This blog post examines why real estate, particularly apartments, serves as a key indicator in the South Korean economy. It calmly explores how trends in housing prices, subscription applications, and new home sales signal developments for households, businesses, and the government. Understanding real estate is key to seeing the South Korean economy Unless you’re a Hollywood...
This blog post calmly examines why apartments in South Korea are treated like financial products beyond mere living spaces, and the structure created by loans, policies, and psychology. How on earth can you afford to buy an apartment? An apartment is the most expensive asset an average person can purchase. Moreover, since housing prices aren’t included in the consumer price index, no...
In this blog post, we will calmly examine the difference between poverty and inequality, measurement indicators, and international comparisons to determine whether inequality in Korean society is indeed severe. How severe is inequality in Korea? We previously explained that efficiency and equity are important. Efficiency refers to increasing GDP, but how can we judge equity? What does it...
This blog post calmly examines why the jeonse deposit, though appearing like a stable asset, actually contains credit risk similar to stock investments, through its contract structure and institutional limitations. Why is jeonse as risky as stock investing? While investment principles and approaches vary slightly from person to person, most people essentially seek two things: higher...
This blog post examines how monetary rewards distort or enhance human motivation and organizational performance, using case studies to explore the question: Are incentives a drug that boosts performance, or a poison that ruins organizations? Are incentives a drug or a poison? Two friends decide to diet to lose weight. After much deliberation, they make a bet: whoever loses more weight wins...
This blog post calmly examines the structure of inflation and the resulting burdens on daily life within the flow of the economy, exploring why lunch costs and living expenses inevitably keep rising even as salaries stagnate. Why do lunch prices keep going up? While salaries remain stagnant, product prices show no sign of falling and keep climbing. Not just lunch prices, but bus fares...
This blog post examines the conditions under which export controls function as a short-term pressure tactic and the risks they pose as a boomerang effect on domestic industries in the long term, using case studies and economic principles. It also considers variables such as technological level, substitutability, and time. Export Restrictions: Strategy or Self-Destruction? Since the end of...
This blog post examines how the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq are calculated, and why these indices are crucial for both global stock markets and the Korean market, focusing on their underlying trends. Since you’re looking anyway, broaden your view to target the global market When a stock index rises, it’s called an uptrend; when it falls, a downtrend; and when fluctuations are...
This blog post examines the expectations and concerns surrounding Netflix’s investment in Korea, calmly analyzing the impact of foreign investment on industrial competitiveness, employment, and leadership. Netflix’s Investment in Korea and Korean Manufacturing Companies’ Foreign Investment On April 24, 2023, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos announced during a meeting with...
This blog post calmly examines why tariffs are used as a powerful weapon in trade disputes and the impact of the U.S.-China trade war on the global economy and Korean industries. Tariffs are a very powerful weapon in trade disputes Trade also operates according to market principles. However, some countries perceive that they are suffering losses in the trade process. In such situations...