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South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

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Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#221

Post by Ceezy »

calmd wrote: post #36
sct202 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be hard to convince couples living in 1 bedroom apartments to cram in 2 kids just so that the country can hit replacement level fertility rates. Large urban cities just don't seem built for families, especially with the way that larger spaces are priced.

So urban cities are anti-child? Thus we will see cites change or depopulate? Does low fertility correlate with dense urban dwelling and sky high real-estate prices? I suspect it probably does, but I haven't seen any proof. Maybe this shift to remote-first work that happened over the last 18 months will help....

Exepnsive cities are tied to low birth rate not just cities. Lagos is a megalopolis but with good birthrate.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#222

Post by simmanian »

scbrg wrote: post #201
Balero wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hopefully just a temporary solution though. What happens when these places get rich enough that their birth rates also drop? To butcher an unrelated saying: "We can't all get immigrants from each other".

Perhaps we need to find another way to fuel the economy than the never ending pyramid scheme called population growth. At 8 billion (causing massive environmental damage) a drop in population would certainly not be a bad thing.

My hot take is that we need to find a new system that doesn't depend on perpetual economic growth. With both China and India rapidly developing (that's what, 3 billion people with money to spend), climate change will only accelerate until and unless we find an alternate model.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#223

Post by novok »

1-6 wrote: post #73
franhield wrote: post #61

South Korea is one of the leaders in technology and other fields. Also, they are one of the fastest internet providers in the whole world. The problem is that the country can truly unleash its untapped potential if the North and the South decided to unify under the leadership of the South.

Being a fast internet provider is all relative. If you only had to maintain the landmass equivalent to the state of Indiana, you can quickly upgrade everyone's infrastructure. The government also initially started the telecommunications projects, now they're all transitioned to the private sector. North and South Korea are complementary in economic capability. Some even go as far at to conclude that the reunification…

I don't think the land size argument really holds water. You can provide good internet in the top 10 major economic metros, and in aggregate that is a small landmass. And the USA has a very good bandwidth capacity at the data center level, so that is not a bottleneck either. It's purely political in the USA.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#224

Post by rossjudson »

dragonwriter wrote: post #214
spothedog1 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the US has a large labor shortage that predates covid in construction, agriculture, domestic work, scientists, engineers and more. If automation comes then great but the basic principals of more people in an economy means more demand for goods and services still applies.

> Except the US has a large labor shortage No, it has less labor supplied at current prices than purchasers would prefer. Market clearing quantity at current prices being less than buyers would prefer is...the normal case of a market economy. It's only a shortage if buyers paying more wouldn't increase market clearing quantity, because of some constraint besides “you haven't offered enough money to convince more peop…

I agree with you. The critical question here is, on a broad scale, whether the competitiveness of the American economy depends on lack of choice for low-wage workers. Example: The health insurance system reduces choice for workers, who are legitimately terrified of losing healthcare.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#225

Post by nostromo »

spothedog1 wrote: post #190
csomar wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Immigration has become an issue lately because a human (or a bare-human) is worth much less. 1.000 years ago a bare illiterate human had some considerable value. He could work in the field or he could fight. More humans, more food and production. More humans, more manpower to fight your enemies. Now a bare semi-educated human is a liability. Which is why most countries are refusing their entrance. Times h…

This is inaccurate. More people, even low skilled ones are still a huge benefit to your society. They buy goods and services in the local economy increasing demand and work tax paying jobs. Immigrants children grow up to greatly out earn their parents pay way more in taxes than they their parents. The only immigrant group that could be considered a liability are older low skilled workers who have passed the age to ha…

Their point is that is becoming less and less true and will likely be false soon. Most labor simply isn't worth as much as it used to be. This is evident in stagnant wages and the view of large families not as assets but as liabilities.

You can try to spur local demand by expanding your population (via birth or immigration) but what we really care about is GDP per capita. Most very populous countries are not wealthy.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#226

Post by pishpash »

calmd wrote: post #7

SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…

Why is it a tailspin? People do not have children because of over-population, except instead of this being controlled by Malthus, it is now controlled by Adam Smith's invisible hand. The market is signaling resource constraints and desires fewer humans and more robots.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#227

Post by closeparen »

babesh wrote: post #137
rjzzleep wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about South Korea, but looking at some other asian countries, there are a couple of things, I think the housing part falls into number 3 but is only a small part of the whole: 1. Having children without being married has a bunch of problems, and in some countries like singapore gets punished for it in lack of certain social services 2. Most of these societies expect women to work or have their husband ta…

I wonder if we need UBI to stabilize the birthrate. Basically if people have some assurance that their kids can be supported and have decent prospects in life then perhaps they will have more kids. Also, our big cities have evolved to serve adults vs children. We have a proliferation of services for adults: sit in restaurants, cafes, coffeehouses, etc… Just look at turnstiles to the subway and the stairs you need to…

Unfortunately I think "decent prospects" is more of a relative social status assessment than an absolute income level assessment.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#228

Post by simmanian »

devchix wrote: post #147

> South Korea’s rise to a middle power status comes without much historical baggage The kingdom of Joseon was annexed entirely by Japan in 1905. Modern Korea (nevermind the North/South prefix) would not exist had the US not enter WWII. The 35-years under Japan is a major flashpoint in Japan-Korea relation, it's a joke that the thing that unites North and South is their common hatred of Japan. I'm surprised there's no…

The article seems to be saying that since Korea never conquered and/or colonized other states, there's less EMOTIONAL baggage, allowing Korean culture to spread more easily.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#229

Post by wizzwizz4 »

nostromo wrote: post #225
spothedog1 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is inaccurate. More people, even low skilled ones are still a huge benefit to your society. They buy goods and services in the local economy increasing demand and work tax paying jobs. Immigrants children grow up to greatly out earn their parents pay way more in taxes than they their parents. The only immigrant group that could be considered a liability are older low skilled workers who have passed the age to ha…

Their point is that is becoming less and less true and will likely be false soon. Most labor simply isn't worth as much as it used to be. This is evident in stagnant wages and the view of large families not as assets but as liabilities. You can try to spur local demand by expanding your population (via birth or immigration) but what we really care about is GDP per capita. Most very populous countries are not wealthy.

> Most labor simply isn't worth as much as it used to be. This is evident in stagnant wages

You're assuming an efficient market, which we've long known is a flawed assumption.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#230

Post by l33t2328 »

cturner wrote: post #184

"Indeed, South Korea is the only country that successfully made its transition from a former colony to an advanced economy." This is not right. Each of the following meet the same criteria, including the author's caveats - Taiwan (also Japan), Greece (Ottoman), Finland (Swedes), Ireland (British), numerous Central European nations (Soviet Union). Some others that are debatable - Cyprus, Malta, Israel, Singapore, Chil…

> One could say that Australia or Canada, along with the United States, used to be a colony. Nonetheless, what is distinct about South Korea is the fact that it was colonized by former imperial Japan by coercion

They say this and then move on. The distinct thing is that it was Imperial Japan rather than Imperial England? I’m not saying those empires were similar, but it seems to me that they made the distinction just so they could ignore the aforementioned countries.

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