"We almost got screwed there. If we'd bought Lehman, they'd have called us traitors for the rest of our lives. Who on earth knew Lehman would go bust?"

"Like I said, our VIP's got the luck~ The monsoon came and washed out the candles~ We switched the canal to the Five Rivers project and everybody shut up. And now Lehman, too~"

"It's all thanks to your wisdom, hyungnim, isn't it? Heh heh heh."

The two men who'd leaned on everyone to buy Lehman sat chatting over tea.

Choe Sang-deuk, the many-term National Assembly member they called the Retired King, and Jang Man-su, Choe Byeong-bak's right-hand man.

Lehman had sent an SOS to dollar-rich Korea.

Officials who saw a chance to take over a global investment bank had jumped at it.

They'd even gotten a promise that ten percent of the investment would come back as political funds.

But civil servants who'd been properly trained under the previous administration objected.

The mood had turned, too.

Choe Byeong-bak had ordered the deal dropped.

And as luck would have it, that turned out to be right.

If they'd tried to keep Lehman afloat, even sinking all of Korea's foreign reserves into it might not have done it.

"Man-su. Let's do this right. You're the first minister of Strategy and Finance, you know that, right?"

Choe Sang-deuk, President Choe Byeong-bak's elder brother, looked at Minister Jang Man-su with satisfaction.

He'd planted his own man as the first minister of Strategy and Finance, the ministry formed by merging Finance and Economy with Planning and Budget.

A Hanguk University law graduate, Jang Man-su had climbed the ladder of success all the way to the top of public office.

"We've got to push 848~."

He'd been the brains behind 848, President Choe Byeong-bak's economic motto.

It was his empty promise: eight percent annual growth, fifty thousand dollars per capita income within ten years, and a place among the world's eight great powers.

"Don't overdo it. You know it won't happen."

"Still, the little people eat it up. Put it in a chart and they're easier to dazzle,…