Ave, John Lee!

John Lee, a.k.a. The Korean Foreigner, doesn't seem to blog all that much these days, but when he does blog, his material is always worth a read. In this post, Lee takes on President Moon Jae-in's abysmal economic policy, which basically follows a blue-state, centralized, redistributionist model (and where have we heard about all that before?) which, to no one's surprise, leads to economic downturns in all leading indicators. But people never learn because people are stupid. Sad but true.

South Korea's economy is based on the Japanese economic model, in which the largest engines are conglomerates, called chaebol (more properly, jaebeol/재벌) in Korean. This is itself a problem because it concentrates wealth in too few hands and doesn't allow the economy to breathe freely through the natural chaos of competition between and among smaller entities. Lee points out that President Moon is also pursuing the folly of forcibly increasing wages, which has unsurprisingly resulted in heavy job loss as bosses cut employees to be able to keep to their bottom line. Under Moon, over-regulation continues to be a problem, and we in the States can see how that policy is working in California, where all but the most robust businesses are being strangled, and smaller businesses are moving to places like Texas (which may end up becoming a blue state because the idiots moving there bring their unenlightened voting habits with them).

In all, it's a bleak picture, and since Koreans love creating and blaming an Emmanuel Goldstein for their troubles, one can only assume they will again create a strawman/scapegoat as times get tougher.