Social commerce

Actually, I don’t use social commerce and don’t know well. But I heard and saw many social commerce advertisement and people’s experiences. It seems nice for all people who want to buy something because social commerce sites give the discount coupons. However, I got useful information from the presenters in this week. So I would like to write about merit and demerit of social commerce.

Most advantage is that we can buy something cheaply when using the social commerce compare with other shopping mall. It’s very good for people because most items price increased up so people also like this kinds of site. They also give various kinds of coupons such as restaurant, concert ticket and so on. We also can buy some items cheaply in a mall but it doesn’t give restaurant or museum ticket so many people use this sites. Moreover, another advantage is easy way. People can find coupons and other information about product by using the smart phone. We also able to compare price, taste of some restaurant with others. It’s definitely useful for people.

Despite the advantages, there is also disadvantages exists. Most social commerce sites register any seller with their partner without strict check or evaluation. It causes problems to buyer. Some sellers sold fake products like genuine. Like this situation, most people will be cheated by some sellers if social commerce don't make strict rules. Other problem is poor service. Some people want to use restaurant coupon but they were very disappointed because the restaurant were crowded so they have to wait and besides taste of food is not good and owner was unkind to customers.

As you read this social commerce is not perfect shopping way, nevertheless it’s so useful to the people because every item’s price increased except people’s income. I also will use social commerce. So we should use more reliable sites and social commerce sites also should make strict rules about product of sellers.    

Power bloggers

      Today, there are many bloggers write various kind of things on their blog. It is natural situation. Anyone can make their space on website if they join the blog or social network site. We can write any kinds of post because these sites are so personal space. We can post our interest, political opinion and so on. Actually, I also have my blog but I usually don’t write something although I got lots of information from other people’s blog.

Definitely, Blog is so useful to the people. We can get a lot of information from the blog. In my case, I usually search about music, sports, and movie. I found many things very easily from some blogs just tipping key word on search engine sites like Google. For example, I really like baseball and soccer but I don’t have enough time to watch all games because I recently busy. However, very kindly some power bloggers posted summarize of the match, records and even highlight videos. They also posted my favorite teams or players news. It’s so useful to me because that team is Spain team and of course I don’t know Spanish language.        

Even though, some useful side of blog there are bad effects of blog. I knew about it from the presenters. Some power bloggers post some company’s product. They praised and promoted that product then some people bought it after they read power bloggers post. They usually trust the power bloggers because blogger look like professional or early adopter. Most serious problem is that most power bloggers are amateur. They are not expert even if they know somewhat and have more information about their interests compare ordinary people.

Nevertheless, some problems of power bloggers most blog sites are useful. So we don’t have to believe easily some post. Also blog sites should be punished if their bloggers break the law or write illegal things. In addition, the Government should strengthen the internet regulations. I hope that no more people are deceived by some power bloggers. 

The credit Loan service

People use the Loan service if they need money. They usually use Credit Loan service because Credit loan lenders only access borrower credit rating without their collateral. We can borrow money from commercial bank but it’s difficult so most poor people borrow from private lenders. There are many private lenders in Korea. Most of them are from Japan. They lend money with high interest rate and if you borrow money from them your credit rating would go down.

There are three kind ways of credit loan service Private lending company, Bank, Savings Bank. First way is Private lenders. They have grown rapidly after IMF financial crisis because government removed law of restriction 25% annual interest rate. Private lenders have aggressively expanded market by advertisement. Japanese private lending companies have rushed in Korea after Government has allowed regally private lending business in 2002. Other way is Bank. We should have high credit rating if we want borrow money and borrowing limit is lower than private lenders. However, interest rate is much lower than private lenders. So why does difficult to borrow from bank? Commercial bank has huge capital and demand because of low interest rate. They don’t need to business aggressively even take risk. They also have to maintain healthy banking credit rating by reducing the risk.Savings bank belongs to nonmonetary institutions. In generally, this is financial mediation institution for money supply.Another way is Savings bank. Savings bank more accesses people credit rating than private lenders. Savings bank more accesses people credit rating than private lenders. Commonly, interest rate is higher than commercial bank. 

Total amount of loan exceed about 800 trillion won in this September and total interest rate is about 56 trillion won. This is serious problem because people’s incomes are raised less but most lenders raised interest rate high. It would cause economic recession because people would spend less. So the superior of the Financial Supervisory service made plans. That will reduce various kinds of interest rates such as student loan, commission of the ATM machine and credit card. He emphasized that commercial banks should relax regulation of credit loan. I totally agree his opinion. Many people want to borrow money from commercial bank. They have to share people pains when they suffered economic problems.  

Wedding custom in Korea

Today, happy wedding is became a difficult mission in Korea. Many young people want to achieve that but reality is not. Many people who have a partner for marriage face some problems before get married. They can’t get married only their mind or love because of exist many problems. They have to prepare house or other things and they also have to understand each other family members. Some people said that marriage isn’t just union of men and women, It’s union of each other family.

Differently as I mentioned, It’s also difficult to find well suited spouse if you don’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend. In this case, we used matchmaker. This way also has a problem. Most young people want to marry with their real love. My parents actually met by matchmaker. They don’t had huge expectation to each other and also don’t need much money at that time. At first, they don’t know each other well but as times goes by they are getting to know each other and finally bought a house in the Seoul. But this way has changed. Many matchmaking sites estimate people’s job, wealth or educational background. After that many people are looking for good background of spouse without personality or their values. In my opinion, most TV dramas have responsibility of this problem. These dramas don’t reflect our reality. They usually cover almost the rich people’s story so some young people have wrong expectation of marriage.   

Most serious problem is money. Marriage needs a lot of money. It gives to heavy burden for young people. In general, Man prepared the house and women prepare the other things such as furniture, electronics and home appliances in Korea. But I think that it is impossible to get a house for ordinary young men who want to live in the Seoul because of overinflated house prices. Furthermore, lease price is also high so they need a household loan. Besides, childcare expanse is also expensive. I think that many young people hesitate to marry because of these reasons. Government should lower housing prices and allocate more money to childcare expenses.

English education

Most students spend many times to study English even though university students like me. I am also studying English many times. English education is regarded important in Korea. Sometimes, I can’t understand this situation because even most elementary or middle school students were forced to study English hard. Besides, their parents spend a lot of money. Some parents live only without their children and spouse.

Why this atmosphere is caused in Korea? English is considered alike important like mathematic, history or literature when I was high school student. I also spent same times to study other subject and regarded important. But some years later, English is become most important class in Korea. Most students aim to high score of the Scholastic ability test because they want to entrance a good University. The high level of Universities only evaluates some subjects like English or mathematics. So most students never study some subjects like history or science.

Furthermore, English is more important to get a good job. Many university students are trying to get high score of English test because many companies want good score or level of English to their applicant. Most students have to spend their time and money to study English even their major. If we have a high score of English test, we can make a good chance for getting a good job. In contrast of this, most office worker thought that they don’t need to speak or write English in their task because they actually never use their English ability. In spite of reason for globalization, this situation is Ironic.

In my case, I like to study English. I hope to improve my speaking and writing ability of English. But I think that it’s severe to someone those who don’t want to study English, very young students or their parents. So I hope that we’ll change English education to right and practical way.

        

Street Vendor

Street vendors sold various kinds products. We used to buy to these at a low price but government is demonstrating most street stalls. All of the nation’s local government does this besides, the Seoul for a long time. There are some problems and opinions of this topic.

Some areas street vendors are protesting still now but some street vendors reached an agreement with the local government.

There are two ways of examples of removal. First is forced removal by government. Government contracted many security service companies. The security company employees use violence and demonstrated street stalls. The number of the security service companies increased to about thousand before five years ago. Now there are three thousand five hundred companies. This is caused by intense competition among the security companies and government wants quick demolition. But this way caused conflicts between government and street vendors even though resolve the problems so some politicians proposed a bill about this but it hasn’t much progressed yet.

On the other side of this removal, there is a different type of removal. Street vendors and the Korea highway corporation reached an agreement with peaceful way. All the street stalls were removed which occupied in the Expressway rest areas of all over the country. Hi-shop will replace former street stall. They made new a thousand hundred fifty parking areas and use this area for women and the disabled person. They expected 2 to 5 billion won from the hi-shop a year which they couldn’t collect the tax from street vendors. Despite this agreement, there is complaint about this. The street vendors were originally illegal seller but the Korea highway corporation gave the right of permission to them so the seller who originally sold some products in the building were still damaged their sales income.

I learned and found various opinions and thinking of current situation about this during preparing this presentation. Street vendor is not minor problem to us. There are still many street stalls in all over the country. Most of them are poor people so government should find proper solution for this problem. I hope that they don’t use any violent way even though they are illegal. And street vendors also should pay tax to the government.

Monopoly and Oligopoly

This week, Monopoly and Oligopoly presentation attracted my attention. I always worried about this topic and Presenters gave some information to us. It’s so useful to me. There are many problems caused from most major companies and the government. They are dominating various kinds of market. Most companies fix the price in collusion that makes it hard for consumers.

The most serious problem is high price of products. They are increasing the price without consumer opinion and improved quality. For example, most groceries, gasoline price and so on. I don't understand why government couldn't control this situation but I guess government got some profits. Government only gave some business permission to large company like telecom service and tobacco business. This is the biggest reason for monopoly and oligopoly.

The companies which have the permission are growing too highly and earn much money. Despite the growth of large companies, most people couldn’t receive a better service than ever.  In my case, my home paid overcharge to company of telephone service. They added some service without detailed explanation to my mom and we paid a lot of money to the company almost for 8 years. I complained about this and required refund our money but they didn’t want to that. I continuously complained by showing evidence. Eventually, they gave refund to us without any apology. As shown this case, they ignore consumer opinion or feeling. I really don’t understand their attitude for consumer.  

Government should change monopoly and oligopoly. People want competition among the companies. If there are many competitions in various industries, people can get a better service and buy some products at reasonable price. Government prevented importing other countries smart phone until just a few years ago. Finally, smart phones of foreign companies imported and Korean phone companies competed with them and then the quality of phone and also service is better. It’s not only good for consumer but companies because they could improve their technology of products.   

The Jeju naval project

           Last week, our group member Jung Wee presented this topic. The Jeju Island is famous tourist attraction in Korea. There are many beautiful things and place to see. Actually, I never have been there but I Know that the Jeju Island is so important place to Korea because of several reasons.

One of small village was selected for a new naval base in Korea in 2007. The village name is Kang-Jung where is in the Jeju Island. Originally, the other villages were selected for naval base but many residents strongly opposed this decision. Most Kang-jung villages residents also don’t want to that their village was selected new naval base because of security risk from other countries which can’t avoid. There was open vote about new naval base in 2008. 94% of people opposed host naval base but Jesu Island and navy enforced this plan. So, most Kang-Jung people had damaged their mental at that time.

There are different opinions about this matter. Some people agree to host new naval base in this area because we need strong navy power to protect ourselves from other countries. Korea is always threatened by other countries so the government wants strong navy power. And the other people agree that this area has a lot of natural resources. On the other hand, there are two important reasons for opposite to host a new naval base. First it may bring tension between U.S and China and other countries. The other reason is our environment. In front of the Kang-Jung’s sea is designated as a cultural heritage of the UNESCO.

           The Kang-Jung is complicated area. According to survey in 2006 to 2007, more than half of people agree to host a new naval base in the Jeju Island. I also agree with like them because North Korea always threatening to us and many young navy of south Korea were dead. We need not only strong military power, protect but also our environment of sea. So government and Korea people should think this matter seriously and find appropriate solution. 

Redevelopment

   I don't know exactly about this topic. I just heard about this some months ago.

There were shanty town and luxurious apartments which coexisted in Dogok-Dong of the Seoul. Presenters give more detailed information to us about the Gu-Ryong village.This town is irony area because it is in the Gang-NamGu of the seoul which is famous for high cost of housing prices.

   This town is representative shanty town in the Seoul. There are almost two thousand people live in this town. Most of them are still poor and don't have any house which they moving to somewhere. This town is still complicated place to solve some problems because of different situation between real owner and residents and government. Seoul city owns this place but most of residents are living here without any property rights nearly for 20 years. Even though, many complicated problems existed Seoul city wants to redevelop here. But some residents want any compensations like money or new house although they don't have the any rights.

   Recently I read an article about that the president of this area was arrested because he embezzled the some money of residents about 4 billion won. He said that he will give right to residency to the people if they give the money to him. It's really sad realistic to them. They couldn't receive any compensation when they suffered from the flood this summer. Our group members agreed that when presenters ask this question to us that should government compensate to them about flood disaster. The government should compensate to anything them because flood is natural disaster. We can't avoid this disaster and they also have the rights. And my other opinion is that government has to rent new house to them at lower cost If Seoul city redevelops this area some times after.