South Korea Bogged Down in Economic Crisis
The south Korean people are barely sustaining their lives in poverty due to the economic crisis daily worsening due to the anti-people economic policy of the conservative ruling group.
- Owing to the pro-big business economic policy the social polarization got widened and the people are driven to poverty.
Since the present ruling group took power with the catchphrase of “revitalizing economy” and has recklessly enforced the pro-big business policy the actual unemployment rate increased from 8.1% to 13%, the poor households from 2.83 million to 3.05 million (18.1% of total households) and the household debt by 14.9% to US$ 64.27 billion at present, and 51% of medium and small businesses are facing bankruptcy. The economy is further devastated.
- With the ever-worsening economic crisis the young jobless are increasing as to pose a serious social problem.
According to a data published by a relevant organ the actual unemployment rate of young people was 20.3% last year and this is nearly three times of 8.6%, the official young jobless rate.
The jobless in the 20s and 30s are drastically increasing.
- The gross income is decreasing and the prices are hiking steadily to make the people suffer the severe hardship.
According to a date the prices of cabbage increased to 114.2%, garlic 189.8%, onion 174.8%, pork 162.1% from February 2008 to February this year.
Public charges including that for electricity and daily necessities are also hiking in row after row, so that the people are complaining aloud.
They denounce that the government sorted out some 52 items directly related to the people's living and promised to lower their prices right after seizing power, but it turned out to be a lip service.
- The indigence of households of supporting the old is further worsening.
It is reported that the poor households of supporting the old whose income is less than the minimum standard of living are more than a third of the total households in south Korea.
The poverty rate of the households of supporting the old is 35.1%, 2.5 times more than that of all the poor households.
On yearly basis, it has been continuously aggravated as it was 30% in 2006, 31% in 2007 and 32.5% in 2008.
- With the snowballing debt the interest burden gets heavier.
The interest expense for debts in 2011 is said to be 22.9 trillion won, nearly 15% more than 20 trillion won of 2010.
According to an announcement of a relevant organ, the interest expense for debts was 11.4 trillion won in 2006, 13 trillion won in 2007 and rapidly increased to 22 trillion won in 2010.
Such a drastic increase of interest is due to the increased debts incurred by the expanded financial expenditure during the economic crisis, analysts say.
In actuality, the debt was 282.7 trillion won in 2006 and 309 trillion won in 2008, but was skyrocketed right after the economic crisis to 400.4 trillion won in 2010 and expected to be 436.8 trillion won this year.
These figures show that the south Korean economy is retrogressing to a “debt-ridden economy”.
