Choi Su-jin: 'Retail investors' anguish echoes across the nation'

'Stock market is not a propaganda stage for the ruling party'

Major indexes are displayed at the Hana Bank dealing room in Jung-gu on Friday, when the Kospi briefly plunged more than 8 percent in early trading following a selloff in US semiconductor shares, triggering a circuit breaker. [Yoon Chang-bin]
Major indexes are displayed at the Hana Bank dealing room in Jung-gu on Friday, when the Kospi briefly plunged more than 8 percent in early trading following a selloff in US semiconductor shares, triggering a circuit breaker. [Yoon Chang-bin]

The People Power Party called on the government to take responsibility for what it described as a "Black Friday" market collapse, in which the Kospi briefly fell below the 5,000 mark, and demanded a comprehensive set of remedial measures.

PPP floor spokesperson Choi Su-jin, in a statement Sunday titled "The dismal end of the 'Kospi 5000' boast — the Lee Jae Myung government must answer for retail investors' tears," said the Kospi had ultimately broken through the 5,000 level. "Two consecutive days of freefall triggered repeated circuit breakers, sending the market into a shock comparable to a national emergency," Choi said. "The anguish of ordinary citizens and retail investors who lost their hard-earned assets without knowing why is echoing across the nation."

Choi said the Lee Jae Myung government had long packaged rising stock prices as proof of its own economic competence, boasting of targets such as "Kospi 5000" and even "Kospi 6000." "Cheong Wa Dae and financial regulators pushed artificial stimulus measures and leveraged products, turning the market into a giant casino — and now that the crash has arrived, they either stay silent as if it were someone else's problem or scramble to dodge responsibility," Choi said.

Choi then said that while hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens and young people were being forced into margin calls and buried in debt, and while people's precious retirement savings were evaporating helplessly, key figures in the administration were busy cutting their losses. Choi characterized the situation as "a foreseeable hostage crisis and a disaster born of the arrogance of those who tried to pump up share prices like a manipulated stock, ignoring the market's fundamental health and the real economy, all to trumpet the government's achievements."

"The irresponsible attitude of taking credit when prices rise and blaming outside forces when they fall will no longer be tolerated," Choi said. "The stock market is not a propaganda stage for the ruling party. It is a serious economic arena on which people's livelihoods and futures depend."

Choi said the Lee Jae Myung government must immediately stop its "empty rhetoric and blame-shifting" and move at once to draw up practical and comprehensive measures to restore shattered market confidence.


shindw@heraldcorp.com