Chapter 434 |
Her words were completely unexpected.
I tried to control my expression, but the wavering in my eyes probably gave away my agitation.
"I see you haven't told her. Then again, it's not something you can easily tell anyone."
"What do you mean?"
Grace Rothschild's eyes gleamed with interest.
"A man who had nothing became the world's richest person in five years. Without that ability, how would it have been possible?"
"What on earth..."
"You don't have to hide it. I've known for a long time that you have that ability."
"..."
"You deserve to be in a much higher position than you are now."
From our very first meeting, I had felt a strong sense of unease and otherness from her. And today, I thought I finally understood why.
Her gaze and expression seemed to look down upon the world. It was as if she lived in a completely different world from me.
"Come find me in Buckinghamshire. I'll tell you what you want to know."
The Rothschild family estate is in Buckinghamshire.
She gave me an elegant curtsy.
"I'll be waiting. Until then, take care."
Grace Rothschild turned and walked away. Once she had completely disappeared, the surroundings became quiet.
It felt as if nothing had just happened.
As I stood there for a moment, someone tapped my shoulder.
"What are you doing here? I was looking for you."
I turned my head to see Ellie standing there.
"Ah, I was just taking a short break."
Ellie stared intently at me.
"What's wrong?"
"Huh?"
"You look like you're under a spell."
"I, I do?"
I gave an awkward laugh, and Ellie hugged me.
"You worked so hard preparing for the wedding. Rest well today."
I felt her soft touch and warm body temperature. For some reason, it felt reassuring.
I tightened my arms around her.
"Okay."
***
The guests were all busy people.
After the wedding ceremony ended, those with business to attend to left, and those who would conduct business here stayed.
We decided to stay in Jeju Island until the weekend before heading back up.
I dragged Taekgyu into a hotel room and locked the door.
"What's going on?"
When I told him what had happened, Taekgyu was shocked.
"What? Really? I thought the woman standing at the back of the hall earlier looked like her, and I guess I was right. But why would a Rothschild come to my sister's wedding?"
"She must have been invited."
Golden Gate must have sent an invitation to the Rothschilds, and she likely attended as the family's representative.
In any case, that's not what's important right now.
"She said she knows about your ability?"
"Yeah."
Taekgyu crossed his arms and pondered.
"Are you sure she wasn't just fishing?"
"I don't think so."
From the look in her eyes and her expression when she spoke, she definitely knew something.
"It's not like she's the first person to say you have foresight. Isn't it practically a public fact?"
As he said, the media had long been calling me a 'seer' or a 'prophet.' It got even more intense after the Big One.
Now, as in the past, humans want to know the future.
In the past, shamans would cut open an animal's stomach to tell fortunes; now, that role is played by experts like scientists and economists.
Just as investment and speculation are two sides of the same coin, so are prediction and foresight.
In the financial world, where information is directly linked to money, prediction is more important than in any other field. Whether interest rates will rise or fall, whether the economy will expand or contract, whether a new technology will succeed or fail, and so on.
There are people in the world who have accurately predicted financial crises. New York University professor Nouriel Roubini, 'The Black Swan' author Nassim Taleb, Scion Capital founder Michael Burry, and others.
It wasn't that they had any special information that only they knew. They simply analyzed indicators that anyone could see if they put their mind to it.
Looking at the same indicators, some saw signs of a bubble collapse, but the majority dismissed it as fine. The so-called financial experts and the officials at the US Department of the Treasury were no different.
And then the global financial crisis hit.
Afterward, everyone changed their tune, saying that various indicators had been pointing to a bubble collapse all along. It's easy for anyone to talk a good game after the fact.
So why did some know and others not, when looking at the same data?
The reason financial market prediction is difficult is because there are too many variables at play. Just as the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in the United States, a very minor variable can change everything.
Finding the truth within that is not just a matter of being smart. It requires something more.
For others, that something is intuition; for me, it's a superpower.
This superpower, which appeared one day, brought me wealth and fame.
I made an astronomical amount of money in a short period and became the most outstanding investor of the 21st century, surpassing Warren Buffett and countless other famous investors.
"Let's say she knows about your ability. Does anything really change?"
"You have a point."
Unless it's a superpower that exerts physical force, there's no way for me to prove it, and no way for others to prove it.
But if she really does know, it raises one question.
How on earth did she find out?
Naturally, while some people might think I have good intuition, no one would think I have a superpower.
At this point, I'm getting curious too.
The Rothschilds are a staple of conspiracy theories. But surprisingly, they are a real, existing family with enormous influence in the financial world.
Just as the Kennedy, Bush, and Underwood families made their names as political dynasties in politics, the financial world also has its own famous families with deep histories.
The Morgan family, which created J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley, the Goldman family, which created Golden Gate, and so on.
Among them, the most famous is, of course, Rothschild. Even people with no interest in finance will have heard the name Rothschild.
If you're in the financial world, you're bound to hear that name somewhere. But how many people know their true nature?
There are two things that surprised me after looking into the Rothschild family.
One is that there is so much known about them, and the other is that for the truly important things, nothing is known.
Even what the media reports is just superficial information whose authenticity hasn't been verified. The exaggerated conspiracy theories have only made it harder to find the truth.
"Rothschild..."
***
Taekgyu and I went to meet Chairman Warren Buffett.
Fortunately, he was scheduled to leave the next day. Berkshire Hathaway was still sitting on tens of billions of dollars in cash, pondering where to invest it.
He was investing in the California recovery project and also showed interest in the theme park and integrated resort being built by Ceylon Hotel in Saemangeum.
President Im Soo-mi couldn't rest even after the wedding and was busy meeting with people from IBs, PEFs, and SWFs.
I asked him.
"Do you happen to know anything about the Rothschild family?"
Chairman Warren Buffett was surprised but nodded.
"If you're in the financial world, how could you not know? Why the sudden question?"
"I met someone from their side earlier."
He showed interest.
"Oh? What did you talk about?"
"It seemed like they were interested in me."
He burst out laughing at my words.
"Haha, wouldn't any family, not just the Rothschilds? The Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the Cohens—they're all interested in Mr. Kang."
"Because of the money I have?"
"Berkshire Hathaway's current size is a little under 600 billion dollars. But I can't decide how to use that money as I please. I have to be mindful of the shareholders and worry about this and that. It's the same for the Kanline Group and Redstone. But Mr. Kang can choose as he pleases. If someone else had done the same thing to stop the Big One, they would have been kicked out of their company immediately."
Eighty percent of OTK Company's assets are mine. On the other hand, the hundreds of billions of dollars in operating funds that IBs and PEFs have is money invested by others.
So whose money is it?
"As for the Rothschilds, my friend Charlie knows more about them than I do."
He summoned Vice Chairman Charlie Baine.
A short while later, Vice Chairman Baine, having finished his meeting, entered the room. He had a chubby, round face and wore horn-rimmed glasses.
He looked like a brother to Chairman Warren Buffett standing next to him. Do people start to resemble each other after managing a company and investing together for a long time?
Upon hearing my story, Vice Chairman Baine's eyes lit up like a child's.
"It seems the Rothschilds have reached out to you as well, Mr. Kang. They traditionally value talent. They spare no effort in that regard."
"What is the scale of the Rothschilds' assets?"
"No one knows for sure. It's only estimated to be more than 1 trillion dollars and less than 2 trillion dollars. And even that isn't certain."
Henry had said something similar.
As expected, it fell far short of the 50 trillion dollars mentioned in conspiracy theories. Then again, if they had 50 trillion dollars in assets, it would be impossible not to be noticed, no matter how much it was diversified.
It was still an amount that transcended imagination, but it's impossible to dominate the entire financial world with just that.
"But the power of the Rothschilds doesn't just come from the assets they own."
"Then what is it?"
"It's the network and influence they have in the political and financial circles of America and Europe. Perhaps you could put it this way: it's the power to move capital in one direction."
I mulled over his words.
Vice Chairman Baine continued.
"Just as water flows from high places to low places, money has a tendency to move towards places with high returns. If you can control that flow, you can do a lot of things. Didn't that friend George Soros show us once?"
When George Soros, the head of the Quantum Fund, announced he would attack the Bank of England, everyone scoffed.
No matter how brilliant a hedge fund manager he was, attacking the central bank of the British Empire seemed like throwing an egg against a rock.
But he was not alone. When he began his attack, numerous hedge funds stood by his side and moved in one direction.
A single drop of water is nothing, but when they gather, they become a river and then an ocean. And if they move in one direction all at once, they can create a tsunami.
The Bank of England, caught in it, collapsed helplessly.
"The Rothschilds have maintained their wealth and influence for 250 years. You know how remarkable that is."
"I do."
A hundred years is longer than one might think. Two hundred and fifty years spans from the early modern period, through the modern and contemporary eras, to this very moment.
The list of things that happened in Europe alone during that time would fill dozens of books. Leaving aside minor events, the world has experienced two world wars, the Great Depression, financial crises, and more.
Every time a crisis hit, countless companies and families crumbled and fell. But the Rothschilds are still the Rothschilds.
How was this possible?
Vice Chairman Baine said with a bitter smile.
"When you think about it, it's quite strange. As the family that had long dominated Europe's financial system, the Rothschilds were attacked numerous times. There were several instances where the family was on the verge of splitting up or going bankrupt. But they skillfully avoided it, as if they had foreseen the crisis, and in the process, they acquired even greater wealth."
The moment I heard that, one thing came to mind.
Taekgyu and I looked at each other with surprised expressions.
Could it be...?