Korean Job Discussion Forums

[spamghod]

In the little town I live in, tuna has gone from W1000/can to W1600 in the last 6 months or so. I realize Korea is getting hit by inflation, just like everyone else, but that's nuts! Is there some kind of tuna shortage or something? What's up with that?!?

[itaewonguy]

[spamghod]

[BS.Dos.]

Could be because the Japanese and the Spanish have caught and eaten them all.

[blurgalurgalurga]

It's true...tuna's expensive now because we have eaten too many.

I have NO SYMPATHY for these stupid fish. They need to evolve or be eliminated. They either grow big honking net-cutting scissor flippers, or maybe develop the ability to shoot missiles or something, or they die out.

[bassexpander]

The price of tuna has been raised to offset the added costs of hagwons hiring teachers for later this year. The government does not want foreign teachers to get raises, thus causing more money to be sent abroad. Instead, Tuna prices have been raised to compensate.

[visitorq]

[ultra]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/the-great-tuna-race/

The great tuna race
This is apropos of nothing much, but in the course of textbook-related research I ran across a curious story. The United States has a �tariff-rate quota� (TRQ) on canned tuna: a certain amount is admitted under a low tariff rate, then a much higher rate is levied thereafter. Normally, the right to import stuff under the low rate is controlled by a set of licenses. But in the case of tuna, it�s first-com-first-served. And the result is the great tuna race:
The TRQ reportedly imposes significant costs on importers in the form of increased warehousing needs and uncertainty regarding the extent and timing of reduced tariff-rate benefits. Because the TRQ is usually filled quickly and the tariff gap is 6.5 percent, importers attempt to qualify for the largest share of the TRQ as possible by stockpiling large quantities of canned tuna in Customs-bonded warehouses in late December and releasing the warehoused product as soon as the calendar year begins.

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

Maybe it's some clandestine way to assist the fishermen hit by the Taean oil spill.

Nah.

[mindmetoo]

Yeah I've noticed a big can of tuna used to run about 900 but now the cheapest is 1300.

[mindmetoo]

One thing I noticed you have to be careful about, if you've been here 2 or 3 years, is pricing things based on your memory of what they used to cost back at home. Prices have gone up on lots of food products back at home too. Milk, for example, always struck me as price here but then I noticed last time I was back in Canada it was like $2.50 for a 4l jug like I remember it.

[[email protected]]

Man, I hate the stuff.
Never touch tuna again!

[jajdude]

Do you eat so many cans of tuna that you're really concerned? Ten cans a month would be a lot. Now you have to spend 6000 won more per month if you eat that much. 6000 won, the cost of a drink in a bar at times.

[Kwangjuchicken]

It is because more people have started to eat tuna because they don't want to see the chickens, pigs, and cows cry. So, the Tuna people have raised the price knowing people are willing to pay more for tuna in order to stop the chickens, pigs, and cows from crying.

[spamghod]