Via a reader tip comes news that airline tickets between Korea and Japan are supposedly less than $10:
If you’ve ever wanted to travel between Japan and South Korea, there’s no better time than now — air fares are as low as $8.38.
As a trade spat between the two countries drags on, travel between them is dropping — and so are flight prices.
It costs as little as 10,000 South Korean won ($8.38) to fly one-way from Seoul to Fukuoka on budget airline Eastar Jet right now, and only 1,000 Japanese yen ($9.35) the other way.
This is excluding tax and fuel surcharges — but still, added up, the prices are far lower than normal. The Eastar flight from Fukuoka to Seoul costs 7,590 yen ($71) with all the additional fees.
You can read more at the link, but I looked up the ticket prices on the Eastar website for flights between Seoul and Fukuoka and this is what I got:
It is accurate that Eastar is offering 10,000 won tickets, but the article fails to mention you must have membership with Eastar Airlines and that the ticket does not include the ability to check in bags.
For people with this cheap ticket who want to bring a bag it will cost 10,000 won per kilogram. If someone brings a 10 kilogram check in bag would add 100,000 won to the ticket, so that is where the airline will be making up costs.
This is an interesting idea considering how popular electric scooters are becoming:
A model demonstrates the electric scooter to be mounted in Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors vehicles in the future. [HYUNDAI MOTOR]
Hyundai Motor Group on Tuesday unveiled an electric scooter that can be mounted inside a vehicle and charged with the electricity generated while driving.
The product is an upgrade to a concept model Hyundai Motor first introduced in 2017.
The group said it is considering including electric scooters as an upgrade option in newly launched cars from Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors from 2021 so drivers can conveniently continue to their destination after parking their car.
The scooter, according to Hyundai, will be charged automatically when mounted in a dedicated space in the vehicle through electricity generated from driving. When drivers reach parking lots, they can take out the scooter and continue on to their final destination.
I wonder if the Moon administration is trying to use the threat of these sanctions as way to pressure the Trump administration to help resolve the current trade dispute with Japan?:
South Korea is seeking an annual $350 million in trade sanctions against the United States in an Obama-era dispute over tariffs on steel pipes, it said in a World Trade Organization (WTO) filing published on Tuesday.
South Korea went to the WTO in 2014 to challenge U.S. tariffs levied on oil country tubular goods (OCTG), a type of steel piping used in the energy industry.
Washington said its tariffs aimed to stop South Korea exporting the product at unfairly cheap prices. After South Korea won a partial victory at the WTO, the United States had until July 12 to comply with that ruling.
South Korea said the United States had failed to do so and it was seeking sanctions equal to the level of trade harm done.
“Based on available data, this level is estimated at $350 million annually. This amount will be adjusted by applying the annual growth rate of the OCTG market of the United States,” it said in the sanctions request published by the WTO.
South Korea plans to impose the sanctions by putting tariffs on certain types of U.S. goods, which it said it would announce at a later date.
If anyone has any spare cash lying around you could buy Asiana Airlines this week:
Asiana Airlines is expected to be up for sale as early as Thursday.
Kumho Industrial, Asiana’s biggest shareholder, and the airline’s credit holders plan to start the sale process on Thursday or Friday. They are looking to find a buyer and sign a main contract by the end of this year.
Market observers presume it will take one trillion won to two-point-five trillion won to buy South Korea’s second largest airline. Some local conglomerates are being mentioned as potential bidders, including SK, Hanwha, CJ and Aekyung.
Earlier this year, the Asiana’s creditors led by the state-owned Korea Development Bank(KDB) decided to provide one-point-73 trillion won in financial assistance to help normalize the cash-strapped airline, setting a goal to sell it by year-end.
South Korea just posted the longest streak of unemployment at 4% or above in almost 20 years. This raises worries higher unemployment may be a new normal for the country that is facing headwinds in exports worldwide. pic.twitter.com/u09oiYAuVe
It seems to me that having a lower minimum wage for foreign workers will increase unemployment because small business owners will look for foreigners to hire instead of Koreans:
Hwang Kyo-ahn, chairman of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, speaks during a meeting with local business owners at the Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Busan, Wednesday. Yonhap
Korea’s opposition party leader has vowed to introduce a “different” minimum wage system for foreign workers.
Hwang Kyo-ahn, chairman of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), said Wednesday he will press ahead with revising related laws to lighten small business owners’ financial burden. He made the pledge at a meeting with employers in Busan.
Given “the different degrees of their contribution to Korea,” he said, it is “not fair” to set the same minimum wage for Korean and foreign workers.
“Koreans contribute more to the country, for example, by paying more in taxes,” Hwang said. “Our party will revise related laws to improve the situation (for employers).”
His remarks come amid complaints that steep minimum wage hikes over the past two years have pushed many small businesses to the edge.
But Article 6 of the Labor Standards Act stipulates that an employer cannot discriminate against workers on the basis of gender, nationality, religion and social status.
What this will lead to is small business owners hiring foreigners instead of Koreans that will ultimately create higher unemployment:
Representatives of employers, workers and the government attend the public hearing on next year’s minimum wage in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, Monday. Yonhap
Small business owners want the government to introduce a lower minimum wage for foreign workers in Korea.
At Monday’s public hearing on next year’s minimum wage in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, representatives of employers said “steep” minimum wage hikes over the past two years have pushed many small businesses to the edge and that the government should help them by adopting a “different” wage system for foreign workers.
Song Young-soo, a small business owner in Gwangju, was among participants who reportedlyvoiced the need for a lower minimum wage for foreign employees, who they say show lower labor productivity than Korean workers mainly because of communication problems.
According to a Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business survey early this year, the productivity of an average foreign worker (E-9 visa holder) was 87.5 percent of a Korean worker.
Below is a well made Youtube video that goes into the history of Samsung.
I did not realize that Samsung was founded as a truck company in Daegu by Lee Byung-chul who was chummy with the Imperial Japanese. He eventually moved his business down to Masan which was the main port the Japanese were using to export out of Korea.
Lee Byung-chul
After the colonial occupation Lee would go on to become friends with President Rhee Syngman and business continued to grow. Then during the Korean War business continued to thrive as he had contracts to move U.S. supplies and equipment with his trucks. After the war is when Samsung grew dramatically as it expanded into building construction and other industries to where today it is Korea’s flagship global business conglomerate.
Great to welcome Chairman Shin from Lotte Group to the WH. They just invested $3.1 BILLION into Louisiana-biggest investment in U.S. EVER from a South Korean company, & thousands more jobs for Americans. Great partners like ROK know the U.S. economy is running stronger than ever! pic.twitter.com/WaJxDeTuxj
Back in May when the Korean government announced a resolution to the fight between taxi drivers and the Kakao ride sharing app, I predicted this issue would come up again. That is because this picture clearly indicates both sides were not happy with the agreement and tensions are now boiling over again:
After more taxi drivers resort to extreme methods of protest, an organization comprised of the government, ruling party and taxi companies was created to find a compromise. After 45 days of discussions, the taxi and carpool companies finally reached an agreement on March 7.
In their agreement, carpooling hours were limited to 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., weekends and national holidays excluded. For the taxi industry, parties agreed to reduce the number of taxi drivers with advanced age and implement a monthly salary for taxi drivers. Not all parts of the agreement were carried out accordingly.
“After announcing that a social agreement was made, we haven’t had a working session, not one,” said Kang Shin-pyo, the leader of the National Taxi Labor Union, in an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo. In the agreement, there was a section where parties agreed to create an organization for discussion between the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the companies.
The National Assembly has not made much progress either. The Land Infrastructure and Transport Committee held a subcommittee meeting to examine the bill on March 27, but could not reach a conclusion due to objections from the opposition Liberty Korea Party. The discussion is currently suspended.
