Golden Spoon Investment Portfolio - Chapter 304

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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304. There’s something unsettling about how similar it all is, even though it feels wrong.

“We’ll be landing at LaGuardia Airport shortly. Please fasten your seatbelt.”

At Bella’s words as she approached from the side, Seok-won removed his eye mask, having reclined his seat and stretched his legs out comfortably.
Turning his head to gaze out the round window beside him, he noticed thick clouds blanketing the sky beneath the clear blue expanse.

“There are many clouds, but since there’s no rain or snow, landing should proceed without any issues.”
“That’s a relief.”

As Seok-won straightened his head and uprighted his reclining seat, Bella smiled faintly and moved toward another seat.
Listening to Bella’s voice instructing the other passengers behind him to fasten their seatbelts, I rolled up my sleeve and checked the Rolex Submariner on my wrist—it had just passed 11 AM.
I gently rolled my head side to side, performing light stretches.
Though a private jet was better than commercial flights, nearly fifteen hours of continuous flying was still exhausting.
Once we reached the hotel, I decided I’d fill the bathtub with warm water and soak in a half-bath. I found my seatbelt and fastened the buckle.
Shortly after, the Gulfstream IV private jet carrying our party arrived over LaGuardia Airport, located east of New York City in Queens.
Under control tower guidance, the jet made a wide turn, gradually descended through the thick clouds, and smoothly glided onto the long, well-paved runway.
Following the concrete taxiway to the parking lot, the jet was guided by a bright yellow SUV to its designated spot, where it cut its engines and came to a complete stop.

“Manager! Look! We’ve really arrived in New York!”

Jung Hwan-yeop, seated in the corridor section, spoke with an excited face as he gazed at the airport scenery visible beyond the window.
Though it was merely an airport, the unfamiliar landscape so distinctly different from Seoul stirred Manager Choi Ho-geun’s heart as well.
Yet they couldn’t exactly hold hands and jump around like tourists, so Manager Choi Ho-geun deliberately feigned indifference and offered a rebuke.

“You look provincial. Stop making a fuss and sit quietly.”

But Jung Hwan-yeop showed no sign of being affected, instead poking Manager Choi Ho-geun’s ribs.

“Come on, why? Don’t pretend to be tough when you find it interesting too, Manager.”
“What?”

Manager Choi Ho-geun, about to raise his voice in protest, suddenly realized Seok-won was on the same flight and hastily closed his mouth.
Even so, Jung Hwan-yeop continued grinning with unbridled excitement, throwing his hands up and shouting regardless of who was present.

“New York! I’ve arrived!”
“Sigh….”

Choi Ho-geun, the Manager, let out a heavy sigh and pressed his forehead with his palm.
The thought of being stuck with that guy day and night for the next month made his head throb with tension.
Shortly after the stairs descended, Bella, who had been standing at the entrance, smiled warmly and offered her farewell.

“I hope you have a wonderful time in New York.”

Seok-won, dressed in a cashmere coat, was the first to descend from the private jet, receiving Bella’s send-off.
Then Landon Shore, wearing sunglasses and waiting to greet them, approached with open arms and a broad smile.

“Welcome, Boss!”

Seok-won smiled and shook hands with Landon Shore.

“We’ve talked on the phone often, but it’s nice to see your face like this.”
“I feel the same way.”
“It’s not because you don’t have to stay up late due to the time difference, is it?”
“Ha ha ha. Honestly, I can’t deny that.”

Landon Shore replied with a playful tone.

“By the way, there are some people I’d like to introduce you to.”

Seok-won gestured to Choi Ho-geun, the Manager, and the staff members who had followed him down, beckoning them closer.
Landon Shore then looked at the approaching group with interest and asked.

“Are these the employees you mentioned bringing along?”
“Yes, they are.”

Landon Shore then greeted them with a courteous demeanor.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’m Landon Shore, managing the Eldorado Fund on behalf of the Boss.”

When the foreign stranger suddenly addressed him, Choi Ho-geun, the Manager, wore a bewildered expression.

“Ah. Um. Thank you. I’m Choi Ho-geun, Manager at Daeheung Venture Capital.”

Ho-geun, like most Koreans, possessed strong grammar skills but struggled with conversational fluency.
Mustering every ounce of his speaking ability and offering an awkward smile, Ho-geun shook hands and introduced the employees standing tensely behind him.

“These are the staff members I work with.”

Jung Hwan-yeop, visibly stiff from the cold, bowed his head in response.

“I’m Jung Hwan-yeop.”
“I’m Hong Jae-hee.”
“Yu Seok-hyun.”

Landon Shore shook hands with each employee as they introduced themselves, then turned to Seok-won and spoke.

“It’s cold out here. Shall we head to the Hotel?”
“Yes, let’s.”

Seok-won nodded his head.
Landon then led the group toward the Bell 412 helicopter positioned not far away.
Equipped with two powerful 900-horsepower turboshaft engines and boasting a fuselage length of 13 meters, the Bell 412 could accommodate up to 13 passengers—more than enough for the entire party.
Watching them head toward the helicopter, Jung Hwan-yeop’s eyes widened in surprise, and he quickly moved beside Ho-geun, whispering urgently in a low voice.

“Manager Ho-geun, we’re not actually going to ride in that thing, are we?”
“…It seems like we are?”

Even Ho-geun couldn’t hide his astonishment.

“A private jet is one thing, but using a helicopter to get around in New York too? Our CEO is truly operating on a completely different level.”

Ho-geun, who would normally have scolded such exclamations, found himself nodding in agreement without realizing it.
Hong Jae-hee and Yu Seok-hyun, following behind, were equally amazed.

“Wow! We’re actually going to ride in a helicopter!”
“It really looks like it.”
“Isn’t this absolutely incredible?”
“Right? When else in life would we ever get to ride in a helicopter?”

Yu Seok-hyun, experiencing a helicopter ride for the first time, moved forward with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension on his face.

Shortly after, the Bell 412 helicopter carrying the group lifted gracefully into the sky, its powerful rotors churning the air with a deep, resonant hum.
Seok-won smiled faintly as he watched Choi Ho-geun and the staff members, their heads fitted with noise-canceling headphones, gaze down with excited expressions at the broad expanse of the East River below and the densely packed buildings of New York City.
He then turned his head to address Landon Shore, seated beside him.

“President Davidson has begun assembling his second-term economic team following his reelection, hasn’t he?”

Landon Shore met his gaze and replied.

“The framework is already largely in place, and the official announcement is expected around the second week of December.”
“I heard that many of the existing advisors have expressed their intention to resign, so the scope of replacements is quite substantial. It seems the composition was finalized faster than anticipated.”
“Given that this is a second-term administration, the talent pool connected to the White House likely isn’t as abundant. Filling those vacancies probably wasn’t particularly difficult.”
“That makes sense.”

Seok-won nodded slightly and continued.

“What do you think the second-term economic policy will look like?”
“As outlined in the election platform, the focus appears to be on reducing fiscal deficits, stabilizing inflation, and cutting unemployment through economic policy.”
“Setting aside inflation control, but reducing fiscal deficits while simultaneously cutting unemployment—aren’t those contradictory objectives?”

Reducing fiscal deficits meant the government would spend less, which made it difficult to create more jobs.

“That’s why it seems they intend to increase domestic jobs through pressure for greater foreign market access.”
“You mean they’ll apply trade pressure on countries running trade surpluses with the United States?”
“Precisely. There’s talk that Asian nations, which have seen their trade surpluses with the U.S. surge dramatically in recent years, will be the primary targets for expanded exports.”

No matter how much the United States was the world’s largest consumer and trade deficits were inevitable to maintain dollar hegemony, annual trade deficits exceeding one hundred billion dollars were undeniably burdensome.
Moreover, as trade deficits continued to widen, concern was only natural.

But this was partly of America’s own making.

Under the Davidson administration’s policies championing so-called free trade and globalization, corporations were closing expensive American factories and massively relocating production bases to cheaper Latin American and Asian countries, inevitably reducing exports while increasing imports.
On top of this, the deliberate maintenance of a strong dollar made imported goods even cheaper, causing American domestic products to rapidly lose competitiveness.

Creating the problem and then applying trade pressure over the resulting deficit was absurd.

Yet conversely, it was precisely this kind of absurd action that only a superpower like America could take.

This American trade pressure might well be one of the catalysts for the Asian financial crisis about to strike.

When the crisis first erupted in Thailand, the United States could have intervened as it had in Mexico, preventing the shock from spreading across all of Asia.

‘But they simply stood by and watched as the crisis spread rapidly, as if deliberately conditioning the region.’

Through the Asian financial crisis, hedge funds represented by Wall Street reaped enormous profits, and the Asian nations that survived the brink of national default subsequently purchased hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds, dramatically increasing their foreign exchange reserves.
Thanks to this, they easily resolved their fiscal deficit problems by offloading massive national debt, so ultimately the U.S. government’s strategy had worked precisely as intended.

“And they plan to expand the powerful informatization promotion strategy that achieved great success in the first term, with massive investments in IT venture activation and internet infrastructure construction.”

Seok-won’s eyes lit up as he listened.

“Then IT company stock prices will rise even more dramatically.”
“Wall Street is making the same assessment, and there’s growing enthusiasm for purchasing stocks in IT companies like Cisco.”
“It’s as good as the White House openly declaring that stock prices will rise. Not buying would be the strange thing to do.”

From this perspective, one could say the U.S. government itself had created the IT bubble that heated up the late 1990s.

“So we’re thinking of increasing our trading allocation toward the IT sector.”
“That’s not a bad idea. If the White House makes massive investments in internet infrastructure, companies like Sun Microsystems, WorldCom, and Dell Computer will likely benefit greatly, so let’s increase our investments in those.”
“Understood.”

Landon Shore, who knew Seok-won’s exceptional insight better than anyone, didn’t let the recommended stocks go in one ear and out the other—he etched them firmly into his mind.
In the midst of this, Seok-won suddenly thought that the current situation bore striking similarities to when David Dantic would become president some thirty years in the future.

‘The intensity differs, but applying trade pressure to resolve trade deficits and the timing of a new technological revolution in internet and AI—it’s eerily similar, even though it seems different.’

Looking at it this way, the saying that history repeats itself seemed to ring true.
As Landon Shore and Seok-won continued their conversation, the helicopter carrying their party crossed over New York City along the East River and soon arrived above Manhattan.
The helicopter descended in altitude, leaving the towering Empire State Building to its left, and safely landed on the rooftop helipad of the Plaza Hotel that Seok-won owned.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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