[Editorial] Blue House-party split

The ties between the president and the Saenuri Party, which was formerly the ruling Grand National Party, are coming to a dead end. The situation worsened as President Lee Myung-bak’s chief secretary for liaison with the party resigned for his role in a political payoff scandal that happened three years ago involving the party’s former chairman.The Blue House is looking for a seasoned politician to replace Kim Hyo-jae who is leaving the presidential staff after eight months in office, but whoeve

Feb. 13, 2012

[Editorial] Credit card fees

There are more than 1.5 million small business establishments, mostly eateries, with annual sales of less than 200 million won ($180,000). They pay 1.8 percent fees to credit card companies. Since late last year, owners of these places have moved collectively through their associations to get the rates lowered, threatening to temporarily close their businesses nationwide in protest. They were encouraged to do this after credit card firms were pressured into lowering rates for department stores a

Feb. 13, 2012

[Editorial] Fanning moral hazard

Last week, a parliamentary standing committee approved a special bill that, if enacted, would shake the foundation of the nation’s financial system. Its members must be held accountable for the bill, which embodied populism at its apex. The bill is aimed at permitting depositors to recoup 55 percent of the money they held in excess of 50 million in their accounts with savings banks at the time when the savings banks were declared insolvent last year. It is also aimed at permitting investors to r

Feb. 12, 2012

[Editorial] Decisions in jeopardy

A statute is made invalid when six or more of the nine justices of the Constitutional Court decide that it is unconstitutional. But does it still have to require approval from six or more justices to invalidate a law when one justice post remains vacant? This is not a hypothetical question. It is an actual question that was raised last Thursday when the National Assembly rejected a nominee by the main opposition Democratic United Party for the justice post that had remained unfilled since July 8

Feb. 12, 2012

[Editorial] Speed up the probe

The president has constitutional protection against criminal action. The speaker of the National Assembly has no such device. Still, prosecutors are required to take utmost caution before initiating a criminal inquiry into a case involving the speaker, the head of one of the three separate branches of government.In this regard, the prosecutors’ office did well when it decided to wait until Rep. Park Hee-tae resigned from his office of speaker of the National Assembly. Now that he has tendered hi

Feb. 10, 2012

[Editorial] For alliance’s sake?

The main opposition Democratic United Party is crafting its electoral strategies for an alliance with far-left groups. That is understandable, given that the center-left party believes it vital to ally itself with a minor labor party, anti-government civic groups and labor activists if it is to win the April parliamentary elections and the December presidential election.One such strategy is for the party to pledge to abrogate the Korean-U.S. free trade agreement if it is not revised in the way i

Feb. 10, 2012

[Editorial] Chaebeol bashing

Korea’s top 10 conglomerates employ about 2 million people in all. You may double or triple this number to estimate the total size of people directly dependent on the large businesses called “chaebol.” If you regard all adults in this category as the sympathetic force toward chaebol, they would still remain a tiny minority in Korea’s political arithmetic. So, parties don’t have to be too cautious in joining the bandwagon of chaebol bashing, which seems likely to gain more votes to than it loses.

Feb. 9, 2012

[Editorial] Sluggish registration

Election management officials report that some 90,000 Korean residents overseas have registered with Korean missions abroad during the past three months to participate in the April 11 National Assembly election as absentee voters. They account for about 4 percent of the total 2,233,000 Koreans living outside the country who still have their Korean citizenship. The registration rate is lowest in the Americas where the overwhelming majority are permanent emigrants. In the Middle East, where most K

Feb. 9, 2012

[Editorial] Tasks left undone

The current extraordinary session is virtually the final time the 18th National Assembly will sit. When its plenary session is over next Thursday, all members, except for those planning to leave the parliament, will start to prepare themselves in earnest for the April 11 general elections.The immediate concern of incumbent lawmakers is whether or not they will be nominated again. It may be too much to demand they focus on lawmaking at a time when the nomination processes are under way in their p

Feb. 8, 2012

[Editorial] Ridiculous demands

Not a day goes by without Pyongyang vilifying South Korea’s unification minister, Yu Woo-ik, one of the few doves in President Lee Myung-bak’s administration. It continues to excoriate Yu, calling him a jackass, a traitor and a confrontational fanatic ― a development that has broad implications for inter-Korean relations.Pyongyang began to hurl epithets against Yu on Jan. 11, almost four months after South Korea’s former ambassador to Beijing was appointed as unification minister. On that day, P

Feb. 8, 2012

[Editorial] Poor viewing rates

After two months, it may still be too early to make a correct assessment, but again we are obliged to ask if it was the right decision for the government to license four new “general programming” cable channels and a news-only network at the same time last December. As of last week, all the four new cable broadcasters providing news and entertainment programs were struggling with average viewer shares below 0.4 percent.According to the AGB Nielson Media Research report, MBN came top with 0.385 p

Feb. 7, 2012

[Editorial] Park’s shaking stature

Monday was a bad day for Park Geun-hye, head of the Saenuri Party’s emergency governing body and the front-runner in its presidential race. In a survey result released on Monday, Park allowed Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party to overtake her for the first time. On top of that, the main edition of the Chosun Ilbo carried perhaps the most scathing criticism of Park’s personality in an interview story with a former close aide.Up until the middle of last year, Park had enjoy

Feb. 7, 2012

[Editorial] Chinese, Russian vetoes

The great absurdity of the U.N., the veto power given to the five permanent members of the Security Council, was again exposed when China and Russia used it against a resolution to stop a bloodbath in Syria. The joint action by the two early Cold War allies turned the clock of history back several decades.The draft resolution proposed by the Arab League had been considerably toned down to elicit support from the two countries. It called for the formation of a coalition government in Damascus, a

Feb. 6, 2012

[Editorial] Populism race

There is no substitute for victory in elections. Party strategists and anyone who wants to have their name published in the media make sweet promises that they think will help attract votes. The series of election pledges churned out by parties these days have one thing in common ― be they a fivefold increase of soldiers’ salaries and the release of allowances to unemployed college graduates. It is a lack of convincing explanation on how to fund them.Parties put up no collateral to vouch for the

Feb. 6, 2012

[Editorial] Profit-sharing formula

The presidential panel on shared growth between large and small businesses has taken another step toward developing and implementing a win-win model by hammering out an agreement on sharing profits between large companies and their small suppliers. Under a deal reached on Thursday, large corporations agreed to undertake certain projects, such as R&D and overseas market development, jointly with their parts suppliers and share the profits thereof with them as per prearranged contracts. This schem

Feb. 5, 2012

[Editorial] Curbing hospital addiction

Hospital addicts are on the rise, putting a growing burden on the finances of the national health insurance system. According to a report released by the National Health Insurance Corp., some 520,000 people visited hospitals more than 100 times in 2010, up from 440,000 in 2008 and 490,000 in 2009. The corporation says if this figure is cut in half, it would be able to reap 800 billion won in savings. In 2010, the national health insurance fund posted a deficit of 1.3 trillion won. The corporatio

Feb. 5, 2012

[Editorial] Horse trading

It is necessary to draw up lists of eligible voters in all parliamentary electoral districts by next Saturday, two months before the upcoming elections of April 11. The reason is that eligible voters will be qualified to apply for absentee ballots from abroad if they are listed as residing in foreign countries as of Feb. 11.But the rezoning of more than 10 electoral districts has yet to be completed. No wonder, the National Election Commission is fretting about the delay. In an official letter a

Feb. 3, 2012

[Editorial] Hidden money

It is illegal for a person to put his money in an account opened in the name of another person. But an older brother of President Lee Myung-bak’s did so in violation of the law on the use of real names in financial transactions.Over the past two years, Rep. Lee Sang-deuk of the ruling Grand National Party deposited as much as 800 million won in an account held by a female secretary of his. The money was found when prosecutors were looking into an allegation that one of his aides took as much as

Feb. 3, 2012