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Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

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Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#21

Post by PebblesHD »

barry-cotter wrote: post #15
PebblesHD wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some countries with absurdly high house prices, I think some level of nationalisation of housing is an eventual inevitability. Much like Seoul, places like Sydney are so expensive that unless you already own a house, or are eventually going to inherit one, no amount of hard work or education can reliably get you into the market. Entry level prices within 25 miles of the city are around A$1.5m for a detached house,…

And yet Tokyo does not have this problem despite growing 50% in population over the last two decades. If you make building housing illegal prices rise. Demand and supply are going to meet somewhere and if you restrict supply prices will rise. If you restrict it more they'll rise more or faster. Compare San Francisco, Seattle and Houston in a US context. The more you restrict supply the more prices rise.

I completely agree, but Tokyo also has sensible tax policies to encourage providing housing, and a government that aims for zero unemployment. I really like their model of ensuring jobs are available so people have money to consume private sector housing, and that there is always such housing available because there is always someone to consume it. There’s about 50 seperate policies places like Sydney and Seoul would need to change to head down that path, but the interests of those in power are largely in keeping prices high it seems…

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#23

Post by thriftwy »

PebblesHD wrote: post #7
google234123 wrote: post #3

> Nationalize key industries and socialize basic services like education and housing. Yeah, hopefully they don't achieve this.

In some countries with absurdly high house prices, I think some level of nationalisation of housing is an eventual inevitability. Much like Seoul, places like Sydney are so expensive that unless you already own a house, or are eventually going to inherit one, no amount of hard work or education can reliably get you into the market. Entry level prices within 25 miles of the city are around A$1.5m for a detached house,…

Why can't people move to some other city if the current one is to expensive? How would nationalization actually deal with situation when there's much more people who want to live in Seoul than houses? A 15 years long waiting list?

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#24

Post by SiempreViernes »

barry-cotter wrote: post #11
google234123 wrote: post #3

> Nationalize key industries and socialize basic services like education and housing. Yeah, hopefully they don't achieve this.

One day, hopefully we'll be rich enough to do this and not have it be a mess. Fullly automated luxury space communism is the goal.

Don't keep your hopes up, in the US military spending will keep eating most of all surplus, but on the upside you'll have the most genocidal nuclear weapons of all countries on Earth!

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#25

Post by PebblesHD »

thriftwy wrote: post #23
PebblesHD wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some countries with absurdly high house prices, I think some level of nationalisation of housing is an eventual inevitability. Much like Seoul, places like Sydney are so expensive that unless you already own a house, or are eventually going to inherit one, no amount of hard work or education can reliably get you into the market. Entry level prices within 25 miles of the city are around A$1.5m for a detached house,…

Why can't people move to some other city if the current one is to expensive? How would nationalization actually deal with situation when there's much more people who want to live in Seoul than houses? A 15 years long waiting list?

This usually boils down the the chicken and egg problem of infrastructure and jobs. In Korea, the majority of the population is within the Seoul area, so most of the jobs are there and all the infrastructure to support them is concentrated there. Sydney and Melbourne are much the same in Australia, and the results are the same, where as soon as you leave these centres, there are no jobs or infrastructure available. As mentioned by another commenter above, Tokyo did this right with central planning and a more decentralised business district, where ‘Tokyo’ is basically 4 or 5 cities around each other, and there is infrastructure and transport there to support the intended population.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#26

Post by dash2 »

ginko wrote: post #13
barry-cotter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of anywhere that attempts to socialise housing has worked well. As a teacher and someone who has been a student I'm also extremely hesitant to say that the way education is usually provided [1] counts as working well, whether you're looking at purely economic returns on investment or human flourishing. [1] Not a knock on government provision in this case as demand for education with any real freedom see…

> I'm not aware of anywhere that attempts to socialise housing has worked well. In Vienna about 25% of the total housing stock is public housing[1]. It's the main reason why rental prices are significantly below other European capitals[2]. [1] https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/503274/average-rental-co...

Bold claim about causality there. Have you got a research design to back it up?

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#27

Post by dgunay »

0max wrote: post #10

I wonder if Squid Game has had an impact. Gi-Hun had a flashback to an auto factory strike that was pretty traumatic that led him down the path to sign his life away to the game. https://labornotes.org/blogs/2021/10/real-life-auto-strike-b...

So many of their recent films with worldwide acclaim are about rampant classism and economic inequality. Even as someone not super in touch with Korean social sentiment, I still get the feeling that Koreans are getting super fed up with their status quo. Might not be "having an effect" so much as "reflecting the way they feel".

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#28

Post by FpUser »

throwawaysea wrote: post #8
google234123 wrote: post #3

> Nationalize key industries and socialize basic services like education and housing. Yeah, hopefully they don't achieve this.

I agree this would be a bad turn. In the US, it is frustrating to see the poor results produced by the public education system and teacher unions, particularly for K-12 education. The lack of competition and union power has led to an empty incentive structure, where teacher unions regularly oppose having their outcomes measured and don't fear needing to compete with better teachers or schools. Beyond that, organizati…

Of course it is way better to have decent education available to people with boatloads of money while the rest works 3 low paid jobs to make the ends meet without any hope to ever have anything resembling normal life.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#29

Post by SiempreViernes »

Animats wrote: post #22

This already happened, yesterday.[1] About 16,000 people showed up for a rally in Seoul. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/south-korea-squid-game-labor-un...

Seems like 16000 was nationwide, which should count as pretty disappointing turnout even though protests are supposed to be banned.

In any case, I get the impression this article is mostly about influencing US domestic politics rather than accurately describe what happens in Korea...

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#30

Post by barry-cotter »

PebblesHD wrote: post #21
barry-cotter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Tokyo does not have this problem despite growing 50% in population over the last two decades. If you make building housing illegal prices rise. Demand and supply are going to meet somewhere and if you restrict supply prices will rise. If you restrict it more they'll rise more or faster. Compare San Francisco, Seattle and Houston in a US context. The more you restrict supply the more prices rise.

I completely agree, but Tokyo also has sensible tax policies to encourage providing housing, and a government that aims for zero unemployment. I really like their model of ensuring jobs are available so people have money to consume private sector housing, and that there is always such housing available because there is always someone to consume it. There’s about 50 seperate policies places like Sydney and Seoul would…

If there is demand for housing and you do not make supplying that demand illegal someone will supply it. People live in dormitories in Hong Kong right now. Perfectly safe but middle class busybodies don't like flophouses, SROs or dormitories so they make it illegal.

If it was legal to provide housing in San Francisco in dorms it would be done. If it was legal to build residential skyscrapers in New York Queens would look like Brooklyn if not Manhattan.

Make building housing legal and the market will provide.

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