Good Morning Middle America, welcome to the King of Simple News Network, where all the financial news is reduced to English.
Jeremy Siegel, PhD s column a couple of days ago touted the virtues of South Korea and the bright future that he envisions for that Asian country. What his reporting failed to say was how South Korea has obtained those virtuous attributes and what the bright future has in common with Middle America’s not so bright future.
First things first, 36,900 American soldiers lost their lives and another 103,000 were wounded in the Korean War (1950-1953), which liberated South Korea from being a colony of the Japanese.
Secondly, the U.S. has provided aid to the South Koreans of $13 Billion in military and financial contributions between 1946 and 1978.
Thirdly, U.S. Big Business has not changed all that much since 1953 and never saw a cheap laborer that they didn’t like. Thus, “Made in Korea” replaced “Made in America.”
When you combine the three above listed elements, we have the South Korea that Mr. Siegel speaks so highly of and the Middle America that is a casualty of America moving away from America.
South Korea has now reached approximately 60% of comparable American wages and the distribution of such wages is relatively equitable. That’s good for South Korea huh?
Well not exactly. South Korea was built on cheap labor, foreign aid, foreign manufacturing moving toward that cheap labor, protective tariffs, and a business model of surplus exports, oh, and growth, growth, growth.
