Powell’s April 2025 remarks, a fourteen-year-old in Jeju, and how a child first meets a market

According to an article, Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said in a recent speech that the level of the Trump administration’s tariff increases was much higher than expected, and warned that inflation and a slowing of growth could occur at the same time. Tariffs, he said, can at least temporarily stimulate inflation, and can bring a challenging scenario that threatens at once America’s two great aims of maximum employment and price stability. Right after the remarks were conveyed, the New York stock market turned sharply downward. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq each fell by 2 to 3 percent or more, and the market reacted at once. It can be seen not as the mere effect of a trade policy, but as a structural factor that sent a wave through the worldwide financial setting. Uncertainty about a possible adjustment of the U.S. base rate was added, and an interpretation is offered that global investment sentiment contracted. The piece is “Because of Trump tariffs” … Powell’s ‘rebuke,’ Hankyung Business, 18 April 2025, 07:49. Those remarks, and the market move that followed, are left as that April 2025 account places them, without The Korean domestic market, the writer also looked at, was the same. The U.S. interest-rate stance and the inflation outlook affect the Bank of Korea’s monetary-policy decisions, and soon affect deposit rates, lending rates, and returns on investment assets as a whole. Changes in metal and commodity prices are also reflected in import costs and in prices, and are tied directly to a consumer economy. In a tightly entangled world economy, the financial change a person feels is growing larger. If financial education is learned late in a market that changes from moment to moment, there is no choice but to feel a limit in responding. Even basic techniques such as deposits, savings, investment, and funding come to feel a difficult, complicated path. Financial education, then, should begin from childhood. Finance is also more than a mere calculation of numbers; it is a comprehensive field entangled with politics, society, history, and international relations. For that reason the writer holds that financial education should be done in an integrated way, linked with various subjects such as Korean, social studies, technology, and history, and that a realistic education based on actual cases, not a mere memorizing of theory, is needed.

Interest in financial activity such as stocks has lately been rising among children, the essay says. A phrase has even appeared, “the best Children’s Day gift is stocks,” and a social consensus on the need for early financial education is forming. Jjuniman, a fourteen-year-old economics YouTuber living in Jeju, took an interest in stocks from elementary school, took part in actual investing, and is said to have made a profit of 13 million won or more. What is worth noticing is that, beyond a mere interest, he watched the news himself and read books about stocks, studying in parallel. The case is not simply a ‘peculiar event,’ the writer says, but part of a flow in which many children today are approaching finance naturally. According to a securities-firm survey, the number of stock accounts opened in a minor’s name rose sharply from 11,000 in 2019 to a level of more than 120,000 in 2020, an increase of about eleven times in a short period —, without The flow has also led to the appearance of stock-education programs aimed at elementary, middle, and high-school students. In this situation there are several views. People share the need for early financial education, and yet there is also a concern that a money-centered set of values may take hold to an excessive degree. An elementary-school teacher, in fact, remarked that “until I became an adult I did not learn the difference between a deposit, an installment savings account, and an investment,” and pointed to a gap in school education, because systematic financial education had not been done from childhood.

Now a middle-school student, the same YouTuber said the return on the stocks he had invested in reached about 42 percent. Beyond a mere number, the case is taken as showing that even at a young age one can grow an understanding of a financial product and a sense of the market. Stocks have generally been regarded as something only adults or specialists do, but the case is becoming an occasion that changes that recognition. A financial product such as a stock is not merely a means for profit. It can rather be seen as a process of training in understanding the world and reading an economic flow. Even adults often experience a loss in stock investing, or a difficulty of judgment. Being older, then, does not by itself make a person skilled at stocks, and a person who has properly learned and experienced from a young age can produce a better result. Jjuniman became interested at a comparatively early age and has studied steadily through news and books. As a result, he says, not only a mere investment return but a wider eye on the world, and a view of his own for interpreting the market, have come to him — a result far more valuable than simply having made money. The writer personally thinks that if a person is completing a regular curriculum at about the middle-school level, there is no great difficulty in understanding the stock market. Learning an economic system in a social-studies class, and ratios and graphs in a mathematics class, is already a sufficient foundation for grasping a basic market structure or the principle of a change in a stock price. Moreover, students today use digital devices naturally and are in a setting where related information can easily be looked up.

On how to study finance, Jjuniman has said that he did not, from the start, look at a complicated theory or a stock chart. He began from things he already liked. For example, he came to take an interest by looking up which company had made a game he usually enjoyed, and which brand a snack he often ate had come from. Interest that started from familiar things gradually widened, and led naturally to a curiosity about stocks, firms, and a market flow. Through this experience he came to feel that stocks are not merely a complicated thing only adults do, but a starting point of finance that anyone can connect in daily life. Wanting to know past economic flows, he also read books of world economic history and of Korean history together. As he came to know economic crises, changes in industrial structure, and the flow of policy, he realized that finance is not merely a calculation of numbers, but a field closely connected to society, history, and politics. He also says he has a habit of reading the newspaper every day. At first it was hard to understand every article, but as he began little by little from subjects he cared about — news of firms related to games, food, and technology, for example — a sense of the economy as a whole gradually arose.

A 2004 literacy score, a parents’ survey, and a digital way of teaching money

A paper, the essay says, found that financial education in Korea still has many structural limits. A social consensus on financial education aimed at adolescents is forming, but in the actual education field both content and method are assessed as quite insufficient. In Park Eun-ju’s 2004 master’s thesis at Keimyung University, in Daegu, “Problems of youth financial education and activation plans,” the financial-literacy score of Korean high-school students averaged only 45.02, a low level when compared with a score over 50 in the United States in the same survey. Those figures are left in 2004, without The aim of financial education, the thesis held, is not a mere delivery of knowledge, but a help so that a person can make the economic choices needed in real life. Even so, education until then had stayed only at an analysis of curriculum content or an improvement of teaching method, and educational programs in which students can actually meet finance and experience it were pointed out as almost nonexistent. A Kookmin Bank survey, also found that 93.2 percent of parents felt their children’s money-management ability was insufficient, and 91.8 percent responded that financial education is needed before graduation from elementary school —, without a The figures show that a social recognition of the need for early financial education is already in place. Yet the share who assessed the financial education actually done in the home positively at ‘excellent’ or above was only 9.4 percent, and the share who responded that it was at a ‘fair’ level or below reached 48.5 percent. A shortage in the parents’ role and capacity is pointed out as a main problem. Among the causes of a shortage of financial literacy, limits of teachers and of the education system are also pointed to, in Kim Yeong-gyun’s 2011 master’s thesis at Inha University’s graduate school of education, in Incheon, “An analysis of middle-school students’ financial literacy and determining factors.”

The writer’s own thought is that the world economy is changing quickly. Recently the snapshot, the euro has surged, the dollar’s value is falling, and domestic deposit rates have fallen to the 1-percent level —, without In this volatility of the market, even adults often cannot respond properly. In fact, while the Nasdaq was falling, there was also a case of a person who predicted the direction and made a large profit by selling. A financial market, in this way, moves day by day, and opportunity and risk live together there. In a situation of that kind, if financial education is not received at a young age, a person cannot acquire the ability to avoid a risk, and sometimes may also miss a precious opportunity. If a person grows without an understanding of finance in an era when information flows quickly, a greater difficulty is later met in front of a practical choice. What is needed now, the writer says, is to hurry to introduce financial education and to settle it. It should not be an education that ends with one or two classes, but a form that naturally seeps into daily life. Rather than feeling economic news, a change in an exchange rate, or the flow of interest rates as difficult, it should be a way of meeting them steadily and becoming slowly familiar. Only then, the writer thinks, can children accept finance as a part of life and grow the strength to respond sensitively to change.

On digital education, a paper found that teachers were contributing to the cultivating and the spreading of expertise in economic education, amid composite conditions of past experience, expectations for the future, a problem-consciousness about the present reality of education, and the social atmosphere. Kim Ji-hun’s 2024 doctoral dissertation at Seoul National University’s graduate school, in Seoul, “A digital ethnographic case study of elementary teachers’ experience of participating in an online teacher learning community for economic education,” is cited. Digital tools and an autonomous community setting promoted the teachers’ collaborative inquiry. Through this process the teachers established an identity as experts in economic education, and came to have a consciousness of wanting to grow as a leading force in elementary economic education. In a rapidly changing financial setting — a surge of the euro, a weak dollar, ultra-low rates, a sharp fall in the Nasdaq — even adults find it hard to respond. Someone makes a profit by selling; someone misses the opportunity. In this situation, if an adolescent grows with no financial education at all, it is hard to have either an ability to respond to a crisis or an ability to catch an opportunity. In a digital setting, financial content overflows. On YouTube and on social platforms, videos that easily explain and interpret the latest financial issues go up every day. Digital-based financial education is, therefore, a very valid method for middle-school students. In connection with this, the study above analyzed a case in which elementary teachers, through an online teacher learning community, voluntarily developed a financial-education curriculum and spread it. The teachers used digital tools to make a spiral curriculum and applied content centered on real life. Teacher-led digital financial education of this kind was effective, because it can seep in freely according to a student’s interest and level.

In a time like the present, finance is no longer only a problem for adults. Even looking only at YouTube or at social platforms, words such as an exchange rate, a stock price, and an interest rate flow out naturally. Yet middle-school students, even as they meet this information, can easily pass it by without knowing what it means for their own lives, or why it should be regarded as important. Information overflows, but there is no foundation for interpreting and judging. Moreover, with the advance of digital technology, the financial setting is changing still more quickly. With a few clicks a person buys a stock, trades a coin, and makes an overseas payment. Children should not be made to face this flow unprepared, a flow that even adults find hard to keep up with. In an era when the flow of money has entered daily life so closely, from a young age a financial sense should be grown, and a power of thinking should be raised. If financial education is not received at a young age in a situation of this kind, a person cannot acquire the ability to avoid a risk, and sometimes may also miss a precious opportunity. What is needed now is to hurry to introduce financial education and to settle it — not an education that ends with one or two classes, but a form that naturally seeps into daily life. The writer thinks that now is precisely the time when such an education setting should be made. The bibliography also names a textbook and lecture notes, an overseas Global chart of Korea Investment & Securities, and Jjuniman’s YouTube channel. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. According to an article, Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, mentioned in a recent speech that “the level of the Trump administration’s tariff increases is much higher than expected,” and warned that inflation and a slowing of growth could occur at the same time. It is an article in which he said that “tariffs can at least temporarily stimulate inflation, and can bring a challenging scenario that simultaneously threatens America’s two great aims of maximum employment and price stability.” In fact, right after these remarks were conveyed, the New York stock market turned to a sharp downward trend. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq index each fell by 2 to 3 percent or more, and the market reacted immediately. It can be seen as being not the mere effect of a trade policy, but a structural factor that exerts a wave on the worldwide financial environment. As uncertainty about the possibility of an adjustment of the U.S. base rate was also added, an interpretation comes out that global investment sentiment contracted. “Because of Trump tariffs” … Powell’s ‘rebuke.’ Hankyung Business. 18 April 2025, 07:49. The Korean domestic market was also looked at, and it is the same. The U.S. interest-rate stance and the inflation outlook affect the Bank of Korea’s monetary-policy decisions, and soon affect deposit rates, lending rates, and returns on investment assets as a whole. Changes in the prices of metals and raw materials are also reflected in import costs and in prices, and are directly tied to a consumer economy. In a world economy that is complicatedly entangled, the financial change that an individual feels is also growing larger and larger. If, in a market environment of today in which change comes from moment to moment, financial education is learned late, there is no choice but to feel a limit in responding to the change. Even basic wealth techniques such as deposits, savings, investment, and funding come to feel a difficult and complicated path. Therefore it can be said that financial education should be started from childhood. Also, finance is a comprehensive field entangled with various domains such as politics, society, history, and international relations, beyond a mere calculation of numbers. It is not a very solitary knowledge, but a composite learning that should be understood and judged on the basis of fused thinking and background knowledge. For this reason, financial education should, it is held, be done in an integrated way, linked with various subjects such as Korean, social studies, technology, and history. It is a situation in which a realistic education based on actual cases, not a mere memorizing of theory, is needed. In this connection, in the body below, what affects a middle-school student’s financial literacy, and the point that, in Korea where the digital environment is good, education for raising digital financial literacy aimed at middle-school students is needed, are to be proposed on objective grounds. Lately, interest in financial activity such as stocks is said to be rising among children. In fact, to the degree that a phrase “the best Children’s Day gift is stocks” comes out, a social consensus on the need for early financial education is being formed. Jjuniman, a fourteen-year-old economics YouTuber living in Jeju, took an interest in stocks from elementary-school days, took part in actual investing, and is said to have made a profit of 13 million won or more. The point that, beyond a mere interest, he watched the news himself and read books related to stocks, studying in parallel, is worth noticing. A case such as the above is not simply a ‘peculiar event,’ but can be said to be part of a flow in which many children today are approaching finance naturally. According to a securities-firm survey, the number of cases of opening a stock account in a minor’s name rose sharply from 11,000 in 2019 to a level of more than 120,000 in 2020. It is a figure that increased about eleven times in a short period, and can be said to be a case that shows that early interest in finance is spreading. This flow is also leading to the appearance of stock-education programs aimed at elementary, middle, and high-school students. In this situation there are various opinions. While sharing the need for early financial education, there is a concern about the possibility that a money-centered set of values may take hold excessively. In fact an elementary-school teacher mentioned that “until I became an adult I did not learn the difference between a deposit, an installment savings account, and an investment,” and pointed to a gap in school education. It can be seen as being because systematic financial education was not carried out from childhood. According to the words of Jjuniman, the economics YouTuber who has become a middle-school student, the rate of return on the stocks he himself invested in reaches about 42 percent. Beyond a mere number, it can be said to be a case that shows that even at a young age an understanding of a financial product and a sense of the market can be grown. In general, stocks have been regarded as if only adults or specialists do them. But Jjuniman’s case is becoming an occasion that changes that recognition. A financial product called a stock is not merely a means for profit alone. It can rather be seen as a process of training in understanding the world and reading an economic flow. In fact, even adults in many cases experience a loss in stock investing or experience a difficulty of judgment. For that reason, simply being older does not mean being skilled at stocks, and a person who has properly learned and experienced from a young age can produce a better result. Jjuniman came to take an interest in stocks at a comparatively early age, and is said to have studied steadily through news and books. As a result, he says that not only a mere investment return but an eye for seeing the world has widened, and he has come to have a view of his own for interpreting the market. It can be said to be a result far more valuable than the mere meaning of having made money. The more stocks are learned from a young age, the more they can give thought and inspiration. The writer personally thinks that if a person is completing a regular curriculum of about the middle-school level, there is no great difficulty in understanding the stock market. It is because even only learning an economic system in a social-studies subject, and learning ratios and graphs in a mathematics class, becomes a sufficient foundation for grasping a basic market structure or the principle of a change in a stock price. Moreover, students these days use digital devices naturally and are placed in an environment in which related information can also easily be looked up. Jjuniman has spoken in this way about a method of studying finance. He says that he did not, from the start, look at a complicated theory or a stock chart, but started from things he had liked. For example, he came to take an interest by looking up which company had made a game he usually played with enjoyment, and from which brand a snack he often ate had come. Interest that started from familiar things in that way gradually widened, and is said to have led naturally to a curiosity about stocks, firms, and a market flow. Through this experience, Jjuniman is said to have come to feel that stocks are not merely a complicated thing only adults do, but a starting point of finance that anyone can connect in daily life. And, wanting to know past economic flows, he is said to have read books of world economic history and of national history together. As he came to know economic crises, changes in industrial structure, the flow of policy, and the like, he is said to have realized that finance is not merely calculating numbers, but a field closely connected to society, history, and politics. It can be said to be an example that shows that finance is not independent knowledge, but something that should be understood fused with various fields. Also, he says he has a habit of reading the newspaper every day. At first understanding every article was difficult, but as he began to read little by little from subjects he was interested in — for example, news of firms related to games, food, and technology — a sense of the economy as a whole is said to have gradually arisen. According to a paper, financial education in Korea was shown still to have many structural limits. Financial education aimed at adolescents has a social consensus being formed, but in the actual education field it is an assessment that there is much insufficiency in both content and method. In Park Eun-ju, “Problems of youth financial education and activation plans,” a domestic master’s thesis, Keimyung University, 2004, Daegu, the financial-literacy score of Korean high-school students was said to average only 45.02 points. When compared with the United States exceeding 50 points in the same survey, it is a low level. Those figures are left in 2004, without The goal of financial education was said to lie not in a mere delivery of knowledge, but in helping a person to be able to make the economic choices needed in real life. Even so, education until then has stayed only at an analysis of curriculum content or an improvement of teaching method, and it is pointed out that educational programs in which students can actually meet finance and experience it are in a situation of being almost nonexistent. Also, according to a survey conducted by Kookmin Bank, 93.2 percent of parents feel that their children’s money-management ability is insufficient, and 91.8 percent responded that financial education is needed before graduation from elementary school. It is material that shows that a social recognition of the need for early financial education is already in place. However, the ratio that assessed the financial education actually carried out in the home positively at ‘excellent’ or above is only 9.4 percent, and the ratio that responded that it is at a level of ‘fair’ or below reaches 48.5 percent. The point that the parents’ role and capacity are insufficient is being pointed out as a main problem. Among the causes of a shortage of financial literacy, limits of teachers and of the education system are pointed out. Kim Yeong-gyun, “An analysis of middle-school students’ financial literacy and determining factors,” a domestic master’s thesis, Inha University graduate school of education, 2011, Incheon. The writer’s thought. The world economy today is changing quickly. Recently the euro is surging and the dollar’s value is falling, and domestic deposit rates are falling to the 1-percent level. In this volatility of the market, even adults in many cases cannot respond properly. In fact, while the Nasdaq index was falling, there is also a case that a certain person predicted the direction and made a large profit by selling. In this way a financial market moves day by day, and is a place where opportunity and risk coexist. In a situation such as the above, if financial education is not received at a young age, the ability to avoid a risk also cannot be acquired, and sometimes a precious opportunity may also be missed. If, in an era when information flows quickly, a person grows without an understanding of finance, later, in front of a practical choice, a greater difficulty comes to be experienced. Therefore what is needed for us now is to hurry to introduce financial education and to settle it. It should not be an education that ends with simply one or two classes, but an education of a form that naturally seeps into daily life. Rather than feeling things such as economic news, a change in an exchange rate, and the flow of interest rates as difficult, it should be a method of meeting them steadily and becoming slowly familiar. Only if it is done in that way, the writer thinks, can children also accept finance as a part of life and grow the strength to be able to respond sensitively to change. As for digital education, according to a paper, as a result of the research, teachers were contributing to the cultivating and the spreading of expertise in economic education amid composite conditions such as past experience, expectations for the future, a problem-consciousness about the present reality of education, and the social atmosphere. Kim Ji-hun, “A digital ethnographic case study of elementary teachers’ experience of participating in an online teacher learning community for economic education,” a domestic doctoral dissertation, Seoul National University graduate school, 2024, Seoul. Digital tools and an autonomous community environment promoted the teachers’ collaborative inquiry. Through this process the teachers established an identity as experts in economic education, and came to have a consciousness of wanting to grow as a leading force in elementary economic education. In a rapidly changing financial environment such as a surge of the euro, a weak dollar, ultra-low rates, and a sharp fall in the Nasdaq, it is a reality that even adults find it difficult to respond. Someone makes a profit through selling, but someone misses an opportunity. In this situation, if an adolescent grows without any financial education, it is difficult to acquire either an ability to respond to a crisis or an ability to catch an opportunity. In a digital environment, financial content overflows. On YouTube, social platforms, and the like, videos that easily explain and interpret the latest financial issues go up every day. Therefore digital-based financial education is a very valid method for middle-school students. In this connection, the study above analyzed a case in which, through an online teacher learning community, elementary teachers voluntarily developed a financial-education curriculum and spread it. The teachers used digital tools to make a spiral curriculum and applied content centered on real life. Teacher-led digital financial education of this kind was effective, because it can seep in freely according to a student’s interest and level. In a time like these days, finance is no longer only a problem of adults. Even only looking at YouTube or social platforms, words such as an exchange rate, a stock price, and an interest rate flow out naturally. But in reality middle-school students, even while meeting this information, easily pass it by without knowing what meaning it has for their own lives, or why it should be regarded as important. Information overflows, but there is no foundation for interpreting and judging. Moreover, with the development of digital technology, the financial environment is changing still more quickly. With a few clicks a person buys a stock, trades a coin, and makes an overseas payment. This flow, which even adults find burdensome to keep up with, should not be made for children to face without preparation. In an era in which the flow of money has entered daily life so closely as it has now, from a young age a financial sense should be grown, and a power of thinking should be raised. The writer thinks that now is precisely the time when such an education environment should be made. Bibliography. Textbook and lecture notes. Korea Investment & Securities overseas Global chart. YouTube Jjuniman (https://www.youtube.com/@zzooniman). “Because of Trump tariffs” … Powell’s ‘rebuke.’ Hankyung Business. 18 April 2025, 07:49. Park Eun-ju, “Problems of youth financial education and activation plans,” a domestic master’s thesis, Keimyung University, 2004, Daegu. Kim Yeong-gyun, “An analysis of middle-school students’ financial literacy and determining factors,” a domestic master’s thesis, Inha University graduate school of education, 2011, Incheon. Kim Ji-hun, “A digital ethnographic case study of elementary teachers’ experience of participating in an online teacher learning community for economic education,” a domestic doctoral dissertation, Seoul National University graduate school, 2024, Seoul.

Last updated: 14 November 2026