[YOUR READING MATERIALS FOR NEXT WEEK ARE ONLINE, RIGHT NOW. I put the digital readings online. They are at the website associated with the course. The Sociology office told me they put the files there. Get them.]
Lee Young Jin: I can't read your handwriting to get your email. Email me this weekend.
Hello Class,
1.
Remember you have to register at blogger.com to post to this thread. BY THE WAY, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT NOTE: if you post and are unable to see it, that is OK because I have to add manually your comment after I look at it. Don't worry if you post and can't see your post yet! I have it, and it arrives in my email box for approval to add to the blog. I recommend you always save your post on another section of your computer and then paste it into the blog in case it is lost. Friendly advice.
2.
Remember to email me your email that you want associated with this course.
This is the pattern for the blog:
1. Your Name
2. A Title (Related to Social Inequality and Social Stratification Issues)
3. A comment: this is a short personal future scenario based on what you learned from the news article about a major trend, or what made you curious about discussing such a trend given the week's class content. However, it doesn't have to be about the week's content, only something related to proposing a future scenario or two.
4. Then put a long line ('-------------------)'.
5. Then cut/paste A SMALL PART of the article or topic you found. (This is because blogger.com now has a limit of "4096 characters" in blog comments. However, that should be enough to concentrate on your own comments, and provide an excerpt and a link to the original article. If you do want more space, and I encourage it, post a second time to get another "4096 characters".)
6. Then a small line '---'.
7. Then, finally, paste the URL (link) of the post.
Post for the first week on this thread. I'll set up a new main post each week, and then we will do the same.
1.Park Kyu Hwan
ReplyDelete2.Is our life good or bad?
3.As for today, our life have been developed in many ways like technology. But, did they affect our life in a good way? we couldn't say yes or no, which means they brought us both of advantage and disadvantage.
-------------------------------
A feud between the two Koreas, already locked in sharp military tensions, over the repatriation of a group of North Koreans whose boat drifted into the South intensified Saturday, as Pyongyang openly threatened to use "every possible means" to resolve the issue.
South Korea maintained its position to handle the matter by international law and on a humanitarian basis.
The boat carrying 31 North Koreans -- 11 men and 20 women -- strayed across the Yellow Sea border into South Korean waters a month ago.
Of them, 27 expressed their wish to return home while the remaining four asked for defection, authorities said after weeks of questioning.
Seoul tried to repatriate the 27 North Koreans via the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom on Friday but the North refused to receive them, demanding the return of the others as well.
Pyongyang's officials news agency KCNA reported Saturday that the North sent a verbal notice to the South demanding an "unconditional and prompt repatriation of all of its 31 detained inhabitants and their ship through the waters to which they had drifted."
The KCNA quoted the notice, which it said was delivered on Friday, as adding that, "The DPRK side will not remain a passive onlooker to this case but will use every possible means to solve it." The DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"If the South Korean authorities do not comply with the DPRK's just demand, it will seriously affect the North-South relations and the south side will be held wholly accountable for it," the notice said, according to the KCNA.
South Korean officials did not budge. They said they will contact North Korea early next week and urge it to cooperate in repatriating the 27 people who wish to return to the North.
"As a liaison office at Panmunjom is closed during the weekend, we will call North Korea on March 7 and demand it receive its 27 people," a government official said on the condition of anonymity. (Yonhap)
---------
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/113_82527.html
1. Yeo Min Sook
ReplyDelete2. Is free school meals really for poor?
3. Welfare or economic development is one of the controversial topics in Korea. It is like a growing pain to discuss the importance of the distribution. Because we throw away equal distribution for rapid growth. However such as free school meals would really make people happy? It is very little percent of people need this help, and a majority, although they does not require to help them, they got it too. This is quite a waste of state budget. I hope more money to give poor person rather than execute free school meals for public.
--------------------------------
Are Koreans ready to pay more taxes in return for free school meals, nurseries and medical fees?
Rep. Chung Dong-young, member of the party’s Supreme Council, ignited the spark on Thursday by suggesting a net wealth tax.
In a seminar, he said the government could secure up to 10 trillion won a year from a 1 percent income tax on those with more than 3 billion won and levying a 1 percent wealth tax on the 36 enterprises with assets exceeding 1 trillion won.
“According to a National Tax Service report, the number of individuals that meet the condition is 270,000, just 0.58 percent of the population. The net wealth tax will be the only way to minimize the shock of tax hikes and reduce economic inequality in society at the same time,” he said.
Chung said Korea’s total tax rate was 19.3 percent, some 7.3 percent lower than the OECD average. “We must admit that the universal welfare system requires a tax increase.”
Net wealth taxes were adopted in many European countries decades ago as a way of generating more resources without tax resistance, but they now remain in only a handful of countries such as France, Switzerland, Norway and Liechtenstein.
The DP’s stance acknowledges the findings of a report by the Korea Economic Research Institute. According to the report, Koreans think that they must pursue universal welfare and that the state must intervene in reducing income gaps among society. But at the same time they are negative on raising taxes to finance the welfare.
Outside the party, the ruling GNP, which has recently suggested “selective welfare,” expanding the beneficiaries to bottom 70 percent of the income bracket, sneered at the DP.
Hong Joon-pyo, the party’s floor leader, degraded the plan as anachronistic and idealistic. “The DP’s plan will create tax bombs,” he said.
“If DP really wants the plan that bad, the party should have executed it 10 years ago, when it was the ruling party,” said Rep. Shim Jae-chul.
“Younger generations, who will have to support the aging society, will be heavily burdened once again,” he said.
The Presidential Council for Future and Vision on Friday suggested to President Lee Myung-bak that making a fine balance between universal and selective welfares is needed. “Welfare should not be a subject of populism,” said Kwak Seung-jun, president of the council.
------------------------------
http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110121000616