Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bassexpander]

The wife and I are watching MBC tonight. Apparently, due to lack of funds from expensive gas, the number of city buses in Seoul will be cut down by 30%.

Also, on the 15th, a truck driver strike will take place. They are complaining that the gov't isn't doing enough to provide them compensation for high gas prices.

[Bibbitybop]

I have a motorcycle! Woo hoo!!


But that does suck for everyone, from the citizens to the bus drivers.

[justaguy]

I hear we may be getting a tax rebate from the government.

Something about high fuel prices, and it will be in the range of 200k or so.

I believe you have to make less than 36 million to qualify.

[kiwiduncan]

The strike is starting on Friday apparently. Food stores may well be chaotic for the next couple of days.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Hope those are city buses and not inter-city buses. I'm leaving town on Saturday.

[skeeterses]

If the truck driver strike succeeds, it will hopefully force the Korean Government to wake up to the fact that Korea should not be doing large scale construction projects in this day and age. When oil got up to 100 Dollars/Barrel, the Korean Government did not think twice about continueing with the highway construction projects. This madness and obsession with keeping the cars on the road at all costs must come to an end.

While the Media can talk about speculators driving up the price of oil, we must remember that global oil production has remained at 85 million bpd for the past 3 years. Not to mention, all the economic development going on in these OPEC countries, which will drive down oil exports even more. I thought a little bit about how much money "speculators" would need to keep the oil prices indefinately high. At $100/barrel, they would need to pump in several billion dollars Per Day. At that rate, if Bill Gates and all the Waltons poured their wealth into keeping oil prices artificially high, they would be standing in a soup line in a matter of weeks. So who exactly has so many dollars to spend on oil? 2 countries that are sitting on trillion Dollar Forex reserves that don't happen to be too far from Korea.

[kiwiduncan]

Agreed, The last thing Korea needs to be doing is building more roads. I had an idea walking home tonight - if the traffic volume drops a lot in the future, why not convert a couple of lanes of the Seoul-Busan motorway into a railway track?

[ulsanchris]

rather than cash rebates the government can cut fuel tax. that would solve the problem overnight.

[pkang0202]

They need to keep the subways running later.

They need to run more subway cars. It is ridiculous to wait 10 minutes for a subway during the evening rush.

[kiwiduncan]

I've just red that three major refineries have been blockaded by the strikers. That could mean people are going to have to start queuing for petrol.

Has anyone been affected by the strike in any way? Have you noticed more empty shelves in the shops?

[Cheonmunka]

Well then, 30% less traffic on the streets will give me and my Grandeur more or less free run.

[skeeterses]

To see how much people are attached to their cars, one only has to read about the fuel strikes in Europe.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23494001-details/Riot+police+go+in+to+break+up+Spanish+truckers'+fuel+protests+as+fury+over+spiralling+costs+spreads+around+the+world/article.do
Rather than adjust to the reality that oil is a finite resource, and the fact that we cannot keep the trucks and cars on the road forever, some of the people in Europe have decided to be hooligans about it.

[Otherside]

With fuel prices rocketing, wouldn't this be the time to increase the number of buses? Why not encourage people to use buses instead of their own cars?

Pkang, I hear you...especially on line one - its madness...

[pkang0202]

I think the city takes a big loss on the buses. Increasing them would be a money pit, regardless of the increase in the number of passengers.

[Otherside]

Perhaps. But it would reduce congestion (more buses, less cars) and encourage commuters to use buses over their private vehicles which would pass heavy savings on to the commuter.

While, I'm sure those who know more about this than I made the decision, I just feel that REDUCING the number of buses seems like a step in the wrong direction.