Unless they ban job interviews this bill probably will not have the desired effect:
An opposition legislator has proposed a bill to eliminate discrimination during the recruitment process of companies based on appearance.
Rep. Han Jeoung-ae of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) proposed on Wednesday a revised bill aimed at prohibiting companies from asking job applicants to specify information unrelated to their capabilities and skills in their resumes.
The proposed bill stipulates that requiring information such as a job applicant’s photo, properties owned or parents’ profession will result in a fine of up to five million won, or roughly 44-hundred U.S. dollars. [KBS World Radio]
I don’t see too many Jeeps in Korea so it will be interesting to see if their marketing strategy works:
FCA Korea president Pablo Rosso talks to The Korea Herald at his office in Seoul. (Chung Hee-cho/The Korea Herald)
The boxy and powerful Jeep sports utility vehicles have appealed to tough, adventure-seeking motorists with rather masculine exteriors for more than seven decades.
And despite the global trend for family-friendly and female-friendly SUVs, Jeep has no intention of changing its image, the U.S. carmaker’s Korea head told The Korea Herald.
“If I start selling Jeep as a family car, we would lose our personality, and believe me, we will lose sales,” Pablo Rosso, Korean market president at Fiat-Chrysler APAC, said in a recent interview.
“What people like about Jeep is that dream, that muscularity, that passion and authenticity of the dream of adventure. So that is the value that we stand for.”
And as a part of that authentic Jeep image, the company is highlighting its masculine and daring side with its newest compact SUV, the Renegade.
The boxier design creates a stark comparison to its predecessor Cherokee’s fluid and modern exterior, and is seen as a declaration from the carmaker of a retro direction.
Rosso thinks this masculine look appeals to women who defy norms and want powerful cars. [Korea Herald]
You can read the rest at the link but since being offered for sale in September, the Jeep Renegade sold 300 vehicles that month.
That is what is being claimed in the below article to explain the reduction in subsidies that all the cell phone carriers in South Korea implemented for the release of the new iPhone 6S which has increased the overall cost of the smartphone:
Prospective buyers of iPhone 6s line up in front of the KT headquarters in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, on Friday. The increased cost of the new phones wasn’t enough to deter these anxious buyers who lined up for the latest Apple release. [KANG JUNG-HYUN]Apple’s latest iPhone 6s made headlines earlier this week when preorder sales sold out in a record seven minutes. But the smartphone and the larger iPhone 6s Plus are being sold with a subsidy that is roughly 40 percent less than the previous model that went on sale a year ago.
The new phones are also 20,000 won ($18) to 30,000 won more expensive than the earlier release.
The nation’s three mobile carriers – SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ – unveiled on Friday the subsidies and price of the latest Apple smartphones as they started official in-store sales of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
The mobile carriers set the maximum subsidies on both models between 120,000 won and 130,000 won – much less than the subsidy provided on the iPhone 6 last year, which was in the 100,000 won to 200,000 won range. In the case of KT, the maximum subsidy it provided on the iPhone 6 last year was 250,000 won.
The slashed subsidies went against earlier market expectations of substantial subsidies on Apple’s new smartphones due to keen competition among mobile carriers to hijack one another’s customers.
Mobile carriers and the Korean manufacturer gave different answers for reasons why subsidies have been slashed almost in half.
“It was largely the result of Samsung Electronics’ influence to keep Apple in check,” said a mobile carrier official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The mobile carriers said the Korean smartphone maker made an unofficial request to limit the subsidies on iPhones, and the mobile carriers can’t refuse because Samsung Electronics is the biggest smartphone supplier. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
It is a bit amazing how popular the Apple iPhone continues to be in the land of arch rival Samsung:
Despite a price tag as much as $100 higher than previous models, the popularity of Apple’s latest iPhone 6s and 6s Plus appears hotter than ever in Seoul.
The country’s three major mobile carriers said on Monday that preorders of the entire first batch of the two mega-popular phones, with guaranteed shipping on Oct. 23, ran out in less than 10 minutes after they were made available on the carriers’ respective websites at 9 a.m. on Monday.
Top player SK Telecom presold the latest iPhones in two groups, using the date customers are guaranteed to receive the phone and launch a subscription – on Oct. 23 and on Oct. 24.
The first batch sold out in seven minutes and the second in half an hour, according to an SK spokesman. He refused to disclose the number of phones the company released on preorders.
The seven-minute record is the fastest for any iPhone model, given iPhone 6’s first preorder in October last year was done in nine minutes and its predecessor 5s, in 10 minutes in October 2013. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
It looks like the South Korean government is looking to increase taxes even further on imported cars:
Taxes on luxury imported cars are likely to go up, with lawmakers and the government seeking a law revision to impose taxes based on prices instead of engine displacement.
Rep. Shim Jae-chul from the ruling Saenuri Party proposed a revision of the law earlier this week, saying the current system was unfair and did not reflect technology advances.
“The current volume-based tax system could be unfair,” he said. “With the development of technology, car owners with lower engine displacement, higher performance and higher price pay less tax than drivers with lower priced, low-performance cars.”
According to the current law, 80 won per cubic centimeter (cc) is imposed for cars with displacement less than 1,000 cc, 140 won for cars with displacement between 1,000 and 1,600 cc, and 200 won for cars with displacement over 1,600 cc.
For example, BMW 520d owners pay almost the same amount of vehicle taxes as those driving such local brands as Hyundai Motor’s Sonata midsize as they are in the same segment in terms of engine displacement. The price of the German vehicle is about three times higher than the Korean car.
Also, many lavish cars nowadays are designed with smaller displacements to burn less fuel or run a hybrid engine. Shim said a growing number of electronic cars are another factor to consider. [Korea Times]
If any ROK Heads have a few billion dollars lying around you could use it to buy the Korean retail giant Homeplus if you are interested. It will be interesting to see what changes will be made once Homeplus is sold off:
Private equity groups are expected to submit final bids to take over the nation’s second-largest supermarket chain Homeplus, valued at about 7 trillion won ($5.86 billion), amid growing speculation that two Korean retail firms are mulling to join the deal when the preferred bidder is announced, according to sources on Sunday.
Five shortlisted private equity firms formed three consortiums for Monday’s final bidding for Homeplus, wholly owned by Tesco. The British retail giant put up its Korean unit for auction in a bid to scale back the mounting debt and fund a turnaround plan.
Sources said the Korean confectionery company Orion and local retail giant Hyundai Department store are eyeing to join the bid as strategic investors.
“As Orion continues to show a strong will to buy Homeplus, there’s potential that it will link up with a private equity fund to be selected as a preferred bidder,” an official at an investment bank said.
The snack-maker, which failed to make the final list of five bidders, has been seeking a foray into the supermarket industry as its growth slows.
The preferred bidder is expected to be announced in September while the takeover deal to be wrapped up by the end of this year. [Korea Herald]
The Lone Star issue continues to make headlines. This time it is about how Lone Star bribed an activist group leader to essentially shut up. So if there was any doubt, everyone now knows it is illegal to bribe activist groups in South Korea:
A local court sentenced the head of a private watchdog to two years in prison for taking bribes from Lone Star Funds in return for dropping protests over the U.S. firm’s local deal and trying to help it settle a stock manipulation trial.
The Seoul Central District Court ordered Jang Hwa-sik, the head of Spec Watch Korea, also to forfeit 800 million won (US$681,000), he received in 2011 from Yoo Hoe-won, former head of Lone Star’s local unit.
“Despite fairness and integrity expected for him as an executive of an organization whose nature is clearly of public concern, he used his position in taking the heavy amount of financial reward,” the court said.
Jang, formerly a head of the labor union at Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), had led protests against Lone Star’s profit taking in the firm’s purchase and reselling of KEB. [Yonhap]
Here is an interesting read in regards to the anti-Semitism accusations lobbied against South Korea in the battle over control of Samsung last month. The article provides some context on why Samsung published the cartoons and maybe they were not so anti-Semitic after all:
The predominantly Jewish-owned and operated Elliot Associates has a wealth of self-interest in preventing the Lee family from consolidating its control over the Samsung conglomerate. As racial outsiders, however, Singer’s firm were forced into several tactical measures in their 52-day attempt to thwart the merger. First came lawsuits. When those failed, Singer and his associates then postured themselves as defending Korean interests, starting a Korean language website and arguing that their position was really just in aid of helping domestic Korean shareholders. This variation on the familiar theme of Jewish crypsis was quite unsuccessful. The Lee family went on the offensive immediately and, unlike many Westerners, were not shy in drawing attention to the Jewish nature of Singer’s interference and the sordid and intensely parasitic nature of his fund’s other ventures.
The Lee offensive started with a series of cartoons posted on the Samsung website. Most singled out the manner in which Elliot Associates has enjoyed its remarkable growth by focussing on the purchase of national debts from struggling countries at a fraction of their worth, before using ruthless legal measures to sue those countries for values far exceeding the original debt. On its most basic level, the practice is really just the same as Jewish involvement in medieval tax farming. On the older practice, Salo Baron writes in Economic History of the Jews that Jewish speculators would pay a lump sum to the treasury before mercilessly turning on the peasantry to obtain “considerable surpluses … if need be, by ruthless methods.”[2] The activities of Elliot Associates are really the same speculation in debt, except here the trade in usury is practiced on a global scale with the feudal peasants of old now replaced with whole nations. The above cartoon refers to the specific activities of Elliot Associates in Congo where it originally bought $32.6 million in sovereign debt incurred by that country for the knockdown price of under $20 million. In 2002 and 2003, a British court (tactically chosen) forced the Congolese government to settle for an estimated $90 million, which included that all-important interest and fees. Elliot Associates rapidly became known as the quintessential “Vulture Fund.” (…………..)
n the end, the Lee strategy, based on drawing attention to the alien and exploitative nature of Elliot Associates, was overwhelmingly effective. Before a crucial shareholder vote on the Lee’s planned merger, Samsung Securities CEO Yoon Yong-am, said: “We should score a victory by a big margin in the first battle in order take the upper hand in a looming war against Elliott, and keep other speculative hedge funds from taking short-term gains in the domestic market.” When the vote finally took place a few days ago, a conclusive 69.5% of Samsung shareholders voted in favor of the Lee proposal, leaving Elliot licking its wounds and complaining about the ‘patriotic marketing’ of those behind the merger.
Jewish difficulties in penetrating close-knit Far Eastern monopolies, many of which are open in their belief that Jews are capable and ruthless opponents in business, thus persist. East Asians are seemingly aware that giving Jewish businessmen an inch will normally lead to non-Jews losing a mile. It is this honest grappling with the facts that kept Daniel Loeb off the board at Sony, and prevented Elliot Associates from making even slight gains at Samsung. [The Occidental Observer]
