People Power Party lawmaker Lee Sung-kwon on Wednesday sharply criticized the recently controversial single-stock leveraged ETF products, saying the turmoil in the stock market was "an economic disaster brought on by President Lee Jae Myung's arrogance — his belief that his own acts of governance must be an absolute good."
Lee made the remarks on his Facebook page, saying that "exploiting stocks for political purposes ahead of the June 3 local elections was an act of using power to privatize politics — infiltrating the market with a malicious virus called single-stock leveraged ETFs."
He went on to say that President Lee "must have wanted to take personal credit for the string of Kospi record highs before the election." He added that the president, "drunk on the Kospi, fancied himself a genie from a magic lamp — throwing the defective product called ETFs at the public on the eve of the election while crying 'your wish is granted,' stirring political agitation."
Lee said retail investors had poured into the new government-backed products en masse, pushing the Kospi higher day after day, but that foreign investors began pulling out amid the abnormal surge. "As the malicious virus of ETFs kicked in, share prices collapsed and retail investors were left holding the losses," he said.
He added that the concentration in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix wiped out buying interest in other stocks, while the Kosdaq plunged and retail investors were gripped by fears of being left with worthless holdings. "In the end, the leveraged ETFs that the Lee Jae Myung administration ambitiously rolled out became the worst evil — enriching only the foreign investors who sold at the peak and draining the nation's wealth," he said.
Lee also said that despite serious harm to the public from the policy failure, President Lee had offered no apology and merely called for remedial measures to be drawn up. "The president's own words — that those who harm the public must be made to face ruin, that companies must be made to feel they will go under if they hurt the people — are a promise that must be kept," he said.
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