[Desk Column] How Do You Live? 2 (2026-02-03)

The sinking of the Titanic was one of the greatest maritime disasters in history.

But that tragedy did not arrive suddenly. It was an accident that occurred because, although iceberg warnings were repeated during the voyage, the decision to slow down or change course was never ultimately made.

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It starts with national policy.

The diagnosis that pensions have already lost their sustainability has been repeated for years, but reform is always pushed behind the phrase ‘social consensus.’

Everyone agrees that it is a problem, but the choice of which generation will bear how much more of the burden is never ultimately made.

Real estate policy is no different. Rather than touching the structure, election-conscious fine-tuning is repeated, and without ever touching the tax system, only distorted signals are sent into the market.

Fiscal policy, too, drags on time without being properly spent or properly cut. Instead of clear priorities and explanations, choices that pass the burden on to the future continue one after another.

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The market is the first to detect this silence.

Capital looks not at policy explanations but at whether or not a decision has been made. So the greater the uncertainty grows, the more capital chooses to leave.

The result shows up first in the exchange rate. The recent weakness of the won is not simply a reflection of dollar strength. The more a structure of deferred decisions accumulates, the more the market discounts that society’s future in advance.

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During its developing-country years, Korean society’s question was clear: how to grow. But now that per-capita GDP (gross domestic product) has passed $30,000, today’s question must be different.

Faced with multiple risks — pensions, real estate, fiscal policy, low birth rates, and industrial transition — what matters most should be what decisions and reforms will change the country’s direction.

The reason the Titanic sank was not that it did not know an iceberg was approaching.

It was because, even knowing, it did not change course.

https://www.ajunews.com/view/20260202081550098