Money Keeps Piling Up No Matter How Much I Spend

Chapter 199

Translator: Dreamscribe2024 was an enormously important year for the United States.

The presidential election was on the line.

And the race had already taken shape.

The Republican candidate, Trump.

The Democratic candidate, Hillis.

"......"

Trump, who was gunning for reelection, had been sinking deeper into worry lately.

"I turned the Aiden administration into a Lame-duck Administration. I ground the Democrats into the dirt. So how the hell are the Democrats getting support again?"

Aiden had been mocked as a historically weak Lame-duck Administration, stripped of the majority of his seats, his power completely gutted.

That was why Trump had been so supremely confident.

Reelection was supposed to be a done deal.

"And you're telling me the polls flipped just because of China? How does that make any sense?"

Calling it "just China" hardly did the situation justice. It was serious.

The sudden collapse of the Chinese regime had triggered a global economic crisis, and that shock was hitting the American public hard.

"If anything, that should've boosted our Republican numbers even more. How can the Democrats, who were practically dead, just swoop in and take all of it?!"

As Trump fumed, his aides couldn't bring themselves to tell him the real reason: the garbage he'd been spouting all this time.

"At least Aiden didn't throw his hat in the ring for reelection. If he had declared he was running again, his approval ratings would've climbed even higher."

Aiden had announced that he would retire from politics at the end of his current term.

That was the biggest mystery of all.

China was America's arch-rival.

So when China collapsed, Aiden's approval ratings had soared.

And yet Aiden hadn't been greedy about it. He'd simply announced his retirement.

In fact, the Democrats had been preparing to put Aiden forward as their presidential candidate, but his sudden retirement announcement forced them to hastily settle on Hillis instead.

"The guy used to go around bragging he'd be president for all eight years. Why would he suddenly change his mind?"

"Part of it could be mental exhaustion, and he may also feel a sense of responsibility for having created a historically unprecedented Lame-duck Administration."

"Responsibility, my ass. I've never once met a politician who actually had a sense of responsibility. Aiden's no different."

Greed and ambition, not responsibility, were what filled a politician's heart.

Aiden was no exception.

But that same Aiden had given up on the next election.

Even though he clearly knew the odds were in his favor.

"Then it has to be one of two things. Either Aiden lost interest in politics and stepped down on his own, or it was their decision."

"Their?"

"Kwangwoon."

At the mention of Kwangwoon, Trump flinched.

"You're well aware that Kwangwoon has a stranglehold on American politics."

The nightmares about Kwangwoon still lingered in Trump's mind.

Back when Trump was still in office.

He had mobilized every agency at his disposal to investigate Kwangwoon thoroughly.

He'd compiled every conspiracy theory floating around, and if even a single one of them had a connection to Kwangwoon, he intended to use it as leverage to crush the company.

"But nothing turned up back then."

That was what terrified him.

Among all the events that had rocked the world, some of them had to be connected to Kwangwoon. But no matter how deep they dug, nothing surfaced.

That was when Trump felt genuine fear for the first time in his life.

The terror of knowing something was right in front of him, yet having no idea what it was.

"President Aiden apparently tried the same thing. He put Chief of Staff John at the helm and deployed every agency he had."

"And they didn't find anything either?"

"Correct. Not a speck of dust, they say."

And what did that imply?

It wasn't simply that Kwangwoon was good at covering its tracks.

"Kwangwoon has far too many people embedded in this country. Enough to falsify the reports that reach the President's desk. As proof, didn't it come to light that John, Aiden's loyal Chief of Staff, was actually a Kwangwoon plant all along?"

After that investigation, John had stepped down as Chief of Staff and taken a consultant position provided by Kwangwoon, openly meeting with figures across the American political establishment.

"John, who was supposedly Aiden's most loyal man, had been Kwangwoon's agent from the very beginning. So no matter how hard they searched, the investigation results were always going to come back clean."

"Then when I ran my investigation too......"

"Yes. Kwangwoon's people inside each agency had already doctored the information."

There was no other explanation.

Hadn't Kwangwoon profited from every global catastrophe that had occurred?

The idea that they weren't connected to a single one of them was simply impossible.

"In any case, there's a strong possibility that Kwangwoon's influence is behind Aiden's decision to forgo reelection."

"And Aiden just went along with it?"

"Aiden is firmly in Kwangwoon's camp now. He was once the most determined to stop them, but when nothing worked, he decided he'd rather join them. It's already common knowledge, isn't it? That Aiden entered Kwangwoon's secret organization and is actively working within it."

Aiden's mental state had deteriorated to the point that dementia memes were being made about him.

But at some point he'd regained his sharpness, and now he was completely back to his old self.

As it happened, rumors had spread during that exact period that Aiden had joined Kwangwoon's secret organization.

In other words, shaking hands with Kwangwoon had brought him peace of mind.

"You're telling me those bastards are trying to handpick whoever sits in the Oval Office?"

"With Kwangwoon, it may well be possible. You know as well as anyone that the media is on their side."

There was a conspiracy theory about a global media cartel.

The idea that the world's media moved according to the directives of a select few, shaping public thought accordingly.

Of course, part of this was simply the nature of news.

Major outlets would run a story, and smaller ones would copy it wholesale, spreading the same narrative. If the original source was distorted from the start, every outlet that replicated it ended up spreading the same distorted information.

But things had now reached a point where it could no longer be dismissed as mere conspiracy theory.

After all, wasn't it Kwangwoon that had toppled Wizney, the owner of major media outlets, and absorbed it entirely?

"On top of that, people these days trust news from social media more. And Kwangwoon controls that too."

In other words, Kwangwoon could flip public opinion at any time through media manipulation.

"Kwangwoon has already made a spectacle of that power several times, stirring up the world through social media manipulation. That power is no illusion."

"And the media outlets will never say a bad word about Kwangwoon. Because if they do, their entire company could be ripped out by the roots."

Since there had actually been a few cases of exactly that, not a single major outlet was running negative coverage of Kwangwoon.

"But hold on, it was Kwangwoon that made the current administration into a Lame-duck Administration and crushed the Democrats in the first place, wasn't it? So why would they be giving the Democrats a second wind now?"

If their logic held, then the Democrats' rising poll numbers were Kwangwoon's doing. And wasn't China's collapse also said to be the result of Kwangwoon's machinations?

All of it had been a windfall exclusively benefiting Democratic support.

"They're probably unhappy with our party's attitude."

"What?"

"You included, sir, there are quite a few factions within the Republican Party that have been trying to push Kwangwoon out."

The Democrats had clearly submitted to Kwangwoon, but the Republicans hadn't entirely fallen in line.

Where there was a pro-Kwangwoon faction, there was also opposition.

And the presidential candidate, Trump, was firmly in the anti-Kwangwoon camp.

"So you're telling me to go bow my head to Kwangwoon?!"

"Sir. If you want to make America great again, this is a necessary choice. Accept Kwangwoon's support, get back into the White House first, and then you can reconsider after that......"

"What a joke! I will never bow to them. So go deliver my message to the party loud and clear. Pull my poll numbers up, whatever it takes! Kwangwoon this, Kwangwoon that, those are all just excuses. Got it?!"

The idea that he had to grovel before some corporation just to become president.

Trump absolutely refused to accept it.

* * *

"Things are starting to heat up with the election."

"Yes. President Aiden's announcement that he'll retire from politics after this term was quite a shock."

Just a few months ago, the Democrats had looked finished for good.

But the collapse of China had caused support to surge for the Democratic Party and President Aiden, who had always been serious about keeping China in check.

Then, remarkably, President Aiden had opted out of the next race.

Selecting a female politician named Hillis as the nominee instead.

"Based on the current situation, Hillis has the higher approval rating. The Republicans still hold an overwhelming number of seats, but if another election were held after the presidential race, it's expected to swing heavily toward the Democrats."

So would America see its first female president?

There was still time before the election, but watching the dynamics unfold was fascinating.

The Democrats, rallying behind the banner of the nation's first female president.

The Republicans, pledging to make America great again.

"But with the Republicans putting Trump forward as their candidate, there's significant backlash against him as well."

Trump was a deeply controversial figure.

He had been during his presidency, he had been outside of it, and he still was now.

Even recently, he'd been making headlines with a steady stream of provocative remarks.

"Honestly, in terms of sheer buzz, nobody can match Trump. Well, maybe Milon Tusk."

But the metrics of success had changed from the old days.

Now, whoever was best at drawing aggro was the key to success.

Tesla's success owed as much to Milon Tusk's aggro ability as it did to the company's vision.

The same was true for Trump.

"But this time, it looks difficult to pull off an upset. Democratic support keeps climbing because of the China collapse."

"Is there any way the Republicans can break through?"

"The best angle they have to work with is PC."

PC stood for political correctness.

Race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, minorities, the vulnerable, and so on.

It meant embracing and treating everyone equally without discrimination.

The problem was that the PC pushed by the progressive camp had devolved into excessive censorship and out-of-touch favoritism toward minorities, generating resentment and backlash instead.

"There's been a growing number of groups trying to instill PC ideology in young children, which has triggered enormous pushback from parents."

PC ideology was being forcibly injected not only into movies and dramas but also into children's media, creating serious social problems.

Because of these issues, ever since we acquired Wizney, we'd been shedding PC orthodoxy as much as possible and focusing purely on entertainment, the way Netflix did.

"While plenty of people are exhausted by the Democrats' excessive PC agenda, the consensus is that without a single knockout blow, it's still going to be hard to flip the polls."

There was a reason we were already worrying about the next American president even though the election was still a long way off.

The U.S. presidency was a seat that could shake the entire global economy.

Especially if someone as unpredictable as Trump seized power, there was no telling how the world economy might be rocked.

As it was, there was already plenty of talk about a looming Great Depression because of China. If the American president went off the rails on top of that, the future would become impossible to predict.

That was why we had to forecast and prepare as best we could.

Particularly for people like us, whose livelihoods depended on the financial markets.

"CEO, who do you think will be the next American president?"

"I......"

I wrote Hillis and Trump's names on a piece of paper, closed my eyes, and brought the pen to the surface. Before long, a powerful Intuition pierced toward one of the two names.

I opened my eyes.

The next president would be.......

* * *

"Mr. President. Are you really going to give up just like this?"

Aiden was sipping coffee, basking in the warm sunshine.

But the people who kept disrupting his rest had descended on him again today.

"Haven't I told you time and again? I just want to rest."

"But Mr. President, your approval ratings are climbing to historic highs. Especially with the narrative spreading that the collapse of China was thanks to our White House, public perception of you has genuinely turned around."

At that, Aiden let out a wry chuckle.

"Do you really think I brought down China? Me, the one who became a Lame-duck Administration and couldn't do a thing, shoved aside like a forgotten old man in the back room?"

"......"

The Democratic lawmakers had no answer.

Everyone here knew the truth.

That China's collapse was Kwangwoon's doing.

"Do you want to know why my approval ratings and reputation recovered?"

"......?"

"It's because I threw away every last shred of my pride and submitted to Kwangwoon. I got under them, did everything they told me to do, and in return they gave me a gift."

That gift was the restoration of Aiden's honor.

The reason he'd swallowed his tears and gone under Kwangwoon was the fear of being impeached and going down in history as a president of eternal disgrace.

But the moment he pledged his loyalty to them, his honor was restored as if by magic, and his approval ratings skyrocketed.

"And that's where it ends. Kwangwoon hasn't given me permission for the next term."

"You can't know that for certain."

"If they'd really wanted me to run for reelection, Kwangwoon would have reached out. But since I haven't heard a word, it means they want me to be satisfied with this and call it a day. Besides, I don't want to sit in this chair any longer either."

Even now, Aiden had regrets.

About having become president.

The four years he'd spent in this seat had been a nightmare.

So now he truly wanted to rest.

A clean retirement, and a comfortable life enjoying games and hobbies.

"I hope none of you covet this position either. The American presidency as we knew it is gone. Honestly, if I had my way, I'd hand this seat to Trump all the more."

"M-Mr. President! What are you saying?!"

Watching the horrified lawmakers, Aiden let out a tsk-ing chuckle.

They probably thought he was joking, but he was dead serious about wanting to put Trump back in this chair.

"Shouldn't he get a taste of at least half the suffering I went through, if not all of it?"

Trump would learn the hard way that things had changed beyond recognition from when he'd first taken office.

To put it bluntly,

"Let that bastard get screwed over for once."

*****

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