Living Conditions of South Korean People in 2008
The people's living conditions in south Korea are recently getting worse owing to the treacherous economic policy of the Lee Myung-bak clan and the aftermath of the catastrophic economic crisis.
- Income imbalance widened and household debt augmented
Since the Lee group clings to the pro-big business policy despite the decrease of the real income of the south Korean lower income brackets, the income gap between the high and low income brackets widened 8.41 times in the first quarter of 2008 alone, the worst record. It was 7.75 times in 2004, 8.29 times in 2005, 8.36 times in 2006 and 8.4 times in 2007.
In the meantime, the household debt increased to 39.6 million won as of late June 2008, 10 % more than that of 2006 (36.01 million won) due to the economic stagnation.
- Tax burden increases and prices skyrocket
In 2008 tax burden per capita increased to 4.36 million won, the largest ever. If some 130 miscellaneous taxes excluded from the taxation statistics are included, the rate of total tax burden against the Gross Domestic Product is 32.1%, far higher than that of the average (26.9%) of the OECD member states.
Mass media and pundits assert that the south Korean people are forced to pay more than a third of their annual income as various taxes and miscellaneous levies, rebuking it as a “Kingdom of tax”.
Meanwhile, the consumer prices rose by 5.9% higher in August 2008 than in August 2007, and in particular, the subsistence prices including the foodstuff needed en masse in daily life rose by 6.6%, owing to the price jump of raw materials including petroleum in international markets.
As a result the people are lamenting their lot saying that they hardly eke out under the lethal bomb of price denouncing the regime which vociferated about controlling the price but molests the commoners.
- The jobless steeply increased
At present the jobless are numbered 3.37 million, 14 % of economic manpower, and among them university-graduated high intellectual unemployed are roughly 2.57 million.
If the irregular jobholders (daily employees and temporary workers) are added, the actual unemployed are no less than 11.97 million.
- Middle class and medium and small-size businessmen go to ruin
The portion of the middle class, once called a pivotal force in society, was 68.6% of all the households in 1996, but dropped to 57.6% now.
11 % of the households were estranged from the middle class for the past 13 years, and 70% of them were reduced to the poor, so that the poor class increased to over 18% of all households now from 11.3% of 1996.
Now medium and small-size businesses are numbered about 3 million, assuming 99% of all businesses, but only in the first half of 2008 some 5 000 medium and small-size businesses went bankrupt, so their situations are getting more miserable.
Besides, because of the world-highest educational expenses a great number of students quit schools or earn the tuition fees by working at a part-time job.
All sorts of diseases including tuberculosis are rampant due to the economic hardship and deteriorated living environment, increasing number of despaired people commit suicide, and murder, robbery and other heinous crimes are sharply prevailing.
Mass media censure that south Korea is a “land of disease”, “republic of suicide” and “kingdom of crime”.
Now the people from all works of life are out in anti-regime struggle upholding such slogans as “Drop the policy for only 1% wealthy people at once” and “We want to live in a country guaranteeing the human treatment”, urging the Lee Myung-bak clique to step down now holding accountable for the ruin of the economy and people's living.
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Tragic Incident by the "pragmatic regime"
The unpopular and barbarous nature of the Lee Myung Bak group is revealed all over the world.
As reported, on January 20 a tragic incident took place, in which 5 inhabitants were burnt to death and several tens wounded by the brutal crackdown of the armed police and "commandos" on the evacuees in Ryongsan, Seoul who were waging a sit-in in demand of the measure for existence. It is a tragic murder perpetrated by the unpopular rule of the fascist "pragmatic regime", not a tragedy occurred by accident.
The motive of the tragedy was the ruthless forcible removal of the people to the outdoors with no measure taken for their existence in Ryongsan according to the "redevelopment plan on the city center".
Even a worm will turn. Think how the evacuees driven to the outdoors in cold winter felt, being deprived of their "homes". Their demand for existence is very just.
This notwithstanding, Lee launched frantic suppressive operation introducing over 1,600 riot polices and police "commandos" against bare-handed inhabitants, talking about "strict response to law and order"
There is a saying that "Only find faults with someone without complying with his request". Lee regarded the people´s demand for minimum existence as just "impossible demand". He concerned only the rich whereas thinks nothing of the poor. So, he wielded the fascist club on the evacuees under the pretext of "law and order".
What´s astonishing is that the group of traitors are expanding their fascist suppression with the said incident as an occasion.
After the incident the fascist polices arrested the participants in the sit-in and cracked down the people who were to attend a meeting in memory of the deaths irrespective of the age and sex. Furthermore, the prosecution is hatching a plot to kill the deaths twice by investigating something with the aim to hush up the truth.
Someone "behind the scenes" is none other than Lee Myung Bak. This being a hard reality, "Chongwadae" and the "Grand National Party" gentry have the effrontery to talk about "force behind the scene," openly defending the killers instead of punishing them. This is a revelation of their criminal intention to divert elsewhere the angry public criticism of the perpetrators of the above-said murder and gloss over the case at any cost. The Lee group remains unperturbed by the death of innocent people and is keen on pass the buck for it to the victims. This fully discloses its unpopular attitude and stand.
It has become clearer that traitor Lee´s "pragmatic policy" is nothing but an unpopular fascist rule utterly indifferent to people´s lives and interests and a man-killing policy of turning the whole of south Korea into a tundra of human rights and a graveyard of democracy. the Lee "regime" is the worst fascist.
The above-said tragedy teaches the south Korean peoples once again the bitter lesson that they can neither realize their strong desire for independence, democracy and national reunification nor protect their lives as long as the above-mentioned "fascist regime" is allowed to ride roughshod.
Unpopular fascist rule inevitably begets resistance. The south Korean people´s resentment at the Lee group is running high as it has enforced such unpopular misrule since it came to power. Neither appeasement nor deception nor fascist suppression on the part of the group of traitors can calm down the angry south Koreans.
The reality calls upon the south Korean people in various strata to the massive struggle to burn down the castle of "pragmatic" fascist dictatorship, for it is of no use either to wait and see or pin any hope on it.
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