When the 2008 financial crisis hit, everyone kind of expected the heads of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and other investment bank heads to be prosecuted, and Barack Obama, who became the US President in this kind of environment, promised a change.
However, when he took office in 2009, Tim Geithner, the Secretary of Treasury, said prosecuting these figures will increase the stress on the markets and will create a lot of distress on the innocents.
The big investment banks were bailed out, and these figures still continue to run such banks and drawing astronomical compensation thru Obama, Trump and Biden's administrations.
Someone said it is for the 'greater good'. Although a lot of people will think these figures are obnoxious, prosecuting them depresses investment activities and create further stress on the economy, potentially inducing a depression.
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I personally think this Kim Garam matter will blow.
I know I am not the most popular person in this forum, but I say what has to be said.
The reason is the Korean fandom does not really matter in today's world.
Foreign fans can care less about what happened to their faves in Korea. It is history, and they tend to not care too much about idols' past since that is something which happened in another country before they became idols
Plus , the atomization of the fandoms means acts can only devote their efforts on their existing fandom. It would be nice if they can expand, but even if not, if their existing fandom is large enough ,one can continue with the established fandom for the duration of the act.
I think the top brass of Hybe think if they back down from this, they will have to back down in their other projects, and by pushing this through they can show their power to the world that they can do anything.
Plus, if Hybe loses this round, next year it has to give the initiative of KPop to the person below this post, who has not given up her ambition to take over Kpop one more time. Hybe is trying to get as big as possible and Le Sserafim is its biggest weapon so far; if it is set back at here it might lose the initiative, just like the failure of the Market Garden (Arnhem) operation eventually led to the Soviets taking Berlin and proclaiming themselves to be the winner of world war 2, all the way to Putin claiming a supposed moral superiority over the Ukrainians in 2022.
Obviously the way Hybe is handling this mess leaves a lot of things to be desired.
However, for the greater good of not losing the initiative on KPop to IU next year, and for the sake of showing Hybe's power and making everyone fear it by showing it can do anything it wants, Hybe is likely to get this Kim Garam matter buried. It would probably minimize Le Sserafim's activities in Korea, and mostly only would release albums geared to the overseas fans. LS's existing Korean fans are unlikely to ditch it since a lot of them are former WIZOnes who don't really care about her, and they would not be Hybe's priorities anyways.
Opinions on discussion boards by those who won't buy LS's tickets will probably not figure too much in the minds of Hybe.
Tl.dr. Hybe will probably let the Kim Garam matter blow, for the same reason Obama and Geithner did not prosecute the heads of the big investment banks back in 2009.
