Happy New Year!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog.

Have a healthy and blessed new year!

‘Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find peace for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’
Matt 11:28-30

Kyle Bass' Summary Of "Short-Japan" Thesis: Five Key Reasons Why Japan Is The Epicenter Of The World's Failed Monetary Policy Experiment

I have posted Kyle Bass’ take on Japan several times.  This is one of Bass’ better presentations.  Bass succinctly summarizes why the Japanese economy is going to collapse in the near future.  The Japanese policy actions led by the newly elected Japan’s PM, Abe would have a significant impact on the Korean economy (e.g., the weak Yen will hurt the Korean exports, etc).

What Bass didn’t address in this excellent presentation is the driving force behind Japan’s epic fall: Greed and corruption of the Japanese leaders.  They have been irresponsibly working against the interest of ordinary citizens.  The U.S. as well as Korea has been following the Japanese model in terms of fiscal/monetary policies to a certain extent.  That’s what concerns us.  The Korean leaders should heed the lesson of post bubble Japan.

From Zero Hedge:

In this excellent and much-requested summary 8-minute clip, Bass summarizes his Japan thesis and destroys several of the myths that talking-heads like to assign to the so-called widow-maker trade.



(h/t InformedTrades)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-26/annotated-kyle-bass-short-japan-thesis

U.S. Labor's Share of National Income

Asian mercantilist countries have built themselves up on Western demands.  The below chart indicates why their model is not holding up.  That’s why I keep emphasizing Korea needs to make the transition in its economic model.

From Jesse's Cafe:

... a chart from the Fed's database that shows the latest information on Labor's Share of National Income, which has declined to new postwar lows. 

A greater share of income has gone to those wielding capital.  This has not been positive for aggregate demand or the median wage.  The extractive efforts of the financial and healthcare cartels are taking their toll, slowly but surely.

Park Urges Chaebols To Share Growth With Community and Promises SMEs Support; 박 당선인 중소기업 대통령 되겠다

I sent President-elect Park Geun-hye my books (which I’m not so proud of, though.  One of the reasons I’m blogging here is to write better books) and let her know my blog address when I started blogging a few years back.  I’m not sure whether she has ever visited my blog since she is a super busy person.  At any rate, what she said in the below articles when she met with the leaders of the Korean SMEs and chaebols echoes what I have said all along on this blog: the need for a balanced economy, the transition of an economic model, the solid middle class leading to a democratic progress, SMEs being the engine of hiring, chaebols’ moral obligation to the Korean society, etc.)  I’m so delighted that she said she would become a president of SMEs (I believe this means she would be a president of the most people, not a chosen few) and would expand the middle class up to 70%.  If she really delivers what she has promised, she would be remembered as a greatly revered president ever in the Korean history.  I’m sure her late father, former President Park Chung-hee  would be so proud of her.  Heaven help her.

From Yonhap:

South Korean President-elect Park Geun-hye urged the country's big business leaders Wednesday to share their firms' growth with the larger community in what appeared to be a demonstration of her pledge to carry out economic reform.

The 60-year-old candidate of the ruling conservative Saenuri Party was elected president last week after campaigning on the pledge to rein in the economic dominance of family-owned conglomerates known as "chaebol" in Korean.

In her first series of meetings with business leaders since the election, Park stressed her resolve to balance the economy between the haves and the have-nots.

"I believe big businesses to a large extent belong to the people because their growth came about with the support and sacrifices of the people as well as considerable state support," she told a a meeting with business chiefs at the Federation of Korean Industries, the nation's largest business lobby.

"That is why I believe the goal of conglomerates shouldn't rest at maximizing a firm's profits but should be aimed towards shared growth with the entire community," she added.

Chaebol have been credited with driving the country's economic growth in recent decades by spearheading exports, but critics accuse them of hurting smaller companies and widening the income disparity gap through their market domination and concentration of wealth.

Park also asked the business leaders to refrain from layoffs and restructuring in times of an economic crisis, and urged them to protect the business rights of mom-and-pop stores by staying away from local commercial areas.

"Big businesses should compete with global foreign companies," she said.

At an earlier meeting with representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises, the president-elect said she would shift the economy from one that relies heavily on the exports of large conglomerates to one in which both big and small firms co-exist. Economic growth, she added, should be driven by both exports and domestic demand.

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2012/12/26/62/0301000000AEN20121226007400315F.HTML

머니투데이로부터:

"중소기업 대통령이 되겠다고 해서 제가 제일 먼저 왔다"(중소기업중앙회 방문)
"대기업도 좀 변화해주시길 바란다"(전국경제인연합회 방문)

중소기업과 대기업을 바라보는 박근혜 대통령 당선인의 시각은 너무나 대조적이었다. 향후 국정운영에 있어 민생을 가장 우선시하는 정책을 펴면서 '박근혜식 대기업 개혁'에 나설 것이란 전망이 나온다.

박 당선인은 26일 오전 당선 후 첫 정책행보로 중소기업중앙회와 전경련을 잇달아 방문했다. 첫 번째로 찾은 곳은 대기업이 아닌 중소기업의 이익을 대변하는 곳이었다. 뒤 이어 소상공인들도 만났다. 역대 대통령 당선인이 경제5단체 중 중기중앙회를 가장 먼저 찾은 것은 이번이 처음이다.

박 당선인은 이 곳 회장단과의 티타임에서도 "중소기업 대통령이 되겠다고 해서 제가 제일 먼저 왔다"며 "'9988'(전체 기업 중 중소기업 수가 99%이고 전체 근로자 중 중소기업 종사자가 88%라는 의미) 이라고 하니 더 말할 필요 없다"고 애정을 드러냈다.

그러면서 "경제가 살려면 중소기업인인 여러분이 잘돼야 한다"며 "제가 드린 약속 중에 가장 큰 약속 중 하나인 중산층 70% 끌어올리기는 중소기업인과 소상공인이 중심이 된 이야기"라고 말했다.

인사말을 통해서도 "이제는 중소기업이 경제의 조연이 아니라 당당한 주연으로 거듭나도록 꼭 만들겠다"며 "대기업 수출에 의존하는 외끌이 경제 성향이었다면 이제는 대기업과 중소기업이 같이, 수출·내수가 함께 가는 쌍끌이로 가야 한다"고 말했다. 아울러 "여러분이 힘들어하시는 대기업과의 관계에 있어서도 확실하게 고칠 것은 고치겠다"며 대기업의 부당한 납품단가 인하, 기술 탈취, 중소기업 영역 침해 등의 확실한 근절을 약속했다.

예정보다 30분 늦게 전경련회관을 방문한 박 당선인의 태도는 중소 기업인들을 대할 때와 사뭇 달랐다. 대기업 회장단과의 티타임에서 "미래 성장 동력과 일자리를 만드는 투자는 적극적으로 지원하겠다"면서도 "대기업도 좀 변해주시길 바란다"며 강도 높은 주문을 하기 시작했다.

박 당선인은 "지금과 같은 대기업으로 성장하기까지는 많은 국민의 뒷받침과 희생이 있었고 국가지원도 많았기 때문에 국민기업의 성격도 크다"며 "대기업들의 경영목표가 단지 회사의 이윤 극대화에 머물러서는 안되고 우리 공동체 전체와의 상생을 추구해야 한다"고 강조했다.

http://news.mt.co.kr/mtview.php?no=2012122614381288851&MS

BOJ Holdings of JGBs Exceed 100 Trillion Yen for First Time; JPY Drops To 27-Month Low As Abe Front-Running Continues

Japan has engaged in debt monetization and fiscal stimulus for the last two decades, yet it hasn’t worked.  Despite that, BOJ and the US FED are now committed to printing money indefinitely.   We are greatly concerned that this is going to end badly (currency crisis, etc).

From Bloomberg:

The Bank of Japan holdings of the government’s bonds exceeded 100 trillion yen ($1.2 trillion) for the first time, raising the risk that yields will jump on perceptions that it is financing public spending.

The central bank held 104.9 trillion yen of the debt at the end of September, 11.1 percent of all government bonds, a quarterly central bank report showed today in Tokyo. The BOJ said it was the highest on record. Bond holdings by foreign investors rose to a record 9.1 percent.

The BOJ yesterday expanded its asset purchase program for the fifth time this year, with half of the 10 trillion-yen increase to be spent on JGBs. Incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants more central-bank action to defeat deflation and has pledged fiscal stimulus to stoke growth, even as he’s constrained by the world’s largest public debt.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-21/boj-holdings-of-jgbs-exceed-100-trillion-yen-for-first-time.html

From Zero Hedge:

Slowly but surely, USDJPY has moved back above 85.50 to its highest (weakest JPY) in 27 months as the threat promise of central bank intervention has once again created more front-running. With the market attempting to price in Abe's extravagance, we wonder just how much bang for the buck his 'actions' will create when words are not enough. Will Abe 2.0 be the same as OMT, QE3, and QE4 with the event actually constituting the 'top' or peak impact? Critically though, once Japan actually formalizes what it will do, which will be limited by how much rates can rise on bonds before all government revenue is used to fund cash interest, JPY will spike again, facilitated by the record short-interest (per CoT data). More curious is which Goldman alum will be appointed as the head of the BoJ once Shirakawa's term expires in March. As Bloomberg noted this morning, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, during a speech in Tokyo this morning, the "next BoJ Governor will be a person who shares Abe’s views."

USDJPY weakest in 27 months...



and the JGB curve is starting to look a little out of control...



Charts: Bloomberg

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-26/jpy-drops-27-month-low-abe-front-running-continues

Why Korea’s Manufacturing Share Of Total Employment Has Dwindled (왜 한국 제조 일자리는 쇠퇴해 왔는가)

As one can see in the below chart, Korea’s manufacturing share of total employment has also fallen, following an inverted U pattern.  This has been associated with the decline of Korea’s middle class.

Why has this happened?  The causes are multifaceted.  Technological advancement and currency/labor arbitrage are among them.  The global production cycle comes full circle.  Global capitalistic forces are one factor.  Korea’s rapid economic success had been possible in large part due to its unique relationship with the U.S.  So had Japan and China.  In this context, the Asian mercantilist economic growth model was flawed from the start and bound to hit the wall at some point, as discussed many times.

Besides those factors, Korea’s policy failure such as blowing financial bubbles and letting chaebols shift its manufacturing overseas is the important equation.  Corporate greed is another crucial factor.  While some chaebols have become the global brands, Korea’s productive capacity has dwindled.  I have stressed that this issue should be at the heart when discussing any reforms re chaebols.  What it all boils down to is their social consideration and moral choice given the Korean government’s backing from their early days.

Hence, boosting Korea’s manufacturing jobs requires holistic and integrated solutions.  Quality manufacturing jobs and wellbeing of a nation go hand in hand.  They lead to the solid middle class base which is the backbone of Korea’s democracy, and productive capacity is the wealth of a nation.

박근혜 대통령 당선인이 미래창조과학부를 신설하여 국가의 중장기 성장전략을 짜고, 신기술 개발이 좋은 일자리 창출로 이어지게 정책적 지원을 제공하게 된다고 한국 언론들이 보도하고 있다.  염려되는 점은 여려 면에서 현대는 아버지 시대와는 매우 다르다는 것(이미 이 블로그에서 여러 번 논의되었듯이), 국가가 주도적으로 직접적인 interventions을 통해 특정산업을 육성하기 보다는 장기적인 안목에서 기술혁신과 기업가 정신이 번성할 수 있게 전반적인 mechanism과 infrastructure를 구축하는 간접적인 정책을 펼쳐야 한다는 것이다.  물론 미국도 국가적으로 육성하는 기술분야가 있지만 이는 상당부분이 군사기술과 연결되어 있다는 것이다.(물론 많은 미국인들도 신기술개발을 통한 일자리 창출을 기대하고 있지만 현재로선 요원한 얘기이다)  간단한 예로 자본력과 한국에서 가장 우수한 기술인력을 보유한 삼성도 온갖 방법을 다 동원해도 결국 catch up 전략으로 승부를 하고 있는데, 미국도 기술혁신에 어려움을 겪고 있는 신기술분야를 과연 관이 개입해서 한국의 열악한 기술인재 인프라를 가지고 또한 예산 분배 과정과 실행에서 온갖 이권이 개입할 텐데 이게 여태까지의 전례로 봐서 가능할 가를 심사 숙고해야 할 것이다.  한국이 휴대폰산업의 집중육성 같은 성공사례가 있다고 얘기하지만 실제로 그 혜택이 장기적인 관점에서 국민들에게 돌아가진 않았다는 점도 염두에 두어야 할 것이다.  우리가 산업기반이 부족하여 catch up 전략이 유효하게 작용했던 산업발전 초창기에는 관주도의 집중기술육성이 주효했지만 이 접근방식은 또한 폐해도 나았다는 점도 고려해야 할 것이다.  새 대통령께서 전자공학과 출신으로 누구보다도 과학기술발전을 통한 국가의 부 창출에 관심이 있으시고 이 블로그의 핵심 주제도 이러할진대 많은 요소들을 고려하여 한국이 transition해야 할 경제 모델의 밑그림을 그리시고 이에 맞는 과학기술육성에 대한 비전을 도출해 내시고 구체적인 정책을 수립해 나가시기를 진심으로 바란다.

From Zero Hedge:

 

Source: McKinsey

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-21/why-manufacturing-jobs-are-not-coming-back

Hedrick Smith: Who Stole the American Dream?

From Jesse's Cafe:

"Pulitzer Prize winner Hedrick Smith’s new book is an eye-opening account of how, over the past four decades, the American Dream has been dismantled and we became two Americas.

This is a book full of surprises and revelations—the accidental beginnings of the 401(k) plan, with disastrous economic consequences for many; the major policy changes that began under Jimmy Carter; how the New Economy disrupted America’s engine of shared prosperity, the “virtuous circle” of growth, and how America lost the title of “Land of Opportunity.”

Smith documents the transfer of $6 trillion in middle-class wealth from homeowners to banks even before the housing boom went bust, and how the U.S. policy tilt favoring the rich is stunting America’s economic growth.

This book is essential reading for all of us who want to understand America today, or why average Americans are struggling to keep afloat.

Smith reveals how pivotal laws and policies were altered while the public wasn’t looking, how Congress often ignores public opinion, why moderate politicians got shoved to the sidelines, and how Wall Street often wins politically by hiring over 1,400 former government officials as lobbyists."

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.kr/2012/12/hedrick-smith-who-stole-american-dream.html

Michael Hudson: The Financialization of the Economy

From Jesse's Cafe:

I enjoyed this recent essay by Michael Hudson. It is a nice overview of the financialization process, and how the economic hitmen, who had ravaged the Third World, started coming home.

Of course I do not necessarily agree with everything in it. But the things he says make some real sense, and provide a balance to the prevailing economic mythos, and some would say propaganda, that comes out of the mainstream media in support of the financialization process.

Reality economics

December 19, 2012

By Michael Hudson

A review of Norbert Häring and Niall Douglas, Economists and the Powerful (London: Anthem Press, 2012).

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”

And if they would destroy economies, they first create a wealthy class on top, and let human nature do the rest. The acquisition of power soon leads to its abuse, to economic and social hubris. By seeking to protect its gains, perpetuate itself and make its wealth hereditary, power elites lock in their position in ways that exclude and injure those below. Turning government into an oligarchy, the wealthy indebt and shift the tax burden onto the less powerful.

It is an ancient tale. The Greeks got matters right in seeing how power leads to hubris, bringing about its own downfall. Hubris is the addiction to wealth and power, an arrogant over-reaching that involves injury to others. By impoverishing economies it destroys the source of profits, interest, capital gains, and even recovery of the original savings and debt principal.

This abusive character of wealth and power is not what mainstream economic models describe. That is why economic theory is broken. The concept of diminishing marginal utility implies that the rich will become more satiated as they become wealthier, and hence less addicted to power. This idea of progressive satiation returns gets the direction of change wrong, denying the basic thrust of the past ten thousand years of human technology and civilization.

Today’s supply and demand approach treats the economy as a “market” in a crudely abstract way, as quantities of goods (already produced), labor (with a given productivity) and capital (already accumulated, no questions asked) are swapped and bartered with each other. This approach does not inquire deeply into how some people get the capital to “swap” for “labor.” To top matters, this approach gets the direction of technological growth and basic business experience wrong, by assuming conditions of diminishing returns and diminishing marginal utility. The intellectual result is a parallel universe, whose criterion for economic excellence is merely the internal consistency of its abstract assumptions, not their realism.  (Life imitates models lol - Jesse)

Häring and Douglas show that the economics discipline did not get this way by accident. They are leading organizers of the World Economic Association, which emerged from the Post-Autistic-Economic movement intended to provide an alternative to mainstream neoclassical and neoliberal economics. (Häring is co-editor of the World Economic Review.)

Toward this end they provide a wealth of references tracing how economics was turned into a propaganda exercise for financiers, landlords, monopolists, insiders, fraudsters and other rent-seeking predators whom classical economists sought to tax and regulate out of existence. This state of affairs reflects the century-long drive of these free lunchers to fight back against classical economics by sponsoring self-serving fictions that depict them as earning their fortunes not in predatory and extractive ways, but by contributing to output as “job creators.”

Any given distribution of wealth and income is treated as an equilibrium reflecting voluntary choice, without examining the organizational and social structures of workplace hiring, production and distribution. The authors provide an antidote to this tunnel vision by pointing to the real invisible hands at work: insider dealing, anti-labor and anti-union maneuvering, and outright looting and fraud. What they mean by power is employers hiring strikebreakers, lobbying for special favors and insider deals, and backing the election campaigns of lawmakers pledged to act on behalf of the 1%.

Criticizing the textbook theory of the firm, they point out that that most production has increasing returns. Unit costs fall as fixed capital investment is spread over more output. As a producer with nearly zero marginal cost, for instance, Microsoft obtains a rising intellectual property rent on each program sold. On an economy-wide level, raising the minimum wage would enable most firms to benefit from increasing returns, by increasing demand.

Firms use political leverage to make sure that anti-labor referees are appointed to the courts and arenas that arbitrate disputes about employment, working conditions and firing. Capital-intensive industries outsource low-skill jobs to small-scale providers using non-union labor. Privatizing public utilities also aims largely at breaking labor union power. Marginalist supply and demand theory implies that each additional worker that is hired increases wage rates, prompting business to oppose full employment policies in order to keep wages low, even though this limits the market for their output.

So technology and diminishing terms are not the reason why wages have been pressed down – or why financial and other non-production costs have been rising for most Western economies. These cost increases are headed by debt charges for leveraged buyouts and corporate raiding, plus CEO salaries, bonuses and stock options. Labor also faces high costs of living as a result of the soaring mortgage debt taken on to obtain housing, student loan debt to obtain an education as a precondition for middle-class employment, and credit-card debt to maintain consumption standards, and rising wage withholding for Social Security and Medicare as taxes become regressive.

This personal debt service (including housing costs) and various taxes absorb more than two-thirds of the typical paycheck. So even if workers did not have to buy any of the goods and services they produce – food, clothes and other basic consumer needs – they still could not compete with labor in less financialized and debt-ridden economies.

At the corporate level, financial engineering is more about raising stock prices than new tangible capital investment. Even this is not being done in ways that serve stockholders’ long-term interest or that of the economy at large. Häring and Douglas give a scathing review of “motivating” managers by paying them in stock options. Managers maximize the value of these options by spending corporate revenue on stock buy-backs instead of new direct investment to expand their business. Even worse, companies borrow to buy their stock or even to pay out as dividends to bid up its price. The “capital” in this gain is financial, not industrial. It also turns out to be anti-labor, as loading companies down with debt enables corporate raiders use the threat of bankruptcy to demand pension downgrades and wage givebacks.  The problem with financial planning is its short hit-and-run time frame aiming at extracting income rather than taking the time to invest in new production and develop markets. Concealing this short-termism with Enron-style “mark to model” accounting fictions, managers take the money and run, leaving bankrupt shells in their wake.

Debt leveraging is encouraged by taxing asset-price gains at much lower rates than earnings (wages and profits), and permitting interest to be tax-deductible. This fiscal subsidy is by no means an inherent feature of markets. It reflects the financial sector’s capture of tax policy, along with regulatory capture to disable the government’s oversight so as to make fortunes by deregulating, privatizing, and popularizing the idea that economies can get rich by going into debt. Neoliberal doctrine demonizes government as the only power able to regulate and tax unearned income and prosecute fraud. This inverts the idea of free markets away from the classical meaning of markets free from unearned economic rent, to connote today’s arena free for predatory rentiers.

This strategy is capped by the power to censor. The misleading and deceptive depiction of the economy drawn by financiers, real estate speculators and monopolists is careful to conceal their own behavior from sight. This is the ultimate power of today’s mainstream economics: to shape how people perceive the economy. The starting point is to distract the public from noticing (and hence regulating or taxing) the real-world power structures at work. They prefer to make themselves invisible, above all the financial power to indebt the economy. It is by financial means, after all, that finance has shifted economic planning out of the hands of government to Wall Street and similar banking centers abroad.

Lobbyists for the 1% popularize a view that today’s economy is a fair and indeed natural inevitable product of Darwinian evolution. As Margaret Thatcher put it: There Is No Alternative (TINA). This narrow-mindedness is enforced by a censorial policy: “If the eye offend thee, pluck it out.” Häring and Douglas describe the academic process of weeding out any offending eyes that might introduce more realism when it comes to predatory behavior and rent seeking.

The prime directive is to depict financial planning as better than that of public agencies. In contrast to the Progressive Era’s endorsement of public infrastructure keeping costs down so as to better compete in global markets, the financial sector seeks to privatize public enterprises – on credit, preferably at distress prices to create new fortunes. The task of today’s mainstream economics, as the authors describe it, is to distract attention away from Balzac was more realistic, in observing that behind every family fortune lay a great, usually long-forgotten theft.

They focus on domestic power rather than spelling out the international dimension of how economic power is wielded. The IMF, U.S. Government and European Union bureaucracy wield foreign-debt leverage to impose the neoliberal Washington Consensus. This is how the European “troika” imposes austerity on Greece to replace democratic government with “technocrats” whose policies serve the 1% in today’s class war. This path leads in due course to the targeted assassinations by which the Chicago Boys imposed their kleptocratic “free market” on Chile under Pinochet, elaborated by Operation Condor assassinating labor leaders, land reformers and Liberation Theology priests and nuns throughout Latin America and in the United States itself. But I can understand that the authors evidently decided that they had to draw the line between economics and its military tactic somewhere, focusing on the economic core itself.

Finance has become the modern mode of warfare. It is cheaper to seize land by foreclosure rather than armed occupation, and to obtain rights to mineral wealth and public infrastructure by hooking governments and economies on debt than by invading them. Financial warfare aims at what military force did in times past, in a way that does not prompt subject populations to fight back – as long as they can be persuaded to accept the occupation as natural and even helpful. After indebting countries, creditors lobby to privatize natural monopolies and create new monopoly rights for themselves....

Read the entire essay here.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.kr/2012/12/michael-hudson-financialization-of.html

David Collum: 2012 Year In Review - Free Markets, Rule of Law, And Other Urban Legends

David Collum is a Chemistry professor at Cornell University.

From Zero Hedge:

Presenting Dave Collum's now ubiquitous and all-encompassing annual review of markets and much, much more. From Baptists, Bankers, and Bootleggers to Capitalism, Corporate Debt, Government Corruption, and the Constitution, Dave provides a one-stop-shop summary of everything relevant this year (and how it will affect next year and beyond).

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-22/2012-year-review-free-markets-rule-law-and-other-urban-legends

"And God said, Let there be light, and there was light."
Genesis 1:3

올해도 함께 해 주셔서 감사합니다.  힘이 되는 선물보다 큰 선물은 없거든요. 기쁘고 따스한 성탄 되시길 바랍니다.

Merry Christmas to all!

Park Geun-hye Wins South Korea’s Presidential Election; 박근혜 대통령 당선인과 안철수 전 후보에게 거는 기대와 바램

 우선 박근혜 대통령 당선인께 축하의 말씀을 드리고 싶다. 그 여정이 결코 쉽지 않았고 갑작스런 고 이춘상보좌관의 서거에 처음으로 매스컴에 눈물까지 보이실 정도로 힘든 과정이었는데 잘 극복하고 당선되셨다.  하늘에서 돌아가신 부모님께서도 대견하시면서도 한편으론 앞으로 다시 많은 시련과 어려움을 겪어내야 하기에 안쓰러운 마음으로 지켜보시리라.

박 당선인은 현충원 방명록에 새로운 변화와 개혁으로 새 시대를 열겠다고 썼다.  많은 공약을 했는데 경제와 관련해 중산층 강화, 고용률 제고, 재벌 개혁 등이 들어있다.  한국은 외환위기 때보다 더 어려운 상황이다.  이 블로그에서 많이 논의되었듯이 그때는 그래도 세계경제가 붐이었기 때문에 수출을 계속할 수 있었는데, 지금은 상황이 다르다.  전세계 경제가 어려워 “Kicking the can” 정책을 통해 간신히 버티고 있지만 많은 헤지펀드 매니저들과 trader들은 거듭해서 시간의 문제이지 결국 implode할 것으로 예견하고 있다.  우리가 모델로 삼아온 일본경제도 이미 20여년간의 recession 끝에 final Rubicon을 건넜다는 전문가들의 분석이 있을 만큼 어렵다. 일본의 새로운 수상 아베는 이미 원화와의 currency war를 선언한 상태이다.

박 당선인은 여러 면에서 아버지인 고 박정희대통령의 legacy로부터 자유로울 수가 없다.  많은 분들이 그 시대의 장점은 살리고 오류는 시정했음은 하는 바램을 가지고 있는 것은 당연해 보인다.  그 시대의 경제모델은 더 이상 working하지 않으므로 (이미 여러 번 논의되었듯이 예를 들어 그 당시에 한국은 global production cycle의 right timing에 있었으나, 현재는 currency/labor arbitrage advantage를 잃고 있고, global imbalance는 correct 되어야 하는 등등) 새로운 mechanism으로의(domestic consumption, household 중심의) transition이 시급한데 이는 결코 만만치 않은 과제이다(예를 들어 구모델의 key drivers를 포기해야 하는 개혁도 수반해야 하므로).  이러한 큰 틀에서 institutional arrangements를 구축해 나가셔야 하리라.  아버지 시대의 excessive government interventions는 corruption, injustice, inefficiency를 낳은 측면도 크고 무엇보다도 개인적 gain을 위해 권력을 남용하는 oligarchies (bureaucratic, corporate elites등)를 형성했다.  이는 오늘날까지 지속되어 긍정적인 변화와 개혁, 또 개개인의 civil liberty를 저해하고 민주주의를 hinder하는 주된 culprit이 되고 있다.  이를 바꾸는 게 가장 힘든 일이 되지 않을까 싶다.  어떤 쇄신 안을 내놓을 때보다 이들은 자기의 이익에 반한다면 거센 반발과 방해를 할 것이 뻔하기 때문이다. 새누리당을 이탈한 많은 보수주의자들은 the established power structure의 greed, corruption에 실망한 측면이 크다.  아마도 고 박대통령께서도 하늘에서 그 당시에 달리 했으면 좋았을텐데라고 후회하시는 일이 있을 것이고, 따님께서 더 좋은 정치를 구현하시길 간절히 바라고 있으리라.

박 당선인은 전자공학과를 졸업하셨고 과학기술정책에 관심이 크신 것으로 알고 있다.  결국 기술혁신도 그 목적이 broad social interest를 serve해야 한다는 큰 틀에서 정부가 주도적으로 winner와 loser를 pick up 하는 기존의 정책은 entrepreneurial spirit가 level playing field를 저해하므로 장기적으로 봤을 때 득보다 실이 크다는 것을 염두에 두셨으면 한다.  기술혁신이 flourish 할 수 있는 mechanism과 infrastructure를 건실하게 키우고 위험부담이 큰 신성장산업에 대해서는 indirect measures(예를 들어 세금 감면 등)를 통해 장려해야 할 것이다.  재벌위주의 기술정책이 trickle down effect가 거의 없었고 역시 중단기적으로는 유용했으나 장기적으로 국민의 행복과 삶의 질을 향상시키는데 많은 문제점을 드러냈다.  한국은 국가 R&D 예산으로 수조원을 투입하고 있지만 그 효과는 미미하다는 것도 알고 계시리라 본다.  노무현 정권 때도 정권초기에 전면적인 검토를 시도했으나 결국 손을 못 본 채 임기를 마감했다.  국가 혁신 체제의 올바른 resource allocation과 이에 대한 평가는 매우 중요하다 하겠다.  또한 과학기술정책의 성공은 한국 공대의 쇄신없이는 어렵다고 보여진다.

박 당선인께서는 선거유세 중 중산층 재건과 민생을 챙길 것을 약속하셨다.  중산층은 democracy의 근간이다.  Wealth inequality가 증가하면 그만큼 civil liberty는 lost됨을 역사는 보여주고 있다.  중산층 확대를 위해서는 일자리 창출이 중요한데 productive sector에서 양질의 일자리가 창출되고 유지되어야 할 것이다.  이런 맥락에서 재벌 개혁도 이미 이 블로그에서 여러 번 강조되었듯이 manufacturing의 해외 이전을 방지하는 게 급선무가 될 필요가 있어 보인다.  중소기업의 육성이 중요한 가장 큰 이유중의 하나도 engine of hiring이기 때문이다.  외환위기 이후 한국경제는 financialization되면서 제조산업은 서서히 쇠퇴의 길을 가고 있다.  이는 결국 한국 문화, 가치, 국민들도 commodification되고 있다는 얘기다.  이런 큰 맥락에서 real economy를 살려야 한다고 보여진다.

박 당선인에게는 MB정권에서 4대강 사업의 오류를 아시면서도 (측근인 이한구의원이 이는 강주변 부동산 버블을 일으키기 위한 것이라고 지적한 기사로부터 짐작할 수 있듯이) 이를 방치하데 대해 크게 실망했었다.(이 사업의 잘못된 consequence는 향후 수세대가 겪어야 할 지 모르는 큰 오류였으므로) 어제 뉴스에서 본인을 지지하지 않는 사람들로부터도 다양한 의견을 들으시겠다 하실 만큼 준비가 되어계시니 열린 마음으로 소통과 교감을 이어가시기를 바란다.  반드시 훌륭한 정치와 올바른 정책을 통한 국정운영을 하셔서 독재자의 딸이라고 여전히 비난하는 많은 이들에게까지도 존경받는 대통령으로서 역사에 남으시길 진심으로 바란다.  새 대통령에게 하늘의 은총과 가호가 함께 하심을 기도한다.

안철수 전후보에게 짧은 시간에 얼마나 많은 사람들이 관심과 애정, 기대를 가졌는 지는 아래의 기사에서도 나오듯이 본인도 잘 알고 계시는 듯 하다.  무엇보다도 moral imperatives를 지키기 위해 개인적 희생도 감수하지 않겠냐는 모습을 그에게서 발견했기 때문에 개인적으로 그의 행보에 주목하게 되었다.  아마도 미국에 머무르면서 다양한 구상을 하시겠지만 정권에의 의지보다 해야 할 더 중요한 일이 있을 지 모른다는 것을 염두에 두셨으면 한다.  Moral intellectual fortitude를 가지고 누가 정권을 잡던지 간에 두려워할, 잘못된 시스템을 바로 잡고 개혁할 수 있는 mechanism을 만드는 일도 중요하다고 본다.  이는 곧 경제와 민주주의를 발전시키는 길이 될 수 있기 때문이다.  이 일은 너무나 중요하고 시간이 걸리는 일이므로 한 세대에 끝나지 못하고 세대를 거쳐 계속되어야 할 지 모른다.  그러나 안 전후보가 이런 역할을 수행한다면 그는 어느 단임제 대통령보다 한국 사회에 기여하게 될 것으로 보인다.  앞으로의 그의 행보에 힘찬 응원을 보내며 현명한 선택을 통해 국민과 한 약속을 지키가시기를 바란다.

From Washington Post:

Park Geun-hye spent part of her childhood in South Korea’s presidential palace, raised by an autocratic father who seized power in a military coup 51 years ago. She returns now as the democratically elected president of a nation concerned about its slowing economy and mounting social problems.

With her narrow victory in Wednesday’s election, Park, 60, becomes an unlikely leader: She’s the first female president in a nation dominated by men, and she’s a conservative selected by voters to address their largely left-leaning wishes, including greater engagement with North Korea and a major expansion of government welfare spending.

She was also elected because she convinced South Korean voters that she could heal some of the scars of her father’s 18-year rule — a period of hypercharged economic growth, but also one in which dissenters were tortured, jailed and sometimes killed.

“I believe the nation’s passion to overcome crisis and revive the economy has brought this victory,” Park said during a late-night victory speech in downtown Seoul. “I will not forget your trust in me.”

The debate about Park’s family legacy revealed a generational rift. Park received overwhelming support from those 50 and older. Moon garnered votes from those in their 20s and 30s. The two fought over the middle ground — those in their 40s who remember the frenzied student protests for democracy in the 1980s, but who now worry about the soaring cost of educating their children, as well as the shrinking job market those children will face when they graduate.

South Korea has the world’s 15th-largest economy, but its boom days are over, with just 2.4 percent growth predicted this year by the central bank. That is far below the 7 percent growth promised by current President Lee Myung-bak, a conservative who five years ago laid out a raft of ambitious targets, none of them realized.

When Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, seized power in a 1961 military coup, the average South Korean earned $100 a year.

Park Chung-hee’s 18 years in power transformed South Korea. He was criticized for human rights violations, but he also created the blueprint for affluence, giving low-cost loans to big corporations and promising them government support. It was that cooperation that turned Samsung and Hyundai into giants.

When Park Geun-hye was 22, her mother was assassinated by North Korea-backed agents. She became de facto first lady for five years, a role that ended in 1979, when her father was assassinated by his intelligence chief. Park has never married and says she has devoted her life to her country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/park-geun-hye-leads-in-south-koreas-presidential-election/2012/12/19/783398d4-49e6-11e2-b6f0-e851e741d196_story.html

From Yonhap:

Former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo left for San Francisco hours after casting his vote in the presidential election Wednesday, saying he will contemplate a way to return the love of his supporters.

The 50-year-old founder of South Korea's largest anti-virus software firm, AhnLab, dropped out of the race last month after negotiations to merge candidacies with the main opposition candidate, Moon Jae-in, fell through.

The former liberal independent had posed a serious challenge to front-runner Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri Party, but a three-way race that included Moon of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) would have split the opposition vote and handed the victory to the conservative Park.

After months of soul-searching, he threw his hat into the ring in September on a pledge to push for political reform.

"I will now go back to the starting point and contemplate deeply over a way in which I can return that love."

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2012/12/19/45/0301000000AEN20121219006500315F.HTML