A Theme Park Crisis Is Wrecking South Korea’s Bond Market

November 15, 2022 1:26 PM

Imagine the turmoil if a newly elected president of the United States announced that the U.S. government would no longer honor any outstanding Treasury bills because most of them were issued under his profligate predecessor. That’s essentially what Kim Jin-tae, the governor of South Korea’s Gangwon province, did. In doing so, Kim sparked a nationwide credit crisis that is spreading internationally, in the most farcical and unnecessary economic self-destruction this side of Liz Truss. Enhancing the absurdity is the origin of the crisis: Legoland Korea, a theme park based on the familiar brick toys. (archive.today link)
posted by Etrigan (20 comments total)

Is it always like this or is the worlds weirdness more surreal than usual?
posted by clew at 1:39 PM on November 15, 2022 [13 favorites]

Is it always like this or is the worlds weirdness more surreal than usual?

Welcome to our universe, clew. Please help yourself to one basilisk from the basket in the changing room after you shower.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:44 PM on November 15, 2022 [12 favorites]

The world runs on credit.


cred·it

mid 16th century (originally in the senses ‘belief’, ‘credibility’): from French crédit, probably via Italian credito from Latin creditum, neuter past participle of credere ‘believe, trust’.
posted by lalochezia at 1:55 PM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

> Is it always like this or is the worlds weirdness more surreal than usual?

It's over 8 billion.
posted by flamewise at 2:02 PM on November 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

Theme parks are financially surreal, though not a Cascade like Iegoland, "On April 2, 1970, civic leaders from Flint met at the Consumers Power Co. lodge at Tippy Dam on the Big Manistee River to discuss the redevelopment of the central city of Flint.

$80 million 1985 dollars later: Auto World.
posted by clavdivs at 2:08 PM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

Also - after very neatly laying out the interlocking wheels of government and corporate faith, and how one grandstanding minor politician could cost everyone else so much — all the FP can say is to not elect bad politicians? Even now they can’t sharpen the analogy any more? I guess naming Truss was more explicit than usual, but also, the temporary holder of a tontine of blame.
posted by clew at 2:11 PM on November 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

It's like the old proverb - those who live in Lego houses should not throw bonds.

Or something like that anyway.
posted by allegedly at 2:55 PM on November 15, 2022 [10 favorites]

I thought it was interesting to read this piece next to today's Adam Tooze piece on the US Treasury market, and the dangers that come from both directions--a regional politician's short-sightedness causing nationwide (and to some degree international) havoc, and on the other side, the absolutely enormous and yet strangely fragmented effort involved in keeping alive one of the biggest markets in the world. We're used to stories about the debt ceiling, and saber-rattling over default, and we're always pretty sure those are just a lot of noise, but if local politicians are in essence little economic butterflies capable of generating hurricanes, yikes!
posted by mittens at 2:58 PM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

those who live in Lego houses should not throw bonds.

Gotta watch out for those bond-throwing Lego Maniacs.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:00 PM on November 15, 2022

There is an absurdist quality to these measures: On the one hand, the Bank of Korea has been aggressively raising the benchmark interest rate to curb inflation by reducing liquidity, but on the other hand, the South Korean government is injecting liquidity to the market to stave off a total economic collapse.

This is potentially the most insightful moment in the article. The problem being that the only lever left to pull to stop inflation doesn’t work when it’s fake inflation caused by greed amongst the powerful; it just grinds everything to a halt, starting with the people that didn’t cause any of this, and never reaching the people that did.
posted by krisjohn at 3:20 PM on November 15, 2022 [9 favorites]

Riverfront Square, the failed Disneyland Park successor that beer helped kill
posted by robbyrobs at 3:36 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Every few years the US hits the debt ceiling and some idiots get the Us dangerously close to a limited default like this. This is a cautionary tale of why that is an incredibly stupid idea.
posted by interogative mood at 4:00 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Does anyone know if the guy who kicked all of this off, Kim Jin-tae, suffered any kind of consequence whatsoever? I tried googling for news stories about him but have turned up empty, but I don't know Korean so there's probably better Korean-language sources. It doesn't even seem like he's remorseful at all given that the statement he made (quoted at the end of the article) tries to make it seem like he never really tried to default on the payments, even though he that is indeed what he tried to do. Also, it's a little weird that his (English-language) Wikipedia page doesn't mention his role in this at all.
posted by mhum at 4:20 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

If the Act of Union happened, establishing the United Kingdom of Great Britain, because Scotland went bankrupt trying to build the mosquito-bitten Darien colony in what would later become Panama, countries could get into trouble for all sorts of outlandish boondoggles.

I mean, didn't Reagan accidentally psych the Soviet Union into overspending on defense until dissolution by posing as if he had laser attack satellites?
posted by Apocryphon at 4:47 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Shenanigans like this are eroding public confidence the monetary policies the world over.
It turns out these systems aren't run by infallible oracles but rather are politically driven games of applied economic psychology.
posted by neonamber at 5:45 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I want Jenny Nicholson's take on this.
posted by WaylandSmith at 7:10 PM on November 15, 2022 [7 favorites]

Thanks for this! I've been low-key confused because initial Korean reporting wasn't very illuminating to a foreigner like me. Gonna dive into the links now.
posted by cendawanita at 7:48 PM on November 15, 2022

clew: “Is it always like this or is the worlds weirdness more surreal than usual?”

I've said it before, but my current hypothesis is that maybe Terence McKenna was actually right?
posted by ob1quixote at 9:05 AM on November 16, 2022

one of the biggest reinforcements from of all of this is you don't elect conservative politicians who are arrogantly proud of their ignorance, but i repeat myself

one of the causes for the deaths at the itaewon crowd crush is the fact that conservative president of south korea decided to move out of the cheongwadae (the blue house, or the residences and offices of the president) to the ministry of defense building, kicking out part of the ministry of defense... meaning that some of the police that would have been doing crowd control were tasked with guarding a different building. same president, because he didn't want to live in the blue house (due to some shamanistic woo) meant that he couldn't actually be reached during some of the flooding earlier this year that cost the lives of more people in seoul. he's had plenty of hot mic moments, including being caught using denigrating language to other world leaders, including allies.

don't fucking vote for a conservative. period. it'll fuck you over. it'll fuck everyone over. it'll cost you so much money for shit to show for it

don't vote for the ppp, don't vote for the tories, don't vote for the gop, don't ever vote right-wing
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:30 AM on November 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

Does anyone know if the guy who kicked all of this off, Kim Jin-tae, suffered any kind of consequence whatsoever? I tried googling for news stories about him but have turned up empty, but I don't know Korean so there's probably better Korean-language sources. It doesn't even seem like he's remorseful at all given that the statement he made (quoted at the end of the article) tries to make it seem like he never really tried to default on the payments, even though he that is indeed what he tried to do.

that 씨발놈 is still governor of gangwon, but he's not well-loved by even the conservative papers in korea
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:36 AM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]