Usually, a harbinger occurred before an economic crisis. For example, the interest rates may have increased or decreased to a great extent, companies’ debt might have soared, a bubble could have formed in a business sector, a current account balance ended up deteriorating, or the country or major firms were unable to control the amount of money in circulation anymore… However, the current European economic crisis happened entirely out of the blue.

Hong Ju-Hwan was giddy. Korea had overcome the IMF crisis, escaped the recession and finally swung back to positive growth. However, he was bewildered by the sudden economic crisis in Europe as Korea was slowly thriving.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to revise the current structure of foreign currency reserves.”

“If the Goldstein Group comes up with a quick response, the problem will be resolved.”

“One thing we have to admit is that the European economic crisis has made the financial markets sensitive. On the flip side, the oil futures market is rising, and an increase in oil prices is inevitable.”

The officials were having an emergency conference under the leadership of Hong Ju-Hwan.

Hong...