By Shim Jae-yun

It was shocking to see hundreds of American youngsters took to the street in Manhattan, N.Y., to protest what they alleged was the “corporate greed” prevalent among CEOs and executives on Wall Street.

The demonstrations show signs of spilling into other parts of the United States, Australia and even major cities in Europe, which are now reeling from a looming economic recession. Young Canadians plan to hold a similar rally near the stock market on Bay Street, Toronto, on Oct. 15.

The instability is expected to fan market fears amid the increasing possibility of a Greek default with strong contagions to neighboring countries.

The American demonstrators vented their anger on the Wall Street bankers and financiers who eked millions of dollars of severance allowances (pension funds) though they were chiefly responsible for the economic debacle, triggered by the notorious subprime mortgage cases and the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

They also revealed hostilities toward U.S. politicians for having been involved in efforts to “squeeze” something from the insolvent people at a time when the national coffers are empty. Foreign Policy magazine reported that the youngsters call themselves a “lost generation” who cannot possess anything in their own hands.

The U.S. rally was symbolic as it was the beginning of a possible punishment of the people who accumulated huge amounts of money with the sophistically-designed “financial engineering,” which has been the mainstay of Wall Street over several decades.

It gave birth to various monstrous financial commodities like derivatives, in particular, that enabled the financiers to make money in the name of commissions.

Wall Street practices seem to be in violation of the principle of justice based on egalitarianism as the demonstrators describe them as the majority of 99 percent against 1 percent monopolizing the national wealth.

Takahiko Soejima, a renowned Japanese economist, foresaw in his recent book titled “Global Market Collapse’’ that Wall Street will face a debacle, sliding to 3,000 points of Dow Jones Industrial in the near future.

As a doomsday teller, he foresaw that the United States would face serious recession and depression in the years to come that will result in a series of popular uprisings and lootings mainly led by the less privileged.

The writer already forecast the election of President Barack Obama. He alleges capitalist forces, namely Rockefeller families, for instance, have been pulling the strings of presidential elections behind the scenes and chose Obama as the U.S. president to utilize him in the event of uprisings or mass demonstrations. “The most effective means to ease such tense situations will be the skin color of Obama,” he wrote.

As if to prove his predictions, the global stock markets including the KOSPI are nose diving with numerous signs of a global depression. The above-mentioned Manhattan demonstrations seem to be the starting point that could herald disastrous copycat rallies across the globe, which will likely occur more frequently riding on state-of-the-art communications tools like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other social network systems.

He said the magic of financial engineering will come to an end and the global stock markets will crash.

It is my hope that the author’s forecast does not happen but regrettably the situation seems to be heading in that direction.

South Korea may never be safe from possible global crises given its heavy reliance on external trade and the vulnerability of its currency.

A rapidly increasing number of youngsters dubbed the 880,000 won generation (who receive some $740 in wages per month) and unemployed people are posing a potential threat. Efforts to ease the monopolization of wealth by major conglomerates are making little progress despite a much-touted drive by the government.

Despite a looming major crisis, the political sector is engrossed in narrow-sighted and popular policies designed to woo voter support. It is time to rack our brains for wisdom to cope with possible crises regardless of partisan differences. The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the mouthpiece of the conglomerates, marked its 50th anniversary Wednesday and has been asked to take a fresh role toward shared growth alongside small- and medium-sized enterprises and the underprivileged while discarding the corporate greed of the major companies.