Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2008/05/123_23676.html

[Imrahil]

All Koreans know this. My students have told me that the majority of Koreans look at their big conglomerates being only Korean owned as a source of national pride. Most adults I have talked to here know its a problem, but feel conflicted with their sense of national pride.

[ChopChaeJoe]

I'm no economist, but I studied a bit of economics; enough to wonder if this makes my investment dollars more valuable because of scarcity of foreign investment or less valuable since there is less demand to invest in korean stocks.

[Temporary]

I actually have an economics degree.. This trend is not good. Self sufficiency is a stupid notion, look at the DPRK.

With foreign investment falling the won is going to continue to decline. Whats the most worry some is that now SK enjoys flooding foreign market with their goods with little or NO tarifs on their goods While SK itself imposes heavy duty tarifs on imports.

If any country smartens up and creates the same hurdles that SK has created against SK it will pretty well much collapse the Korean economy overnight.

IE. Canada is having FTA talks with SK now and RIM is pretty pissed that blackberries can't be sold here while Samsung and LG are allowed to flood Canadian market with their handsets. What would happen if all of the sudden Canada would impose 75% tarif on all the handsets from Samsung and LG?

Canada is peanuts at the moment. (Economic partner with SK) Now lets take the same situation and compare it to the Automobile industry and USA. What would happen if all of the sudden USA imposed a 40%-75% tarriff on all KIA's, Hyundai etc.. Since the Automobile manufacturing is such a large portion of SK economy what do you think would happen?

You can even see the trends with electronics. Its no secret SK is really big source for flat panels, they use to be 60% of the worlds supply but now they are at 50% and declining every year.

The only reason why they can do what they do is because they exploit SK consumers by having imports levied with high tariffs.

Lets just hope USA/Canada/EU doesn't smarten up to SK economic dumping practices because I think we would have a repeat of IMF crissis.

If you want some examples of dumping look at NAFTA and grain and softlumber...

Once I leave this country I truly hope USA slaps SK imports with a nice 40% tariff.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

With more and more Koreans travelling and studying abroad I just wonder how much their purchasing power will have to decrease before they see it as a problem. Obviously in the short term a lower domestic currency makes for easier sale of exports, but over the long-term, it makes it much more difficult to create competitive industry and infrastructure; this is especially important with ever-increasing fuel costs.

Also, with the won obviously pegged to a certain extent to the US dollar, what will happen if the US dollar recovers and the won just can't keep up?

[Pete82]

...

[bassexpander]

Well, I'll tell you this...

I've voted Republican in every election (with the exception of Ross Perot, which was merely to send a message once).

Not anymore.

The one redeeming quality I found in Hillary which would have almost made me vote for her (I'll probably vote Obama) is that she is interested in more balanced trade with China.

I know China has been watching this election quite a bit, and I do think that Korea had better be VERY concerned about the message it's sending the US right now as far as this meat thing is going. I have a feeling that Obama isn't much different than Hillary, and it's looking like he'd be a shoe-in for the presidency in a year or so.

I'm voting Democrat this time around because I'm damn sick of the US not protecting its own.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

So what exactly is the Republican logic for allowing Asian countries to flood their market with cheap consumer goods while those same countries impose stiff tarrifs on American exports?

[spliff]

Because any portion of a market share is preferable to none.

[rsmm0224]

yeah, I've never been in favor of FREE trade agreements. What would work better would be RECIPROCAL trade agreements. You open your doors, we'll open ours. But if you hit us with tariffs, expect the same in return.

Ironically enough they used it as a bargaining tactic in a Tom Clancy novel in the Jack Ryan series. haha

[ChopChaeJoe]

[Temporary]