Tag: South Korea

The unhappiness of the Korean public is growing at the Moon administration’s efforts to manipulate the real estate market:

With the average jeonse price in Seoul millimeters from the 500-million mark, people are taking to the streets and claiming the government is forcing them into rent servitude and denying their rightful place as members of the propertied class.  
   
According to KB Kookmin Bank’s monthly report on real estate prices Thursday, the average jeonse long-term deposit price for apartments in Seoul was 499.22 million won ($421,500) last month, up 7.7 percent from the same period last year.    
   
In July the average jeonse price in Seoul for 3.3 square meters (35.5 square feet) was 19 million won. This means the jeonse price for an 86.95-square-meter apartment in Seoul is 499.3 million won.  (…………….)

Civic groups gathered in front of the government’s administrative office in Gwanghwamun Thursday demanding President Moon remove Land Minister Kim Hyun-mee from her post. Their criticism was strong, calling the real estate measures a failure. They also urged the government stop coming up with more, claiming that the real estate measures have created many innocent victims.    
   
“They are nothing but a political ploy that goes against market principles and are ineffective in helping the lower classes. The government wants to turn everyone into rent migrants so that more people become their core supporters,” said one participant at the event.     
   
Another participant mentioned how torn younger people are to hear the government promote the monthly rent system over living in a jeonse flat and asked if the administration will be “happy to see everyone in the country live as tenants in government-owned rental apartments.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This just shows how touchy of an issue real estate is in Korea; that mostly this one issue has caused the ruling party to quickly slide in public polling:

081401-Poll-Graph

For the first time since the 2016 political scandal that led to President Park Geun-hye’s removal from office, the approval rating of the United Future Party (UFP) overtook that of President Moon Jae-in’s Democratic Party (DP), a poll showed Thursday.  
   
According to a Realmeter poll conducted earlier this week, 36.5 percent of respondents said they support the UFP, up by 1.9 percentage points from the previous week. That figure was the highest since the party was rebranded in February.  
   
In the same survey conducted from Monday through Wednesday on 1,507 adults nationwide, the DP’s approval rate was 33.4 percent, down by 1.7 percentage points.  
   
It was the first time the UFP outstripped the DP in Realmeter’s weekly approval rating poll since October 2016.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the Korean public is upset about the government’s efforts to manipulate the real estate market while many government officials to include President Moon are being accused of hypocrisy and benefitting from real estate speculation.

Despite the uptick in local infections, South Korea’s numbers are still incredibly low:

COVID-19 infections traced to a church have spread to Namdaemun Market, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Seoul, the health authorities said Monday. This is renewing concerns over mass infections while the number of new cases here has hovered between 20 and 43 a day, since the beginning of the month.

According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), the country added 28 new cases Sunday, bringing the total caseload to 14,626. 

Among the 28, 17 were locally transmitted infections, including 11 reported in the densely populated capital, and five in the surrounding Gyeonggi Province.  

At least nine were tied to the Namdaemun Market. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Well if the monsoon rains were not bad enough, now a typhoon is heading towards South Korea as well:

 South Korea will come under the direct influence of Typhoon Jangmi, the season’s fifth typhoon, this week, which will bring heavy rain to the country’s flood-hit southeastern region, the state weather agency said Sunday.

The tropical storm, which formed early Sunday southwest of Okinawa and started to move northeast, is expected to pass waters 350 kilometers south of Jeju Island around 10 a.m. Monday, according to the Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA).

Around 3 p.m. on the same day, it is predicted to arrive in waters 30 km southwest of Busan, some 325 km southeast of Seoul, it said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It appears that the Korean public is tiring of the overreaching by the ruling Korean left:

The approval rating for the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has continued on a downward spiral as a result of botched real estate policies and the autocratic passage of controversial bills, further narrowing the gap with the main opposition Untied Future Party (UFP) to below 1 percentage point, a survey showed, Thursday.

In the poll of 1,510 adults conducted by Realmeter from Monday to Wednesday, 35.6 percent said they support the DPK, while 34.8 percent expressed support for the UFP. The approval rating of the DPK fell 2.7 percentage points from the previous week, while that of the UFP rose 3.1 percentage points. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

For a country of 51 million people, having only 3 reported local COVID infections in one day is pretty amazing:

South Korea reported 23 more cases of the new coronavirus Monday, with local infections at a nearly three-month low, health authorities said.

The new cases, including 20 imported cases, raised South Korea’s total cases of COVID-19 to 14,389, with local infections at three, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

The number of new COVID-19 cases had been in the 30s since Friday when South Korea reported 36 new virus cases. The number fell to 31 on Saturday and 30 on Sunday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but of the 20 imported cases from Monday, 14 were from Koreans returning to the ROK and 6 were foreigners that arrived and were tested while in quarantine. Even more impressive is that the ROK has had only 301 deaths from the coronavirus.

I believe the ROK demonstrates what competent public health institutions combined with a citizenry that believes in these institutions can accomplishment during a pandemic. This is the complete opposite of what is going on in the U.S. right now.

Here is a power tip for everyone, don’t try to wash and microwave your money; it usually does not end well:

Money laundering is not a good idea, as a South Korean found out when he or she put banknotes in a washing machine to remove possible traces of the coronavirus.

Officials say the loss was considerable.

The person living in Ansan city, near Seoul, placed an unspecified amount of 50,000-won ($42) bills in a washing machine earlier this year. Some of the money was seriously damaged, and the person reached out to the Bank of Korea to find whether it could be exchanged for new bills.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the Bank of Korea refunded some of his damaged bills but others were too damaged to be refunded causing the man to take a serious loss.

The Japanese government should just ignore something like this since it is in a private garden and not sponsored by the ROK government. Responding to this just drives further attention to it:

The foreign ministry said Tuesday that international courtesy for foreign leaders should be taken into consideration, after a local botanical garden reportedly installed a pair of bronze statues of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bowing on his knees before a wartime sexual slavery victim.

The garden in the eastern county of Pyeongchang plans to unveil the statues next month, according to local media reports. Its sculptor told local media that Japan must atone for wartime atrocities until South Korea accepts and forgives it. 

Japan has bristled at the statue, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga telling reporters Tuesday that the installation of such a statue, if true, is “unacceptable” and would “decisively affect” the relations between the two countries.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but if Japan is so upset about this then a private individual in Japan should make a statue of President Moon Jae-in bowing in forgiveness to a Vietnamese woman for the atrocities some ROK troops committed during the Vietnam War.