Korea Plans $5 Billion of Growth Measures as Export Cool

Largely thanks to how the Korean government restructured and reformed itself in the wake of the 1997-98 economic crisis, the ROK has done better than many other countries at riding out THIS economic downturn.

But even if Korea Inc's fundamentals are strong, any country that relies on exports to countries in recovery (e.g., the US) or panic mode (e.g., the EU) is going to be hurting.

So it seems natural that Seoul would have to employ a stimulus like this one. And I, for one, will not complain about my mortgage ticking down 25 points.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-10/south-korea-plans-5-billion-of-growth-measures-as-exports-cool.html

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Clinton urges cool heads in Japan-South Korea island dispute

US Secretary of State Hillary Ridham Clinton has warned Japan and Korea that if they keep fighting over Tokto she's gonna turn this car around right now.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE88803Z20120909?irpc=932

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Violent Korean film Pieta wins prestigious Venice award

If I were a South Korean film maker, I'd fill my movie with stylized violence and/or gratuitous sex (also stylized), because it is those Korean films that seem to earn so much praise and so many statues from Western critics and audiences.

I mean, "Old Boy" was as much responsible for making the Hallyu Korean Wave a thing as Ihyori or "Winter Sonata."

It also doesn't hurt to pander to the Italian judges by giving it an Italian title. My movie, regardless of its content, will be the Italian translation of, "We're Americans, Do You Have Any Butter?"

Anyhoo, I'm not so sure how much time the Venezianos should be spending watching movies when they're city is slowly sinking into the Adriatic. But that's me.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8870CT20120908?irpc=932

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Hawaii Finder #2012-17

I'm actually not sure what number this is, but the question involves where I took this picture earlier today. The only hint is that I'm on a hike.

North Korea May Be Preparing Economic Changes

The NYT seems to agree with me that the upcoming rubber-stamp congress in North Korea is set to announce major economic reforms.

If this is true, it could mean that Kim Jong-un and his handlers' faction have their ducks in a row and are about to stick it to the military, despite expressions if support by KJU for his father's Son'gun ("military first") policy.

Surely even the generals can see the writing on the wall in the Middle East and back rooms of power in Beijing, and they might actually grudgingly continue to support The Young General.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/world/asia/north-korea-may-be-preparing-economic-reforms.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all


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Apple Cuts Orders From Samsung for iPhone Chips - NYTimes.com

According to Reuters (via the NYT), Apple may be cutting orders from Samsung, a competitor against whom it famously embroiled in an ongoing patent dispute. This may or may not be a sign that there are real consequences (that is, besides $1.1 billion court decisions) to their recent frenemy troubles, an indication that the relationship really is souring. 

Samsung and Apple kinda sorta need each other, and it might not be wise of Apple — which may need Samsung as a supplier as it rapidly expands a number of its products in the next couple years — to burn bridges. Then again, maybe Apple's goal is to make new bridges that render the old ones obsolete. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/technology/apple-cuts-orders-from-samsung-for-iphone-chips.html?_r=1&hpw

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Korean-Flavored Chevy Is Thrifty and City-Smart

Just as the Democrats make a big deal about Obama saved GM, the great American icon, the New York Times has an article on how one of Chevy's new star players has a Korea flavor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/automobiles/autoreviews/korean-flavored-chevy-is-thrifty-and-city-smart.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all


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North Korea rubberstamp assembly to hold rare second session: KCNA

While the outcome of North korea's rubber stamp sessions are ever in doubt, these days the contents sometimes are.

So what's the over/under on what will be "approved" in Pyongyang in a couple weeks? My bet is on an announcement of sweeping Chinese-style reforms, now that he seems to have the military party-whipped.

Other possibilities: Asia's next Disney theme park, diplomatic ties with Portugal and Argentina, or an official Coca-Cola bottlery.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE88318F20120904?irpc=932

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More KJU-as-Deng news?

The notion that Kim Jong-un might actually be trying economic reform in earnest -- a Chinese-style move toward socialism with North Korean characteristics, I guess -- Is gaining traction. 

According to the WaPo, even skeptics are becoming less skeptical. 

http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-authoritarian-north-korea-hints-of-reform/2012/09/03/bb5d95ce-f275-11e1-adc6-

Under new leader Kim Jong Eun, North Korea in recent months has shifted its rhetoric to emphasize the economy rather than the military and is introducing small-scale agricultural reforms with tantalizing elements of capitalism, according to diplomats and defector groups with informants in the North.

The changes, which allow farmers to keep more of their crops and sell surpluses in the private market, are in the experimental stage and are easily reversible, analysts caution. But evenskeptical North Korea watchers say that Kim's emerging policies and style — and his frank acknowledgment of the country's economic problems — hint at an economic opening similar to China's in the late 1970s.87dfa8eff430_story.html

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Reverend Sun-myung Moon joins that great Burger King in the sky

Reverend Sun-myung Moon, the brightest star in the constellation of non-mainstream religious organizations in Korea (read: cults), has died. He was old, like teenager during the Great Depression old.

Reverend Moon is a complex figure who evokes positive and negative responses from different people, and sometimes even from the same individuals. On the one hand, he ran a giant heterodox church (read: cult) that had a tremendous amount of influence (with ownership of conservative news outlets like The Washington Times), connections, and power. There was a scandalous book entitled In the Shadow of the Moons by a Moon daughter-in-law that described the abuse she experienced within the family and estrangements from the Moon daughters.

On the other hand, well... On the other hand... um... Almost all the Moon followers (they hate being called "Moonies") that I've known from Korea have been really nice people. Like Mormon nice. (I know virtually none outside of Korea, but they could be like gay people in that they are what they are but they don't feel compelled to share that with everyone, in part because of perceived stigma.)

I've lived in Korea off and on since I was a teenager, and when I was much younger (pre-1998 economic crisis days) it seemed a high percentage of White foreigners with no familial connection to Korea were Unification Church members. Or Mormon missionaries. Or the military. It was a completely different world from today, where working in Korea seems only slightly more exotic or adventurous for a typical twenty-something North American than becoming a barista at the local Starbucks.

At any rate, a disproportionate number of "famous foreigners" in Korea were either Moonies or Mormons: Kyŏngsang dialect-talking Robert Holley and Lee Charm (the Tourism Minister) and self-styled TV clown Isaac Durst come to mind. Lee Charm in particular is a nice guy.

So I wonder if a heretical faith (read: cult) can be all bad if so many of the members seem like all right and upstanding people. I rarely talked about their faith with them (I have my hands full just being a Protestant/Catholic hybrid) but in other matters, I had no problems with them.

The only thing that really intrigued me about the Unification Church was their apparent emphasis on interracial unions, on display during the occasional "mass weddings." Korea today is far more open to 국제결혼 (i.e., interethnic marriage, literally international marriage) than it was just fifteen years ago, and Reverend Moon was nothing less than a pioneer in that regard.

A mass wedding of 4,600 couples in Ch'ŏnan, Korea, in August 2005.

At a time when dominant cultural discourse emphasized the virtues of Korea's "homogeneity," Moon was pairing Korean men and women with Whites, Blacks, Southeast Asians, Latin Americans, etc., etc. A retired USFK friend from New York City, "C," who became quite cynical about religion during his time as a chaplain's assistant, was convinced that the real motivation behind all the interethnic couplings was not to promote global peace and love but to help the Unification Church permanently marginalize those wedding participants from their families, who would presumably reject their new son- or daughter-in-law because he/she was not Korean (or whatever race/ethnicity they were) so that the new couple would cling more closely to the Unification Church family.

Anyway, I have no idea what Unification Church doctrine says will happen to Moon Sun-myung now that he's dead. I just hope Jesus and his Dad have a good sense of humor. I'm pretty sure they are the forgiving type.

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Iran and North Korea sign technological cooperation agreement, deepening ties - The Washington Post

Dammit, Pyongyang and teheran, why you have to make me look stupid?! For years I have been mocking Dubya Bush for his "Axis of Evil" comments tying North Korea, Iran, and Iraq together into some sort of alliance.

Yes, it was an utterly ridiculous claim, given the intense enmity Iraq and Iran felt toward each other, but to those who were paying just a little attention, the occasional ties between North Korea and Iran made the whole idea seem plausible -- and frightening enough to go to war.

And here we are yet again, with North Korean leadership (but not Kim Jong-un himself) going to Iran to sign a cooperation deal. Of course, in some ways the "Axis of Evil" comments were self-fulfilling prophecy, pushing the remaining marginalized regimes toward each other since each of them has so few potential partners, but it still adds up to critics of Bush making us look silly.

Given Pyongyang's charm offensive lately, though, one has to wonder what they're thinking with all this. Maybe it's to remind us that, yeah, if we don't cooperate with North Korea, then th can still go and poke us in the eye and make life difficult. Mission accomplished.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-and-north-korea-sign-technological-cooperation-agreement-deepening-ties/2012/09/02/f4921588-f4b7-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_story.html


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Apple supplier Foxconn improves worker conditions

If this is true and not just smoke and mirrors, then I'd say it's a big victory not just for Chinese workers but workers everywhere. For too long, China has been the "the world's factory" because of cheap labor, which translated into lax safety and poor worker conditions. Korean companies were as guilty -- if not more so -- of exploitation, and this eroded labor conditions at home as well, mostly in the wallet.

If Apple can make this the new normal, then maybe we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And maybe the next exploited areas (like India and Africa) will not go through such tough circumstances. 

One can hope.

One of Apple Inc.'s largest suppliers has improved worker health conditions and safety after a sweeping inspection by a labor watchdog group.

http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-apple-foxconn-20120822,0,2294653.story

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China eagerly buying up American assets

I am old enough to remember when Japan was the big scare in the 1980s, and now it could China. 

Check out this article from LA Times:

BEIJING — Facing a sharp economic slowdown at home, Chinese companies are plowing money into U.S. assets at a record pace, making huge bids for American energy, aviation, entertainment and other businesses.

http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-china-us-investing-20120825,0,7160518.story

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