From: btlee@emx.cc.utexas.edu (Mr. Byungtae Lee)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean
Subject: Re:Korean Economy
Date: 30 Dec 92 04:51:58 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas

From: shlee@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Seunghun Lee)
In article <85873@ut-emx.uucp> btlee@emx.cc.utexas.edu (Mr. Byungtae Lee) writes:
>:supercomputer in their own.
>:whereas i see many computers in KAIST are SUN computers from US.
>:hey, KAIST folks, could you make supercomputer for yourselves?
>
>       The fact that someone can technically make something 
>       does not necessarily mean that he/she can comercially make that.
>       You do not take account of different economic systems.

that has been our economic policy.
if it is not profitable NOW, don't bother developing new tech
but just buy foreign country's tech paying high price.
still we can compete in world market with cheap labor force.
it worked ok up to now without china and south asian country's developement.

         It is not economic policy. It is the fact of capitalism.
         No matter your support, Korean Economic development policy has been
         one of rare success.  
         competition has been always there. How much do you think
         Taiwan, HonKong, singapore .. have more technologies than Korea does?
         
let's see what is happenning now.
we are losing most market which we had dominated with cheap price.
like shoes, clothes, etc.
go any shopping center near you and check it out.
now it is obvious that we desperately need high quality so that
people choose our products even though it is more expensive than others.

        Losing ground of labor intense products are natural when any economy
        grows.  You may not know that still Korean export is growing
        relatively rapidly.   The problem is whether we can move into the 
        hitech/ capital intensive industry. Singarpore government once raised
        wage 20% during oil shock and  established tax for foreign labor 
        in order to accelerate industry restructuralization.
        That meant bankrupcy of cheap labor industries.
        We can not keep such cheap
        labor industry. So we can not judge superfacially.   
         Do you expect still Korean export shoes, clothes, toys and so on?
        Then we had to block labor disputes by all means.


we should execute GEUM-YUNG-SIL-MYUNG-GAE and Public-concept-of-land
immediately, the sooner the better.
you said next MINJJA goverment will do it.
        
       I did not say they will do. I said they said they would do.
    
        I agree that we should execute 'real-name-transaction-law'. I said when        Roh gave it up, it would be the most critical mistake which he had 
        committed. I think "public-concept-of-land" is the subset of the former        because if we can track all financial transaction, we can collect very
       heavy tax on land. In fact, Korean now is running more or less this
        successfully.  Now government is collecting huge tax on the 
       unncessarily extra-land possession. After that, some companies such as
       Non-No bankrupted because of excessive land possession. Now banks do not       take land for loan guranteeing properties as they used to. 

I will give them full credit if they do when it is not too late.
-- in fact in 87's election, Rho promised to do it and broke 
his promise after got elected.
we have waited already for five years for it.
let's see how long we should wait to see them keep their promise.

        The question was why he broke his promise. I met many high rank
        economic planning officers after that.  You may say simply that
        he did on the behalf of the rich which he represented.
        Even though many of officiers regreted the happening, they tried to
        explain me why they had to give it up.
        According to them (not my story),
        When Cho, Soon resigned from his position, Korean government concluded
        Korean economy could not absorb the shock from newly introduction of
        this regulation because it was really worst timing to do so. Korea
        economy was about to enter into deep recession and government found
        that much money flew out into foreign country to avoid this new law.
        In addition, Korean economy was not recovered from the impact of 
        mass labor disputes either.  They feared that forcing this regulation
        would bring the final death to Korean economy. Another excuse from
        then new vice prime minister,Lee was that even Japan did not have it 
        yet because of oriental culture.