Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Dave Chance]

[Captain Corea]

As opposed to you? Seriously, are you not seeing how much of a train wreck this is?

[falco]

Was a ridiculous analogy in the first place. Hardly a big fan of the whole World Bank/IMF myself but its hard to deny Korea has been one of their (few) actual success stories.

[Dave Chance]

Yeah Korea and their actual quality of life for the average person is a real success.

Well there are shabbier dressed drone societies no doubt, producing less capital for their masters.

Every country should strive to be as sparkling, and we all know how true that is.

[Kuros]

[Dave Chance]

[Captain Corea]

[comm]

[Dave Chance]

[rollo]

Well Dave, can you give us some figures, numbers to back up your assertions that Bretton Woods is re sponsible for Korea;s ills. Perhaps you can show how income has dropped in South korea since the fifties or perhaps how life expectancy has declined. Maybe something less prosaic, perhaps how may homes have in door plumbing compared to 1955. Give us something besides unbacked allegations and anecdotal stories.

You challenge people to show facts numbers when all you have wrote is that somehow the I.M.F. has caused suicides in Korea.

Please before you challenge us, show us the figures. Yeah please drop the Korea bashing and name calling it's ugly

[Dave Chance]

[Titus]

Korea developed into a first world economy for many reasons, none of which have anything directly to do with Bretton Woods. Most importantly, the ROK used protectionism to build domestic industry while having privileged access to the US consumer market. Protectionism is how every single first world country less Hong Kong and Singapore (off-shore banking economies) became first world and Korea having access to US markets sped the process up.

The Asian Financial Crisis was a consequence of Bretton Woods and not a cure. The Korean labor market has still not recovered. Underemployment and stagnant wages are now far more normal than prior. The liquidity and debt glut experienced by the Asian Tigers was followed by a similar glut in the West. The creation of a glut is built into the system. The busts are built into the system.

I read the whole thread. I see the theme of this conversation is that most of you like globalization and understand Bretton Woods to be a component of globalization and as a result the conclusion is that you like Bretton Woods.

[visitorq]

When one refers to "Bretton Woods" in common parlance, it does not refer to the conference itself in which the IMF, IBRD, and GATT were agreed upon; but rather the international monetary system that was established after WWII that tied global currencies to the gold-backed USD. This system ceased to exist in the 1970's (after the Nixon Shock), so to blame anything on "Bretton Woods" today just sounds silly. Basically, I think Dave Chance could've saved himself a lot of grief here if he'd just worded the thread title differently...

[rollo]

Not a fan of the system , but no one can deny that South Korea did not benefit from globalization and indirectly from Bretton Woods.

Flaws in the system sure,but can not really think of a better system.

Hey Dave since you could not produce a single piece of data to back up your claims. How about this, describe a system that would work better than the current one and how and who would administer it.

I do see your points Titus how flaws with the system produce booms then busts. But I do not think they were deliberately built into the system. Rather I think as economies , demographics, technology change that the I.M.F./GAtt system is not very flexible.

[Titus]

The system demands the nation with the reserve currency run massive current account deficits which creates a global slosh of money that emotionally jumps from fad to fad (nation to nation) destroying nearly everything its path. The obvious answer - short of a total overhaul - is capital controls. Fortunately the global slosh of money owns the financial media, politicians and everything in between so there is no risk of that.

No matter. It is entirely immaterial if the flaw was deliberately built into the system or if the people building the system weren't aware of what they were doing. What is material is that the large banks and hedge funds (meaning the people who own banks and hedge funds) have figured out how to exploit the issue and destroy nations and peoples though financial terrorism. Witness the putrid reality of European states borrowing money for medicine from private banks.

To wit, Greece is running out of medicine because they lack pieces of paper with writing on them. Korea had to engage in austerity because it lacked pieces of paper with writing on them. Goods are left without demand because of a lack of little pieces of paper with writing on them. Explain that to a Martian.