oooh this could get exciting

On the streets of Seoul and across the country, however, there is little sense of balance right now. Fear and angst have gripped a population in the throes of the worst stock market crash in the nation’s history. In the past five weeks, the market has collapsed, shedding almost 40 per cent, and threatening the livelihood of millions of South Koreans.

wow

More than a million South Koreans are underwater as a result of the crash, and several hundred thousand have lost everything, and then some. They borrowed to the hilt to take part in a frenzied splurge on technology stocks, particularly memory chip makers, in a market now experiencing a savage reversal. Nothing, not even the stellar earnings of the country’s two biggest chip makers, has been able to stem the panic, primarily because the debt that fuelled the stock market boom is now accentuating the crash.