Pricing logic changes! South Korea faces the "side effects" of AI prosperity: "national dividends" scare the stock market, and the K-shaped economy is officially included in valuation factors.

On May 12th, the South Korean stock market experienced a terrifying plunge: just half an hour after opening, the KOSPI index plummeted from its historical high of 7999.67 points, with the deepest drop reaching 5.1%. Stocks of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both fell sharply, leading to a market value evaporation of over 300 billion US dollars. What triggered the market turmoil was not geopolitics or financial report explosions, but a Facebook post. On the evening of May 11th, the Chief of the Presidential Policy Office, Kim Yong-hwan, posted a concept on social media: South Korea should consider establishing a "National Dividend" system, redistributing the excess profits generated in the AI infrastructure era to all 52 million citizens. This is the most striking and impactful policy signal on "AI era wealth distribution" by the current government so far, and it is the first time since the establishment of South Korea that someone has directly put forward the idea of distributing the financial fruits of a technological boom to all citizens, proposing a system of "distribution by person." In a South Korea where discussions on K-shaped differentiation have permeated central bank reports and government white papers, the detonation of this "national dividend" bomb was not accidental. At a time when the average bonus per SK Hynix employee approaches 870,000 US dollars and semiconductor export profits are surging exponentially, a divided society at the ends of the wealth ladder is asking decision-makers the same question: Whose cake is the AI cake, after all? In the afternoon, Kim Yong-hwan urgently clarified that it was not a proposal for a windfall tax, attempting to calm the market. The KOSPI's decline narrowed to 2.3%, closing at 7643.15 points. However, what had led to the evaporation of 35 billion US dollars in market value within hours, followed by partial recovery, was no longer just a "misunderstanding" it had, in the most dramatic way, revealed to the world a proposition: in the capital-intensive and highly concentrated AI industry chain, policy expectations themselves had become the most significant variable in pricing formulas. The three-layer logic behind the "national dividend" The first layer questions the ownership of prosperity. Kim Yong-hwan stated upfront: "The achievements of the AI infrastructure era were not created by individual companies alone, but rely on the industrial foundation accumulated by the nation over the past half-century." He traced South Korea's irreplaceable position in memory chip manufacturing back to the accumulation of generations of industrial workers and the continuous injection of national strategic resources, hence posing a fundamental question of ownership rights: Are these profits the creation of entrepreneurs' wealth, or are they the industrial heritage dividends of all citizens? The second layer judges the concentration mechanism of wealth. Kim Yong-hwan wrote in an almost poignant tone:... (Unfortunately, the text limit has been reached. Kindly let me know if you want me to continue.)