Month: February 2015

It’s that time of the year again that if you can spend time in Seoul instead of trying to exit the city with everyone else because it will feel like you have the city to yourself:

The mass migration for Seollal, or the Lunar New Year’s Day, has begun.

More than 16 million Koreans are expected to hit the road during the five-day holiday, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Expressways were clogged and airports and railway stations busy at the start of the traditional pilgrimage for family reunions and holiday-making trips.

The number of travelers is predicted to peak Thursday, Seollal, with 7 million likely to move.

Information on less-congested roads and other traffic situations is available through broadcasts, the ministry’s website (cyber.mltm.go.kr/traffic) and its mobile website (m.mltm.go.kr/traffic).

The government has increased the number of express buses, trains, flights and ferries to reduce traffic congestion during the holiday.

For Seoul citizens planning to return late Friday or Saturday, the city government will extend the operating hours of subways and intra-city buses to 2 a.m.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This is going to be a tough marketplace for any company even one like Apple to break in to:

Apple Inc. may already be positioned to evolve into a global automaker in many ways that other Silicon Valley companies aren’t.

The tech company has put a few hundred employees to work on a secretive project to develop an electric automobile, a person familiar with the matter has said. While Apple often tests ideas that don’t get released, the work underscores the company’s long-held desire to play a greater role in the automotive space, which is ripe for more of a merging with users’ digital lives.

“It makes a ton of sense,” Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray Cos., said Saturday. “If you would’ve said 10 years ago, ‘Apple is going to be in the car business,’ I think people would’ve said you’re crazy – because it would’ve been crazy – and today it’s a much different company that’s able to tackle these massive addressable markets.”

Apple, with a market capitalization that’s more than $700 billion, needs to continue growing sales in iPhones, its largest revenue generator, while also expanding into new markets, such as automobiles, if it’s to reach a $1 trillion valuation, Munster said. He added that he doesn’t think Apple would bring out a car in the next five years.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it seems with all the talk of a Google Car that Apple feels like they have to get into the car industry as well.  It seems like they should just partner with Tesla and revolutionize the car industry that way?

If you go to a Duty Free shop in Seoul the chances are the employee is an ethnic Korean from China:

After graduating from college five years ago, Lee Ju-yeon came to Korea from China to live with her mother, a waitress, and father, a manual laborer.

They are Chinese citizens, but ethnically Korean, part of what is known in China as the Chaoxian ethnic minority.

They struggled here as minorities, and Lee’s parents never had the chance to earn college diplomas. She knew she wanted to do better, and capitalized on her higher education and bilingual ability.

“One day, my friend working at a duty-free shop sent me a job notice over the phone and suggested I apply to work as a salesperson,” said Lee, who requested that her real name not be used. “I applied for five positions at duty-free stores, and all of them asked for interviews.”

Her job put Lee among countless Korean-Chinese workers who, once concentrated in the labor and food service sectors, have emerged in multitudes in the retail sector.

Many work in small stores – most commonly duty-free shops – where Chinese-speaking employees are in high demand due to their ability to cater to the needs the throngs of Chinese tourists, known as Youke in Korea which means a “tourist” in Chinese.

“In our duty free stores in downtown Seoul, 70 percent of the customers are Chinese,” said a representative for Lotte Duty Free.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Palestine seeks diplomatic mission in Seoul http://t.co/acuYf9bc48 #ForeignPolicy #Palestine pic.twitter.com/F8sXDXTT86

— 코리아헤럴드 Korea Herald (@TheKoreaHerald) February 14, 2015

North Korean people visit an anti-American education center in South Hwanghae Province, south of Pyongyang, on Feb. 8, 2015. (No sale outside of South Korea) (KCNA-Yonhap)

It seems to me that it is pretty clear that the ROK wants THAAD in Korea, but the trick for them is figuring out how to deploy it without pissing off the Chinese:

With growing controversy in Northeast Asia surrounding U.S. ambitions to deploy an advanced antiballistic missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula, the Pentagon has reversed its earlier position that Seoul and Washington were discussing the issue.

In the latest media briefing, the Pentagon’s press secretary made clear the United States and South Korea are not having official discussions on possible deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, better known as Thaad.

“There are no formal consultations or discussions about Thaad with our Republic of Korea counterparts, no formal consultations about Thaad. And we want to be very clear about that,” said Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby on Friday in Washington. “We do discuss a full range of military capabilities with our allies in South Korea, of course, and some of those do include missile defense. But there are no consultations with respect to Thaad.”

Kirby said it is for the South Korean government and its people to decide what is of strategic value to their country.

The Pentagon’s verification came as Seoul, Washington, Beijing and Moscow have been engaged in an intensifying diplomatic tug-of-war in recent weeks over possible Thaad deployment. Throughout this month, defense officials in Beijing and Washington took turns nudging Seoul to make up its mind.

Thaad is a U.S. defense system designed to shoot down missiles using a hit-to-kill approach. Because it is equipped with a radar system that can cover more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), deployment of a Thaad battery in Korea has been a sensitive issue. Both China and Russia see it as a threat to their security interests that could be used for surveillance.

Beijing and Moscow appeared to be particularly sensitive to the Thaad system because of the AN/TPY-2 – a high-resolution, rapidly deployable X-Band radar designed to detect, track and identify ballistic missiles at long distances and very high altitudes.

During a press conference Feb. 10, Kirby said South Korea and the United States were discussing possible deployment of Thaad.

“I think we all recognize the importance of the capability,” Kirby said about the Thaad system in Washington. “There are constant discussions, and certainly with our South Korean allies about that.”

While offering no details, Kirby said, “It’s an important capability. It’s one that we talk to them about. That’s really as far as I can go today.”

Another U.S. government official, Lt. Col. Jeff Pool, a Pentagon press officer, supported Kirby’s earlier comments, saying officials in Washington and Seoul often talked informally about Thaad, although there never was an official discussion.

“It would be untruthful to say we haven’t informally discussed [it] because we already had a site survey in the ROK [South Korea] and Gen. [Curtis] Scaparrotti said he wanted it,” Pool told Korean correspondents in Washington, referring to earlier statements by senior U.S. defense officials.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Koreans in a bar would of course never resort to this kind of violence:

In December, about 20 Cambodian workers engaged in a bloody group fight inside a bar in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province.

The incident is belatedly becoming the talk of town after surveillance camera footage showing their brutal fight was aired on TV Wednesday.

Some of the Cambodian men, who all work in factories in Gimhae or Busan on temporary visas, sustained deep stab wounds and bone fractures that will require months of hospital treatment, police said.

During the fight, they smashed bottles of beer and soju, and threw dozens of chairs at each other, breaking dishes and glasses. The owner of the bar said he was lucky that they only cost him his tables and dishes, not his life.

“There were a lot of blood stains. I could have been hit by any of the bottles they threw,” he said.

Residents in Gimhae were frightened by the videos of the incident.

“I thought of foreign factory workers as being docile, hardworking and somewhat naïve. But this likely breaks that stereotype. They could be violent and dangerous, too. I’m afraid of them,” a resident said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

So how much will military retirees lose if the current retirement system is replaced with what is basically a 401k?  Well the Military Officer’s Association of America has done the analysis and it will be hundreds of thousands of dollars:

For example, critics of the current system say it’s unfair the 83 percent of entrants who leave before 20 years of service receive no retirement benefits. The commission’s hybrid retirement package with a vesting 401(k) and government match would be attractive to those who are uncertain of or do not intend to make the military a career.

However, we’ve got serious concerns whether this proposal will draw people to 20 years of service and our analysis shows these changes come at the price of reducing the overall pension value to those that stay beyond 20 years of service — and it only gets worse the longer you stay in service. Our conservative estimates show an E-7 retiring with 20 years of service under the new proposal could lose $262,000 in lifetime retirement value. However, if the same E-7 stays for 30 years and is promoted to E-9, the lifetime loss in retirement rises to $740,000. That’s assuming a 5-percent government match and a 5-percent rate of return in the Thrift Savings Plan.  [MOAA]

You can read more at the link and remember this analysis is assuming growth in the servicemember’s retirement investment when they retire.  What happens to those who retire during a financial crisis like we saw in 2008 and have their 401k hammered?  Also this loss in retirement money would also come on top of other proposed cuts to health care and commissary benefits.

If these same cuts were recommended to for Social Security and Medicare there would be an absolute up roar.

After story of 106-car accident occurred on Incheon Yeongjong Bridge. Several errors found on injured list – … pic.twitter.com/IzV222V5mp

— YA KOREA (@yakoreacom) February 13, 2015

South Korean actress Lee Yeon-hee poses during an event to promote a new cosmetics product in Seoul on Feb. 10, 2015. (Yonhap)