Thursday, December 31, 2015

The Not So Final and Irreversible Resolution

This is a topic that I have hesitated to write about. Although the Japanese occupation of Korea ended seventy years ago, there are still survivors living to this day who have experienced horrors that many of us could not even begin to imagine. For them, the pain is still real and nothing -- no formal apologies or legal responsibility or monetary compensation -- could ever undo what happened to them.

Like many people, I thought that as long as President Park Geun-hye and Prime Minister Abe Shinzo were heads of their respective states, because of their respective family histories, Korea-Japan relations were doomed to be stalled. So when I heard the news that both the Korean and Japanese governments have "finally and irreversibly" resolved a dispute over comfort women, I was shocked.

It has been such a constant presence that I never thought it would ever end. I was quite elated actually. It meant that a painful chapter in both countries' past has finally been closed and both countries would be able to move on to tackle present-day and future issues that are of mutual concern.

However, that old adage about things being too good to be true reared its ugly head.

For one thing, it turned out that the South Korean government had not bothered to include the former comfort women in the negotiations regarding the deal. Quite unsurprisingly, they did not take very kindly to that.


Another point of contention regarding the deal that both governments agreed to is that although the Japanese government has agreed to pay one billion yen (US$8.3 million) to the 46 surviving former comfort women, the Japanese government has refused to call that money "official compensation" because doing so would mean that the Japanese government would accept formal legal responsibility.

I suppose Abe does have to keep his supporters satisfied.

For the comfort women, this was a spit in the eye. They are right to be angry. I don't think anything can give them actual closure, but I think they've earned the right to stay angry.

But for everyone else... for the anti-Japanese crowd, it was an assurance that their reason for existing would not be taken out from underneath them. For the newly named (again) Together Democratic Party, it was yet another thing they could politicize in their desperate attempt to stay relevant. Never mind that Korea-Japan relations will remain at a gridlock. As long as their victims-r-us industrial complex has something to say and allows them to remain in the spotlight, who cares that economic and political cooperation between the two countries never get to see the light of day and both countries' relations get uglier and meaner?

However, the Park administration's tone deafness and the victims-r-us industrial complex are not the only reasons this deal is so bad.

For one thing, just as the news was being broadcast all over the world, Prime Minister Abe, being the paragon of class that he is, said:


“I mentioned it during my phone conversations (with Park on Monday). It was all over yesterday. No more apologies. This time Korea's foreign minister stated the deal is irreversible before TV cameras, which was then valued by the U.S. Now that things have come to this pass, if Korea breaks its promise, it is over as a member of the international community.”

 I don't know if I am being sensitive but that sounded like he was saying:


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On top of that, the Japanese government announced that the one-billion-yen fund to help the former comfort women would only be set up and distributed after the Comfort Women statue that faces the Japanese embassy in Seoul is removed.

And that makes it clear what the money is intended for. It is not intended to actually help the surviving comfort women; that's merely incidental. Rather it is really intended to erase history.

I have long regretted the sour turn in Korea-Japan relations and especially considering North Korea's bellicosity, China's expanding military, and the immense economic benefits that both countries can share with one another, I desperately wanted this deal to be the "final and irreversible" deal that was initially announced.

As bitter as it makes me feel to see this grotesque show continue to play into what appears to be forever, I say that Abe should keep his money and, at least until both Park Geun-hye and Abe Shinzo have left their respective posts, the statue stays.

Let the statue stay and remind everyone, not just the Japanese but also the Korean government and the perennially anguished crowd that neither integrity nor honor can be bought so easily.


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Well, in about twenty minutes, it will be 2016. Happy New Year, everyone. May 2016 be better than 2015 was.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Leave the Beer Alone!

In December 2014, the Seoul High Court ruled that forcing large retail stores to close two Sundays every month was illegal because (1) the law limited consumers' right to choose where to shop and that (2) there was no evidence to suggest that the law actually helped small retailers or traditional markets.

For a while, I was hopeful that there might have been some sense in Korean courts. However, the Supreme Court made sure that common sense and critical thinking stayed dead and buried when they overruled the Seoul High Court and sided with local municipalities.

According to the Korea Times, one of the justices said,

"A regulation for the public good is not only important but also necessary. However, it can hardly be seen as depriving consumers of their right to choose as large retailers do not need protection."

Don't ask me how that makes any sense.

Of course, this is not the only instance of the government meddling in the economy that has screwed over consumers.

The Mobile Device Distribution Improvement Act has shackled all telecom companies to offer the same discounts to their customers, thus forcing people to pay more for their smartphones.

The Book Discount Law prevents retail bookstores from selling books at a discount any higher than 15%.

And a year ago, the Korean government was mulling the International Direct Purchase Law; a proposed law, which would have regulated how much, how, and what individual consumers would have been able to purchase from international websites such as Amazon or eBay.

But now someone has really messed up. Now there are rumors that the government plans to regulate discounts of imported beer.

Let's be frank. Shutting down large retail stores two Sundays out of a month is no big deal. People can plan ahead or just shop online. Making smartphones more expensive pissed off some people, but thankfully smartphones are becoming cheaper anyway. As for books, who reads books? And regulating online foreign purchases sound like it would be easy to skirt around.

But mess with beer? Do they not know what country they're governing? There has been debate about the accuracy of the claim that Koreans drink more than anyone else in the world. but it's without doubt that Koreans are heavy drinkers.

So dear Korean government, you done goofed. If you think the protests have been violent so far, wait until every single pissed off salaryman joins the fray. There will be hell to pay!

So if you know what's good for you, for God's sake, leave the beer alone!

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Monday, October 12, 2015

Random Thoughts: The Martian and Forced Filial Piety

Thoughts about The Martian

Yesterday, I went to the movies to watch Ridley Scott's The Martian. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and I had wanted to write a review of the movie but Kevin Kim, from Big Hominid, already wrote a great review for the movie, which you ought to read for yourself here.

As Kevin already covered more than I would have, seeing how I have never read the book the movie was based on, I only have one additional thing to add.

This movie is a must-see for younger Koreans, especially considering how popular the notion of “Hell Joseon” has become among many of them.

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This article from Korea Expose describes those who subscribe to the notion of Hell Joseon as those who “find no hope for South Korea; they seek only to abandon and escape the system altogether... embodies despair and hopelessness of the most extreme variety, the idea that the South Korean state cannot be redeemed through effort.”

In other words, Hell Joseon is just another incarnation of nihilism, except that it has been served with Korean lipstick. Regardless of the guise it has been portrayed, nihilism is the very antithesis of the movie's core message, which was delivered by Matt Damon's character toward the end of the movie:

You have to solve one problem and then solve the next problem, and then solve the next problem, and if you solve enough problems, you get to go home.”

This is a lesson that many people, not just Koreans, often seem to forget.

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Thoughts about Forced Filial Piety

It has been revealed that from the beginning of this year to September, the National Health Insurance Service has forced 39 people to pay for their parents' national health insurance premiums.

To be more specific, these 39 people had to pay for their biological parents' national health insurance premiums. Yes, these 39 people had been given up by their biological parents and had been adopted by other families.

This discovery was made despite the NHIS's claim that no such case existed.

I understand why someone would want to force someone's offspring to pay for their parents' medical bills if the parents themselves are unable. Firstly, the government, which knows that raising taxes is not popular, would rather that old people's medical bills be paid for by their children. Secondly, such enforced filial piety laws are probably easier to pass in Korea because of the lingering effects of (near pathological) Confucian values. And finally, though I seriously doubt it would lead to the law's intended results, the rationale behind such laws is to create “ideal” family relations.

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However, all of those factors might have some merit if we were discussing people who were raised by their biological parents. These 39 people were not raised by their biological parents and I assume that their legal ties with their biological parents ended as soon as they were adopted by other families.

It is my professional opinion that now is the time to give the NHIS the finger.

That being said, the government has long been wrestling with how to combat Korea's aging society, part of which is exacerbated by low birth rates. If people can have children, legally give them up, and still be ensured that their children will some day have to pay for their medical bills, that could be a novel way to turn Korea's birth rates around!

But I hope that you'll forgive me for not leaping for joy.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Sanders vs. Trump - Who Would Win?

Considering my last post about Bernie Sanders, it is no secret that I have nothing but contempt for the man and his ideas.

But what about Donald Trump? Personally, I despise Trump. When it comes to immigration, his proposals are cruel, lacking in evidence, prohibitively expensive, and would hurt the American economy. He has been consistently wrong about China, wrong about Korea, and he is stupendously wrong about trade. The man is a sexist, a racist, a bully, a cry baby, a blowhard, an Internet troll, and an idiot who doesn't know what the thirteen stripes on the American flag represent.

And he is currently the candidate to beat in the Republican primaries. It speaks volumes about the Republican base.

I considered his candidacy in 2012 to be a joke and I maintain the same opinion this time around. He will NOT be the Republican nominee. Last time, I correctly predicted that Mitt Romney was going to win the nomination and lose the election to President Obama. This year, I am not quite sure who would win the Republican nomination (I am hoping for a Marco Rubio/Carly Fiorina ticket).

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Neither Sanders nor Trump will win

So why do I think that Trump will not be the Republican nominee?

Firstly, it's a mathematical question. Considering the large number of Republican candidates who are vying to become their party's nominee, one does not require a significant portion of the voters' support to become the front runner. As the campaign drags on (there's still more than a year to go!), the number of candidates will inevitably whittle down. As the voters are left with fewer choices, their support for different candidates will merge and coalesce to form larger blocs.

I'm also relieved by the fact that, like track races, whoever starts out as the front runner does not always end up being the front runner – they have more to lose than to gain.

Secondly, as I said already, it's still early in the primaries season and this is when the most partisan supporters come out to play. When less excitable voters begin to pay attention to the election process, and the primaries are no longer dominated by the extreme elements of party politics, the candidates will inevitably become more moderate as they try to move to the middle. This is known as the median voter theorem. When this happens, Trump's ability to use bombast and rhetoric will no longer be as effective as they are now.

It is for those same reasons that I can say with near certainty that Bernie Sanders will not be the Democratic nominee either. Sanders will (and already has) forced Hillary Clinton to move to the left and Trump has forced some Republican candidates (notably Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Scott Walker) to become as stupid as he is. However, that will be the end of their role in this race.

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What if I'm wrong?

I doubt that I am, but I am not infallible. So, what if I'm wrong? What if things don't work out the way I think they will and both Sanders and Trump go all the way? What happens then?

Sanders has said repeatedly that he would not run as an independent and would instead support the Democratic nominee if he does not win. However, he does seem to be intent on becoming the nominee as he has just warned that the Democrats would not win the White House without him in 2016.

For his part, Trump has said that he would run as an independent if he did not win the nomination AND he has also said that he would not do so.

If Sanders is the Democratic nominee and Trump is not the Republican nominee, despite the crowds that Sanders is getting at his campaign rallies (which are not all that different from the crowds that Ralph Nader and Ron Paul were able to boast), it will guarantee a Republican victory. On the other hand, if Trump is the Republican nominee and the Sanders is not the Democratic nominee, that would ensure a Democratic victory.

So what would happen if they both become their respective parties' nominees?

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Demagogues of Different Stripes

Both Sanders and Trump are demagogues, but of different stripes. Sanders' demagoguery has almost always been tied to progressive economics (inequality, tax the rich, expand Medicare and Medicaid, support labor unions, etc.). For all intents and purposes, Sanders is an ideological demagogue. As such, there is very little support (if any) for Sanders among conservative voters.

Trump's views, however, are unprincipled and opportunist. Although he certainly commands more support from conservative voters, some of his views would gain him support from progressives. In other words, Trump is not so much an ideological demagogue, but rather a personality-driven demagogue.

For example, when you listen to Sanders, he will say things like how he would support raising taxes on top income earners up to about 90 per cent. His meaning is clear and concise. He has distinctly said what he hopes to do. As much as that pleases policy wonks, however, politically, it's not as savvy as what Trump has been doing.

Instead of going into details, Trump relies on rhetoric for mass hypnosis. His usual go-to battle cry is “take our country back” or “make America great again.” The fact of the matter is that if you leave out the details, it allows the listeners to fill in the blanks with their own imagination.

It's the same reason President Obama's mantra of “hope and change” was so effective in 2008.

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And as much as I despise Trump, credit should be given where it is due. He is a masterful salesman. One thing that you learn if you ever get a job in sales is to never talk after a customer says he or she wants to buy something. If you keep talking, for whatever reason, the buyer might change his or her mind. The rule is to persuade, stop talking, and move on to the next customer. And that's what Trump does with his battle cries.

When Trump says “take our country back,” who is he saying that Americans should take their country back from? Is it the immigrants who are not stealing Americans' jobs? Is it China despite the symbiotic relationship between Beijing and Washington? Is it the PC crowd that is supposedly destroying free speech? Or is it the Koch Brothers who are not exactly on friendly terms with Trump?

Trump never gives the answer himself. And it's brilliant. Why would he when it's so much more effective to not do so and let everyone else do it for him?

Then there's the phrase “make America great again.” Great again. What does that imply? Firstly, it implies that America is not great anymore. That is a powerful emotional tool that Trump is playing with. It instills a sense of loss in people. I imagine that it must have been the way the British felt when they started to liberate their long-held colonies. We know that this is a powerful tool because psychologists and economists have proven long ago that people are more affected by the prospect of losing something than the prospect of gaining something. But unlike the British who had no choice but to watch their once-great empire collapse, Trump dangles the word “again” like an angler fish lures its prey with a dull light in the abyss. Despite the sense of loss, the word “again” gives people a sense of hope.

Give people a faceless enemy to fear, a sense of loss to cry about, and then let them scratch their itch. It's manipulative and it's brilliant.

Mr. Burns would approve
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If the election does end up being a choice between Sanders and Trump, my guess is that, at least for the next four years, we are all going to have to get used to the idea of the White House getting plated in gold.

The one thing that gives me comfort, however, is that neither man will win their respective parties' nominations.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Bernie Sanders: Yet Another Demagogue

I am currently writing my next post for my “What Would Homo Economicus Do?” series but for personal reasons, I have not been able to spend a lot of time writing.

However, just today, a friend posted on his Facebook page an article from Occupy Democrats about a list that Bernie Sanders made. It was a list of corporations that didn't pay income taxes.

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The first thing that I thought when reading the article was that Occupy Democrats really should learn to date their articles. As Sanders' list was a response to an op-ed piece that was signed by 80 Wall Street CEOs that advocated for austerity spending in the United States, I naturally thought that this was a recent article. I searched all of the Wall Street Journal to find the op-ed piece but couldn't find it.

It was only later when I found the letter in the Journal's archives as the op-ed was published in the Wall Street Journal in 2012, making Sanders' list about three years old too.

The article was titled Bernie Sanders Calls Out 18 Corrupt CEOs For Stealing Trillions, Outsourcing Jobs, and Evading Taxes.

As much as I disagree with Sanders about almost everything, to his credit, he himself did not use the word “steal” when describing the bailouts that corporations were given by the government. Though there were corporations that were screaming to be bailed out, there were also those that didn't want the bailout money but were told to take it anyway

By definition, that cannot be “stealing” and it once again goes to show the intellectual bankruptcy of headlines.

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However, there were many other things in the article that I thought was nonsensical, misleading, and pure demagoguery. The following is my list of what I found wrong here.


1) “The Wall Street leaders whose recklessness and illegal behavior caused this terrible recession...”

Was the sub-prime mortgage crisis a result of recklessness? Without a doubt. But was it illegal? Hardly.


2) “Before telling us why we should cut Social Security, Medicare and other vitally important programs, these CEOs might want to take a hard look at their responsibility for causing the deficit and this terrible recession.”

The bailout of 2008 was approximately US$700 billion and was given out to a total of 951 recipients. Of those 951 recipients, 123 companies have so far failed to repay the government and resulted in a loss to taxpayers. However, even after including the losses incurred from those 123 companies, taxpayers have made a net profit from the bailout in total. Thus far, taxpayers have profited by US$57.7 billion.

On the other hand, how much does Social Security and Medicare cost? It depends on whom you ask. If you ask the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, the War on Poverty has cost US$19 trillion over the past 50 years.

However, the Devil is always in the details. For instance, if you ask Mike Konczal, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank, the federal government spends US$212 billion per year on “what we could reasonably call “welfare.””

Even if we take the Roosevelt Institute's much lower price estimate, whereas the bailout of 2008 was a one-time payment of US$700 billion, which resulted in a US$57.7 billion profit for taxpayers, since 2008, the US government has spent a total of US$1.484 trillion on welfare.

The bailout was hugely problematic for many reasons, and it is something that everyone should have opposed from the beginning. But at the very least, it generated a profit for taxpayers. What has spending on welfare gotten people? Has it lifted people out of poverty? No, it hasn't. But wasn't that the goal of welfare?

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3) “Our Wall Street friends might also want to show some courage of their own by suggesting that the wealthiest people in this country, like them, start paying their fair share of taxes.”

“Fair” is a tricky word. It can mean different things to different people. That's why Sanders and others like him keep using that word. But let's look at the numbers, shall we?

According to the Pew Research Center, those with adjusted gross incomes of more than US$250,000 paid nearly half of all individual income taxes. In contrast, people whose incomes were less than $50,000 paid just 6.2% of total taxes.

Whether paying nearly half of the income tax is fair or not is open to debate. But people should not pretend or insinuate or otherwise that the less well-off are somehow paying more than the well-off.


4) “...at least a dozen of the companies avoided paying any federal income taxes in recent years, and even received more than $6.4 billion in tax refunds from the IRS since 2008.”

We should get the terminology right. The federal income taxes that corporations pay are called corporate taxes. And it's true that many corporations do not pay corporate taxes. That is because there are two ways to tax a corporation.

The first way is to consider the organisation as a single entity and tax it accordingly, thus taxing any surpluses or profits that the corporation makes at the organizational level. A corporation that chooses to pay its taxes this way is called a C Corporation.

The second way is to tax the individuals who get money from the corporation. A corporation that chooses to pay its taxes this way is called an S Corporation.

This is the Wikipedia entry for the difference between C and S Corporations:

An S corporation, for United States federal income tax purposes, is a corporation that makes a valid election to be taxed under Sub-chapter S of Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code.
In general, S corporations do not pay any federal income taxes. Instead, the corporation’s income or losses are divided among and passed through to its shareholders. The shareholders must then report the income or loss on their own individual income tax returns. This concept is called single taxation; if the corporation is taxed as a C corporation, it will face double taxation, meaning both the corporation’s profits, and the shareholders’ dividends, will be taxed.

So, it is true that many corporations do not pay the federal corporate income tax. But that is because individual shareholders elect to pay the personal income tax on profits, not the corporate one.

Whether or not dividing the tax schemes this way is equitable or efficient is a different topic. However, using the fact that many corporations do not pay organizational corporate taxes to imply that that is some kind of evidence of widespread tax dodging is tantamount to lying.

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5) “They might work to end the outrageous corporate loopholes...”

The phrase “close the loopholes” is the refuge of the fool. It is easy to say “close the loopholes” and end the debate feeling like a self-righteous 19-year-old Political Science major who has discovered the Holy Grail that would cure all of society's ills. But there is a reason tax loopholes exist.

One of the reasons that corporate taxes are pernicious is that they encourage businesses to use debt finance, rather than equity finance even though debt finance makes companies riskier. That is because payments on debt are tax deductible, and dividends are not. This gives many businesses strong incentive to use debt rather than equity finance.

So why not end the deductibles on corporate debt payments? That is because if that “loophole” was closed, that would put illiquid industrial firms with heavy capital costs at a MASSIVE disadvantage.

If you think Detroit is suffering now, wait and see what would happen if Sanders and his supporters get what they want and all these pesky loopholes get closed. I'll be here with a bucket of popcorn while the Social Justice Warrior types once again claim that this hypothetical future is further evidence that The Man hates black people.

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6) “Many of the companies also have outsourced hundreds of thousands of American jobs to China and other low wage countries, forcing their workers to receive unemployment insurance and other federal benefits. In other words, these are some of the same people who have significantly caused the deficit to explode over the last four years.”

Firstly, outsourcing jobs is important to ensure that the prices of goods and services remain cheap and that businesses can remain competitive.

If Sanders could get things done his way, the vast majority of American factory workers would still have union-wage jobs because they would still be producing television sets in America. That sounds good except that those television sets would be much more expensive than television sets from, say, Korea or Thailand. American factory workers might earn a bit of coin under Sanders' economic plan, but everyone else not working in factories would see that their money buys them fewer goods and services.

There are two types of Fortress America. The first one is the type proposed by conservatives and neo-cons. A powerful American military that can eliminate threats anywhere in the world and a country that would close its borders to brown-skinned and yellow-skinned people who might want to commit acts of terrorism against Americans. Except that the US' military is already practically uncontested but it still has a difficult time trying to completely defeat illiterate goat-lovers.

The second one is the type proposed by progressives. A rich American workforce that will allow people to live as comfortably(?) as they did under the New Deal and a country that would close its borders to trade with brown-skinned and yellow-skinned people who might be able to sell things more cheaply.

Except that a choice has to be made – pursue inefficient economic policies that lead to meteoric rising prices and economic stagnation OR pursue comparative advantages and creative destruction that lead to cheaper goods and services for as many people as possible and economic productivity, which unfortunately also comes with job insecurity.

You must choose one or the other. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.

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7) “These are the names of TRAITORS who have forsaken their people and nation to worship at the altar of greed:”

And THIS is what it comes down to, isn't it? Occupy Democrats, the Occupy Movement in general, Sanders, his supporters, etc. do not understand economics. And even though information is free and open to all, they do not want it. They do not want the facts. After all, facts are so TL;DR.

What they want are enemies to hate and traitors to blame. Anyone to blame for all their problems aside from themselves.

Is Sanders an idiot? I think that it is easy to claim that politicians are idiots. But being able to get voted into office and maintaining an incumbency rate in the high nineties despite dismal popularity rates is not something that any fool can do. So, I think that merely saying that politicians are idiots is intellectually lazy and counterproductive.

But the likes of Occupy Democrats who chant “Go, Bernie, Go!” without actually looking into the facts? They are not nearly as smart as they like to think they are.

If you have read this whole thing and you also happen to support Sanders, believe me when I say that I am not telling you to support Marco Rubio or Rand Paul. God knows that they are lying snakes in the grass, too. I don't expect to change your opinions or your core beliefs.

But, God, I dearly hope that I have given you cause to try to see for yourselves what you are advocating.

I have here in my hand a list...
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Friday, July 3, 2015

The Korean Military's Psychological Education

Last night, I read an article written on NK News. Typically, NK News is a publication that I have found to be informative and respectable. However, as I read this column about the Korean Army's jeongshin kyoyuk, the Korean military's psychological education that it administers to all members of the Armed Forces on a weekly basis, for the first time, I could not help but roll my eyes.

The following are my rebuttals to the points that were made in the column.


1. This writer over-estimates the effectiveness of jeongshin kyoyuk (the South Korean military's "psychological education.") In my time in the ROK Army, I learned that they are mostly PowerPoint slides that do nothing more than bore the listeners to tears.


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2. That being said, it is not a waste of time. Considering the fact that about half of South Koreans in their 20s seem to think that the Korean War began when the South invaded the North, the Korean military, despite its hamfistedness, is clumsily trying to correct this horrible wrong. Jeongshin kyoyuk can be streamlined and modernized, but it is not a waste of time.

3. "Since weekly sessions still regularly reference President Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee, whose administrations ended more than 50 and 30 years ago, respectively, education is outdated."

As someone who has served in the South Korean Army, I can say with absolute certainty that this was a load of bullshit. I only heard President Syngman Rhee mentioned once when the lecture was about the initial partition of the Korean peninsula and President Park Chung-hee was never even mentioned.

4. The military was not, is not, and will never be a warm and fuzzy organization that just wants the whole wide world to sing Kumbaya. The military's duty is to defend the country from its enemies when all other means fail. And that means it has to train to look at the North Koreans as the enemy and kill them if it is necessary.


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5. The North Koreans ARE the enemy. There are a lot of names of young boys etched on the War Memorial, some more recent than others, who were killed by North Koreans.

6. The North Korean system IS inferior. South Korea might not be perfect but unlike what happened in North Korea, millions of South Koreans did not die of starvation.

7. There are many reasons that North Korean defectors face many challenges in adapting to life in South Korea. Jeongshin kyoyuk is not one of them. The military states emphatically that North Korea is the enemy, but it has nothing but sympathy for North Korean defectors who are able to make it across.

8. Reunification policies come and go as politicians come and go. The Sunshine Policy was a disaster and this so-called Reunification Bonanza was nothing more than political posturing that was full of unsubstantiated irrational exuberance. It will have an even shorter footnote than the Sunshine Policy.

In the meantime, the North Koreans have thousands of artillery pieces aimed at Seoul (see here and here), various WMDs, and a huge special forces unit that has been trained to kill as many South Koreans as indiscriminately as possible.

So excuse me if I roll my eyes at this nonsensical sentimentalism in NK News and continue to view the North Koreans as a mortal threat to my country.

Monday, June 29, 2015

Samsung's Increased Maternity Leave

According to this article from The Korea Times, it appears that Samsung is unilaterally planning to allow its female workforce to take up to two years' of paid maternity leave.

The law, on the other hand, requires that businesses provide up to only one year.

It is not entirely clear why Samsung decided to be so generous suddenly. The article does state that it could lead to more loyalty from Samsung's employees and that other businesses from around the world calculated that they save quite a bit of money by doing this. However, considering how Korea is also referred to as the Republic of Samsung, employee loyalty might not be something that Samsung needs to be overly worried about.

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Regardless of the reasons, Samsung seems to have made this seemingly generous decision without being compelled to do so.

What is interesting, however, is the bit in the article that says:

As of last year, Samsung Electronics had 319,208 full-time employees globally, with South Korea taking up 31.1 percent. Entry-level female employees accounted for 48.3 percent, followed by senior working moms at 12.4 percent, the report said.

"The return rate after maternity leave was 91 percent last year after 92 percent in 2013," another company official said. "Therefore, we are not worried about a vacuum in our workforce as a result of this new policy and those who take a longer leave shouldn't be deterred by job insecurity."

Statistics can be odd sometimes. Samsung's spokespeople can probably say, without being disingenuous at all, that the company's return rate after leave is 91 percent, but it does not change the fact that entry-level female employees make up 48.3 percent of its workforce but that working mothers make up only 12.4 percent.

That is quite a significant difference. Is it possible that many of the entry-level female employees, who are mostly young and unmarried, tend to quit their jobs (or get fired) after they marry and/or get pregnant, rather than go on maternity leave; thereby guaranteeing that the company's return rate after maternity leave remains so high? Or is it possible that Samsung just does not employ pregnant women that much from the get-go?

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The article, as per The Korea Times' usual standard of journalistic excellence, does not explain. So one can't help but use one's own imagination. However, I doubt that one needs that much imagination (see here and here).

So, will Samsung's sudden generosity be beneficial for women? Personally, I don't think it will be helpful for women at all. And that is because I think these added benefits will simply compel a significant number of Samsung's Human Resources managers to accept fewer female job applicants from the get-go.

Case in point, according to this article from The New York Times, when the Spanish government passed a law guaranteeing greater maternity benefits, it was revealed that:

Over the next decade, companies were 6 percent less likely to hire women of childbearing age compared with men, 37 percent less likely to promote them and 45 percent more likely to dismiss them, according to a study led by Daniel Fernández-Kranz, an economist at IE Business School in Madrid. The probability of women of childbearing age not being employed climbed 20 percent. Another result: Women were more likely to be in less stable, short-term contract jobs, which are not required to provide such benefits.

Of course, in Samsung's case, upper management chose to increase the company's maternity benefits as opposed to getting their arms twisted by the Korean government. So, this might be comparing apples and oranges. However, it should be noted that Samsung is a very big multinational corporation; and like any large organization chock full of people, there is bound to be competing interests. And it should come as no surprise that some of those interests might not always be on the same page as that of corporate headquarters.

What is true, however, is that for the past few years, more women in their 20s have been employed than people from other demographic groups, especially compared to men in the same age group. However, it is also true that fewer women in their 30s and 40s are employed compared to younger women.

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The problems that women face are much more deep-seated in Korea's corporate culture, as well as Korea's familial culture. Therefore, without first making a serious effort to challenge accepted norms and mores, I think that increasing maternity benefits will only exacerbate matters further, rather than alleviate them.