audience, while several members of the high-ranking parliamentary committee were a little bored, tasked with maintaining discipline and directing the flow of the meeting. But in the South Korean National Assembly, these two items are basically equivalent to nothing, and the members of the National Assembly are not promoted by them, and they cannot be dismissed, so in many cases these members only play the role of mud bodhisattvas, turning a blind eye to the chaotic discipline of the venue, and the power is not visible.

After another half hour, the parliamentarians were a little tired of arguing, and the voices became a little quieter. Just when people thought the debate would be over, Kim Dae-jung, the presidential candidate of the New Politics National Assembly Party, stepped forward, first cleared his throat and then shouted in a voice that could be heard by the whole audience: "This bill is very unreasonable." It betrayed the interests of the people of the Republic of Korea and unceremoniously said that only traitors could draft such a bill! ”

As soon as the words came out, all four were shocked.

Like the committee, the yawning reporters suddenly came to their senses and turned their cameras on the presidential candidate, who is currently the most vocal.

Those who spoke before either pointed out the defects of the bill, or simply opposed it, or, like Li Huichang, explained that the implementation of the bill was a waste of taxpayers' taxes, etc., but no one ever proposed that this bill was an act of betrayal of the country. You must know that all of you here are the political elite of the Republic of Korea, which to a certain extent represents the majority of the country, and now Kim Dae-jung is directly targeting Finance Minister Oh Ho-kang, the backbone of the ruling party, and to some extent is targeting the current president.

It must be noted that South Korea has a presidential system, and most of the power is in the Blue House. And the South Korean prime minister is only a symbolic head of state, and the credit is not on his head, and he often bears the black pot. Therefore, most of the South Korean prime ministers are nominated by the president and approved by the National Assembly, and in order to show unity, they find someone to carry the blame, and this kind of false title is generally held by people from opposition parties. But in reality, many government departments, including the Ministry of Finance, only listen to orders from the Blue House and do not pay much attention to the prime minister.

As soon as he heard that the spearhead was aimed at him, Wu Haokang's old face suddenly turned red, and he opened his mouth to scold his mother, but after his eyes swept to the red-flashing camera on the second floor, he could only swallow back the swear words that had reached his mouth. It's just that when he does this, the image of wanting to stop talking is faithfully recorded by the camera, which inevitably makes the audience suspicious.

Without waiting for Wu Haokang to explain, Kim Dae-jung hurriedly said: "The current predicament of South Korea's securities and banking industry is caused by certain officials of the ruling party, who use the power in their hands to force banks to lend to large conglomerates in the form of forcible executive orders. According to my statistics here, they have put 50% of the country's savings in large conglomerates, and this is the root of today's problems. ”

At this, he raised a piece of paper in his hand to signal that he had come prepared, while the members of the New Political National Assembly party sitting around him took the opportunity to distribute the thick stack of materials that had been prepared long ago. It didn't take long for almost every member of parliament to have in their hands a statistic on loans to South Korea's banking sector.

"To put it bluntly, the predicament of South Korea's banking sector today is due to too much government intervention, which has led to the current predicament. And they even want to put the banking industry back in their hands through this bill, and exert influence by interfering in the normal lending process, and the consequence of this is that the situation of bad debts is getting worse and worse. ”

"I oppose this bill, the main purpose is to give banks more autonomy in lending, so that they can choose who to lend to through risk control methods such as credit ratings, rather than succumbing to the government's coercion. Just like the current foreign exchange market of the Korean won, it is obviously a normal foreign exchange adjustment, but the Ministry of Finance has passed an executive order to force the Bank of Korea to intervene in the trend of the won, which is not only a waste of the country's foreign exchange reserves, but also forcibly affects the interests of export-oriented enterprises. ”

Without waiting for the other lawmakers to digest the content of his speech, Kim Dae-jung said: "The depreciation of the won is beneficial to the products of our Republic of Korea's enterprises. Although the depreciation of the won will cause inflation to a certain extent, as long as it is well controlled, this inflation is not too terrible. And if the Korean won depreciates by 20%, the export of Korean manufacturing will increase by 20%, and maybe even more. And now, this situation is being curtailed with the intervention in foreign exchange, because what? If our companies are busy repaying their foreign debts, the competitive advantage of export products due to the depreciation of the currency will be lost, and all of this will be attributed to the policies implemented by the current Korean government. ”

"At the end of the day, the South Korean economy is in trouble because of these messy bills, and if the lawmakers here still don't face this up, then our economy will soon collapse, and the entire Republic of Korea will fall into the abyss from which it will never recover." That's why I say that they are traitors and sinners of the nation. ”

After saying something, it was sonorous and powerful. The image of Kim Dae-jung in the camera immediately became tall and plump, although his words were actually full of loopholes, but for ordinary Korean people, where do they understand this! (To be continued......)

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