Korean Job Discussion Forums

[EFLtrainer]

Economic expansion, my ass.

[bixlerscott]

Yea, it's true the gap between rich and poor is widening with the rich getting richer and the quality of life decreasing for commoners.

While a college education guarantees you nothing today other than debt burden, unlike during the 20th century where it was a poor smart persons ticket to middle class and possibly upper class later on, each individual is on his/her own in global economy of today. This is not our grandparents world anymore where achieving adequate economc livelyhood in America was a given for serving our country, getting basic schooling, and working. Today, things are very different and some might say, unfair and corrupt.

You can know it all about business, market dynamics, technology, and finance and never have nothing going for you, becauase you lack capital and credit on account of lacking adequate income, lack credit history, lack familial wealth, have no inheritance, and no professional references. A typical college graduate today lacks all this, but has the intellectual ability to be a CEO, a scientist, or other professional, but these jobs require professional experience that a typical college graduate would lack out of matter of circumstance.

I got tired of working $9/hour going nowhere retail sales jobs, telemarketing, and store management positions with no benefits that asked all of you in a hostile corrupt manner while having achieved a Bachelor of Science in International Business after having serve our great Army, so I came to Korea to teach English as a career booster. I hope to save up a chunk of money and start a profitable business of some sort at home in the a few years from now. Still need the credit part (and at least one piece of real estate to back me up) for working capital such as if demand for your service spurts and you need to suddenly increase your capicity to serve more customers as to build a solid reputation to achieve financial independence. That is a critical make or break point in a new business I learned from past experience of being too small with no ability to grow on account of lacking capital and financial wealth. 21 century economics is a tough ongoing battle for those of us not inheriting financial wealth.

Mustering out a profitable business of some sort is where it's at in America, other than the healthcare industry is booming with job opportunities due to Americans placing high value on preserving aging human life and the government subsidizing this with a seemingly nonstop blitz of big money. These jobs allow many today to climb out of poverty like my sister did on becoming a nurse, not to mention, marrying a retired bank presidents' son. Consider this lucky lovely couple to be worth millions $ now.

If you notice, the majority of foreigners (primarily Asians and Indians) in America are all about the business in a very entrepreneural manner with frugality such as with stores, restaurants, and motels and soon to be: the entire business world of America.

While I feel hung out to dry still, the Koreans have a lot to teach those of us interested in rising out of poverty and building a career of self employment and finally achieving independance from financial fears and difficulties.

[paytonfan86]

[W.T.Carl]

Yes, I guess they are poor. With cell phones, ipods, color tvs and automobiles.

[matthews_world]

[Wangja]

According to tdermott over at KB

[Tiger Beer]

[bixlerscott]

I will speak a little more about entrepreneurship here, becuase it is the basis of how most all opportunities come about, be it a job or self employment, becuase it takes a stable and growing businesses and economy to produce jobs. I had a little free time today with Kindy being off this week so I thought I would share my thoughts in greater detail on Americas' increasing poverty rate.

Without adequate small scale entrepreneurship on the ground, we languish, our young adults and children in particular. It takes positive performing business economics for the teaching market to be strong and for teachers to get paid, be it Korea, America, or anywhere else. I apologize for being a little technical here, but it's the best way to explain why poverty is on the rise in America, particularly for our children and young adults, educated or not.

Asian countries are developing really good economic models that work for the people by the people, not only for the wealthy investor as in America and Europe. Asian governments are facilitating individual citizens and small companies with average to low economic status the start up capital abilitites which is creating jobs and efficient manufacturing of everything for their domestic and export markets. America's super wealthy and its' government do facilitate the domestic US marketing and vending necessary for Asia to export to America, no other countries seem to be helping us in exporting our products to their countries. Of course, the US government needs to work with them on that.

If you notice, America is performing terribly with exporting anything which decreases economic opportunities for her domestic born citizens.
1. One example. Look at the little to no marketing and low website quality of American companies like Wal-Mart looking to succeed Korea, they failed because they apparently did NOT hire a good international business college graduate and IT graduate to handle overseas marketing in an effective manner, but instead chose to keep costs low to the point of cutting their own throats thinking they would produce a larger profit margin. [b]This cost cutting and keeping costs low to maximize shareholder wealth thing in America is majorly flawed. They must invest in young people and their own businesses, but they don't due to greed! Carrefour was another example as Europe is synonimous with America when it comes to economics, business, and finance. [/b] 2. Most of those old men heading the companies and money in America just are not up to speed on todays conditions, becuase they are not in tune while they greedily sit on enormous wealth as if it will give them a rich afterlife when they take it to to the grave with them. How often do you see a U-haul and a bank account tailing a herse car to the cemetary? Never. So they should let go of it and invigorate America with cash flow for education, investment, cultural programs, community development, and new product innovations, so our younger generations have career opportunities for necessary economic livelyhoods.

Unlike in Asian countries like Korea, China, and Japan where their governments work with the people in economic development on a local level, America's government is not working with it's people to create economic opportunities such as small business start up capital programs, it only facilitates big money investors. Asia would not be doing so well if it were not for their governments, along side with the US government in forging international relationships which does start at the small local level (small work room or store) on the ground in places like Korea and China. A small business (small work room on the side of a nameless street) in Asia may be producing a tiny widget component for a large American corporations products.

Americas government does work with foreign immigrants well for small business and job creation, but not with its' own natural born citizenry to rise out of poverty or achieve economic livelyhood. This is why the common working American citizen born in America is usually against the government, lacks patriotism, low morale, lacks sense of national pride, individualism takes center place in modern living, losing cultural identity, increased competiton to the point of being pushed to unethical behaviors, feels opposition with the government, feeling powerless, and alienated in their own country.

Sure we have employment programs for job seekers, but they lack. We have the SBA in the US, but they will deny a college grad or young professional any financial backing or support unless he/she has real estate as collateral and a wealthy co-signer. Loans generally range from $250,000 on up in the millions. The Small Business Administration is an oxy moron, becuase it is only serving the super rich man to get richer, not the average small entrepreneur or merchant to develop a small business though the SBA and it's partner banks will help an establish company with good credit rating become a large company or corporation. The start up barrier is what prevents millions of Americans from both self employment and employment based careers.

However, the SBA offers free business education to anyone seeking it and have whats called, "the retired executive corp", to offer telephone advice. They are such a joke to the younger man calling as they will blow you off unless your old man or been around a few years in an industry and they are not up with the current times as they still think its' 1965 or something like that. The VA's program is just a run-off of the SBA's. You have to have collateral, co-signers, and references to borrow for initial outlay and 1st year operating cash flow capital which prevents millions of domestic American, "want to be", entrepreneurs, thus, retarding job creation.

A big deception telling the America people they are doing well in America is Americas' financial markets are performing at historic highs for the past year straight. This is not a reading of how America itself is doing, but is a derivative reading of the high performance of business operations Asian countries and India partnered with American corporations. Sure, the shares of stock may be corporations based in America, but the financial performance is resulting from operations overseas and then the selling of import products to Americans, not becuase America has a super strong high performing domestic economy. This trend of outsourcing to the other side of the world manufacturing, IT, and many other business processes to ultimately serve the US consumer market is supported by the huge wealth that was acquired from Americas highly performing/producing years in the 20th century which will not last forever as wealth pours out to the world as we buy imports. We just have a huge surplus of wealth in the baby boomer population that is just sitting idle until they die. As they begin to die, many adult kids are inheriting these funds and as they spend it, it is not staying in America. As working Americans purchase mostly import products to use in everyday life, a large percentage of their dollar disappears forever from Americass' wealth pool. Though the wealth prenent is still very huge, it will not last forever. When all these funds are exhausted, things are really going to change with this thing we call the global economy. And that is when things get real interesting. I do not want to try to say what happens next but I suspect it will be very difficult for both America and the world involved in this big scheme we call, "the global economy".

America is useless to the small investor and useless in creating new jobs, but just continues to reduce jobs and cut costs while it is destroying its' very social fabric out of greed. (business and political leaders are to blame) I hate to admit it or knock on her, but it's very true. I am proud of her great achievements during the 20th century, her golden era, but she is indeed on a decline and the future does not look good while the present is souring for her born citizens working to make ends meet.

How well are our schools doing in teaching, promoting values, and a good sense of cultural identity with pride? Probably terrible.

What is left for the children for when they become adults? Probably not much more than total corruption and strife....

Can America start producing products for export markets like it did years ago instead of her innovative ideas (microchips, food items, machinery)just getting pirated on the far side of the world? If we come up with new ideas that improves life in other countries and invest in these ideas at home, who knows, we might be able to create jobs again, and have a positive current account.

These are the issues surrounding the increasing poverty problem becoming more and more apparent in America. And this is not the first time this scenario has played out, if you read up on histories of other nations, you will see America is no different, it all runs in cycles and occurs during different time periods for each nation.

[ddeubel]

This thread should be grafted onto the other one about how horrible the administration treats its military and vets in particular. Shows the divide in America not just between those poor and rich but those with power and those who have no choice.

The military gets the majority of its new recruits these days from the young poor. So it might be sound policy to keep everyone poor. A wrinkled version of military keynesianism. Keep em poor so we have the ability to fight, so we can bankrupt the nation and keep building more military hardware to keep people poor so we have the ability to fight, so we can bankrupt the nation and keep the profits to the few.

The poor are the engine of the economy at present. But they get no fixing and the car is only washed and polished outside. Soon enough, the car from lack of repair will just give out...

DD

[English_Ocean]

Wait a second. Who are these poor? Immigrants? Illegals? Those on welfare and unwilling to work? Those who go to American illegally and pop out five or six kids while daddy works the fields? Those who are mentally unstable and have been abandoned by their families? Those living in nursing homes? Those on fixed incomes? Or those who just turned 18 and recently graduated high school?

Who are these poor?