(토요모임) [01. Oct. 2016] Saturday meeting topic

[Scarlet]

Howdy ! 

It's me Scarlett !   

This week we have 4 topics. 

◈ Art of living 

- When You Can't Afford to Make a Mistake, This’ll Keep You Sharp

- How good is your decision-making? 

◈ Gender equality

- The 10 Worst Countries for Gender Equality, Ranked by Perception

- S. Korea reflects lag in gender equality: Column

- Inequality is a political problem, not an economic one

◈ Biotechnology

- The world's first baby has been born using the controversial '3-parent' technique

◈ Anti-corruption  

- Goodbye Boozy Dinners: Korean Business Braces for Corruption Crackdown

- South Korea’s New Anti-Corruption Law Could Have Economic Ramifications

- S. Korea edges up to 37th in global corruption index

Hope you enjoy the topics. 

With luv 

Scarlett

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When You Can't Afford to Make a Mistake, 

This’ll Keep You Sharp

April 19, 2016  by ROBBY BERMAN

Peter Baumann suggests that our biases can get a bad rap, but that they’re essential. He sees them as unconscious inclinations that we’ve developed over time, and most of the time, they reflect actual knowledge we’ve acquired about how the world works. They set the frameworks within which we live our lives. Our bias toward feeling safe, for example, keeps us (mostly) out of trouble, while a bias towards certain flavors sets us parameters for selecting the dish we’d like to eat at a restaurant. Of course, our biases are only as intelligent as we are, so occasionally they're pretty stupid.

There’s a category of not-so-helpful mental habits and inclinations called “cognitive biases.” The problem with these biases is that when we incorrectly apply them to decision-making, they prejudice our thought process and keep us from thinking, and deciding, clearly.

Researchers have identified a number of these mind traps. In this video, Baumann zeroes in on confirmation bias, where we ignore any evidence that doesn’t support what we’ve already concluded, and only find things that prove it. He also nominates the uniqueness bias as maybe the most amusing cognitive bias.

Julia Galef has a great method for avoiding another common bias, the commitment effect. It’s the one where you keep doing what evidence suggests may not be working anymore because either you don’t want to feel your investment up until now has been wasted, or because the behavior has become tied up in who you feel you are. Her tip? Ask yourself what you would do if you were just coming to the problem from the outside. 

At Business Insider, Samantha Lee put together a great infographic showing 20 cognitive biases that can get in the way of solid decision-making.

Article source : http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/a-chart-of-brain-busting-cognitive-biases-hang-it-on-your-wall?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox#link_time=1474666367

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How Good is Your Decision-Making?

Decision-making is a key skill in the workplace, and is particularly important if you want to be an effective leader.

Whether you're deciding which person to hire, which supplier to use, or which strategy to pursue, the ability to make a good decision with available information is vital.

It would be easy if there were one formula you could use in any situation, but there isn't.

Each decision presents its own challenges, and we all have different ways of approaching problems.

So, how do you avoid making bad decisions – or leaving decisions to chance? You need a systematic approach to decision-making so that, no matter what type of decision you have to make, you can take decisions with confidence.

No one can afford to make poor decisions. That's why we've developed a short quiz to help you assess your current decision-making skills. We'll examine how well you structure your decision-making process, and then we'll point you to specific tools and resources you can use to develop and improve this important competency.

How Good Are Your Decision-Making Skills?

Instructions

For each statement, click the button in the column that best describes you. Please answer questions as you actually are (rather than how you think you should be), and don't worry if some questions seem to score in the 'wrong direction'. When you are finished, please click the 'Calculate My Total' button at the bottom of the test.

Score Interpretation

Article source : https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_79.htm

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<Questions> 

Q1. Are you a good decision maker? Why or why not? 

Q2. Describe your typical process for making a decision and forming a plan of action.

Q3. Do you find you make better decisions alone or with a group?

Q4. How do you react to instances that require immediate decisions? How does the importance and intensity of the situation affect your thought process?

Q5. Among above 20 cognitive biases, which one is yours? How do you deal with risk caused by those biases? 

< 20 cognitive biases that screw up your decisions>

1. Anchoring bias	2. Availability heuristic	3. Bandwagon effect	4. Blind-spot bias
5. Choice-supportive bias	6. Clustering illusion	7. Confirmation bias	8. Conservation bias
9. Information bias	10. Ostrich effect	11. Outcome bias	12. Overconfidence
13. Placebo effect	14. Pro-innovation bias	15. Recency	16. Salience
17. Selective perception	18. Stereotyping	19. Suvivorship bias	20. Zero-risk bias

Q6. Have you ever screwed up your solid decision making by any cognitive bias? Could you explain that case in detail? What was the lesson you have gotten from that experience? 

Q7. Please share your secrets for better decision making process !

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The 10 Worst Countries for Gender Equality, 

Ranked by Perception

Most of these are Muslim-majority nations. 

By Deidre McPhillips | Data Reporter March 10, 2016, at 10:00 a.m.

Closing the gender gap could add $12 trillion to global gross domestic product by 2025, according to a report from the McKinsey Global Institute.

Progress, suggests the global consulting firm’s economic research group, depends on the creation of economic opportunity, effective laws, policies and regulations and not least of all, a shift in the global mindset toward women and equality.

Of the 10 countries perceived to be the worst in terms of gender equality – based on data from the 2016 Best Countries rankings that eval‎uated 60 countries – eight are Muslim-majority nations. Islamic Sharia law often plays a large role in the governance of personal matters like marriage, divorce and inheritance among Muslim populations.

Cultural traditions can dictate different interpretations of the code, but common gender-based discrimination includes stipulations that women cannot pass citizenship to their children, spousal rape is not illegal, two women are equal to one man in court and women cannot divorce their husbands.

The Best Countries rankings are a characterization of 60 countries based on a survey of more than 16,000 people from four regions. In the survey, respondents answered how closely they related each of the 60 countries to the term “gender equality.” Respondents were given no further specifications of the term, so interpretation of the phrase “gender equality” was left to survey respondents. Here are the top 10 worst countries for gender equality, ranked by perception.

Article source : http://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2016-03-10/the-10-worst-countries-for-gender-equality-ranked-by-perception

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S. Korea reflects lag in gender equality: Column

Katrin Park 8:45 a.m. EDT March 14, 2015

UN's efforts on behalf of women shows progress, but laws easier to change than attitudes.

EPA SOUTH KOREA RIGHTS WORLD WOMEN DAY HUM CITIZEN INITIATIVE & RECALL REP

(Photo: KIM CHUL-SOO, EPA)

SEOUL — The world leaders have gathered at the United Nations in New York to take stock of progress on gender equality since a landmark conference in Beijing declared women's rights as human rights 20 years ago. It's obvious that, despite gains, challenges abound. One of them is people's attitude toward women.

A quick look at the World Economic Forum's gender gap index is enough to understand its importance. Countries like the Philippines, where women traditionally have greater roles in society fare much better than those that uphold patriarchal beliefs (it ranked ninth out of 142 countries last year). Rwandan women, who survived the 1997 genocide in greater proportions than men, became empowered out of necessity (ranked seventh).

South Korea, where I'm from, is a case in point that changing the law is much easier than changing people's attitude. On the same gender gap index, the country ranked 117th, trailing behind United Arab Emirates and Qatar and coming just ahead of Nigeria.

The first female president notwithstanding, separate and unequal gender roles prevail throughout Korean society. Only 53% of Korea's female population work outside of the home, compared to 62% in the U.S. Female executives held 21% of the board seats in America last year; in Korea, the figure was less than 7%.

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Korea also has the worst wage gap among the industrialized countries, with female workers earning 65% of what their male counterparts make. Because the pay gap is so big, some women prefer their men to work instead.

Successive governments have pounded out progressive legislation to prod the country toward equality, hoping it would boost the economy. But the changes have yet to make a dent. While the law guarantees that firms of certain sizes must offer three months of paid maternity leave, female workers are reluctant to use it under pressure. Combined with the lack of childcare, work-life balance becomes a tall order in a cutthroat corporate environment. So women quit when they marry or have children. Once they drop out, they can't get back in.

The disappearance of these female workers costs Korea $13.3 billion annually in lost income and wasted investment in education, according to the Korean Women's Development Institute.

When a male friend of mine, who works in a French luxury goods company's branch in Seoul, requested paternity leave, which he was entitled to, his boss asked him if he was the one giving birth. The Korean government's effort to mandate one-month paternity leave met with a fierce resistance last year within its own ministries on financial grounds.

Women's political representation is another area where legislation that guarantees equality is only as good as those who implement them want it to be. Afghanistan's parliament is 28% women, and South Africa's is 45% women. Yet, these are just two of many countries where violence against women is preval‎ent.

This is not to say that such legislation is useless. They are necessary because changes for equality don't happen organically. In the U.S., where there's no quota for company boards unlike in some of the European countries, firms usually appoint one or two female executives and pat themselves in the back.

A large increase in the number of women in leadership can help change attitudes over time, too.

Sweden, the world leader in gender equality, is slowly resetting its gender roles by changing its laws. It first introduced parental leave, as opposed to just maternity leave, in 1974. But for decades, employers remained reluctant to let their male workers take advantage of it. So the government went further. In 1995, it introduced "daddy leaves." It didn't require fathers to take time off, but the family lost one month of government subsidy if they didn't. The government boosted this further by giving dads one additional month of leave. And with these provisions, things began to change.

In a 2011 online survey, more than half of Korean male college students indicated that they would happily be stay-at-home dads while their wives worked full-time — if only it became socially acceptable.

Attitudes will change eventually, but it's a long road until then.

Katrin Park is a former U.N. staffer living in Seoul.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the Opinion front page or sign up for the daily Opinion e-mail newsletter.

Article source : http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/14/womens-inequality-south-korea-park/70165200/

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Inequality is a political problem, not an economic one

By Tim Dunlop/ Posted 28 Nov 2013, 12:48pm

Inequality can be social, economic and democratic, but at its heart it is about the exercise of power, who has it and who doesn't, writes Tim Dunlop.

The six heirs to the Walmart retail fortune in the United States have a net worth greater than the bottom 40 per cent of the population.

Let that sink in for a second. And while it does, consider this further Walmart-related fact: one of their stores recently ran a charity drive asking customers to donate food in order to help ... their store's employees. Yes, they were begging their customers for food for their staff.

You can pretty easily see what the Pope is getting at with his recent exhortation that we do something about "the new tyranny" that is "unfettered capitalism".

Clearly, when big, successful businesses are paying such low wages that they find it necessary to ask for donations of food from customers in order to help out their employees, we have crossed the line between good economic management and social pathology.

A society that allows a situation like this to exist is plain and simple sick, and showing the advanced signs of democratic decay.

Such decay doesn't just happen in a vacuum: this sort of growing inequality - and it is a worldwide phenomenon in developed countries, including Australia - happens because politicians make choices. And the choices they make are what they are because those making them are more influenced by the rich and powerful than they are by the rank and file.

This in turn happens because the institutions that allow all of us to have a say in policy - everything from political parties to sections of the media - are no longer representative of the broader public but have become captives of powerful special interests.

It is not just a case of direct economic policies lowering taxes on the wealthy and redistributing national wealth upwards - though that happens in spades.

Something more insidious is at work. The very tools we use to assert ourselves as citizens against these special interests are themselves attacked and undermined. In the US, not only does corporate money corrupt the legislative process, but there are concerted efforts to rig the game before anyone actually gets to Congress. This is done by gerrymandering congressional districts and by enforcing voter identification laws aimed at discouraging disadvantaged groups from voting at all.

And let's not get too smug. Increasingly, Australian governments are looking to the United States as a source of inspiration.

Tony Abbott has stacked his commission of audit with representatives of big business, while Queensland is in the process of legislating its own voter identification laws, to name just two examples. You could throw in Labor's capitulation on the mining tax too.

If you want to isolate a single factor that helps make all these shifts and changes possible, I'd suggest it is the demonisation of government itself. From this, much else flows.

At least since the time that Ronald Reagan declared that government was the problem not the solution, we have been suckered into accepting that governments should operate more like businesses. And we have been told that the best way for that to happen is to outsource what they do directly or indirectly to private firms.

While this may make some sense with a government airline or a bank, there is no logical reason it should also apply unproblematically to healthcare, education, prisons, and other areas that are essential to the operation of a civilised society.

The big lie we have been sold is that business is efficient, dynamic and adventurous while government is - by definition - inefficient, moribund and risk-averse.

As economist Mariana Mazzucato argues in her recent book The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs Private Myths in Risk and Innovation, this is anything but the case:

[M]ost of the radical, revolutionary innovations that have fuelled the dynamics of capitalism - from railroads to the Internet, to modern-day nanotechnology and pharmaceuticals - trace the most courageous, early and capital intensive 'entrepreneurial' investments back to the State. [A]ll of the technologies that make Jobs' iPhone so 'smart' were government funded (Internet, GPS, touch-screen display and the recent SIRI voice activated personal assistant).

Such radical investments - which embedded extreme uncertainty - did not come about due to the presence of venture capitalists, nor of 'garage tinkerers'. It was the visible hand of the State which made these innovations happen.

If you are scoffing at such claims, chances are you part of the problem.

So we demonise government, we laud private enterprise unconditionally, we privatise everything in sight, we cut services because we have undermined our tax base with handouts and reduced rates to our richest citizens - corporate and otherwise - and we wonder why we are not happy with the outcomes, why inequality rises and why we increasingly feel powerless.

It isn't rocket science (another area, incidentally, where the state has done all the heavy entrepreneurial lifting). When the state retreats and its functions are replaced by private firms, political control shifts from elected officials responsible to the whole community to unelected managers responsible to their boards or shareholders.

Inequality - social, economic and democratic - is part of our more general disenfranchisement from the political process.

It is about the exercise of power, who has it and who doesn't.

It is always and everywhere predicated on a demonisation of government, an unending process conducted by think tanks who take their funding from big business, or even media outlets who devote column after column to demonising government investment in everything from the ABC to the NBN.

I'm neither anti-business or naively pro-government (how could anyone be when you look at the growing involvement of states in citizen surveillance?) but we are currently getting the worst of both worlds: a private sector so powerful that it is essentially unaccountable, and a public sector drained of meaning and confidence.

More than a balanced budget, that is the scale we have to fix.

Tim Dunlop is the author of The New Front Page: New Media and the Rise of the Audience. He writes regularly for The Drum and a number of other publications. You can follow him on Twitter. View his full profile here.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-28/dunlop-inequality-is-a-political-problem-not-an-economic-one/5122022

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<Questions> 

Q1. According to a McKinsey Global Institute, Korean ranked in a 2nd place for the worst gender equality accompanied by a lot of Muslim-majority nations. It sounds pretty shocking, isn't it? What do you think of reality of gender equality in Korea compare to other countries? 

Q2. Recently, what is the most divisive issue in your country? 

Q3. Have you ever felt that you are discriminated from others? For instance, gender discrimination, racism, discrimination by your parents wealth status or your social level. How did you tackle this tricky situation?

Q4. How do you feel when you are exposed to discrimination? 

Q5. Do you have discrimination issue in your working field? Could you explain it in detail? 

Q6. What cause the gender inequality in your society? 

Q7. Can you suggest smart countermeasures to deal with those tricky issues? 

Q8. Currently, movement toward equal distribution in opportunity is spreading worldwide. Do you think inclusive growth or equal opportunity concept is available in Korea society? 

Q9. Do you agree that the social inequality is caused not by economy but by political party?

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The world's first baby has been born 

using the controversial '3-parent' technique

It's a boy!

FIONA MACDONALD 28 SEP 2016

A five-month-old boy is the first baby to be born using a controversial new 'three-parent' technique. 

That means this baby contains DNA from three parents - something which in this case allowed him to avoid having a deadly genetic condition passed down by his mother.

"This is great news and a huge deal," researcher Dusko Ilic from King's College London, who wasn't involved in the project, told Jessica Hamzelou at New Scientist in an exclusive. "It's revolutionary".

The technique - which was legalised in the UK last year - allows parents with rare genetic mutations to have healthy babies, by replacing a mother's faulty mitochondrial DNA with another woman's during the IVF process.

Seeing as mitochondrial DNA is only ever passed down by women, for most females with mitochondrial disease, this is the only way they'll be able to have healthy children.

But with a ban still in place in the US - one that experts are encouraging the government to overturn, we should add - the procedure is still controversial.

In this latest case, the new technique was used on Jordanian parents by a US-based team in Mexico. The boy's mother carries Leigh syndrome, a fatal disorder of the nervous system that's passed down through mitochondrial DNA.

Unlike regular DNA, which is housed in the nucleus of the cell, mitochondrial DNA lives in our mitochondria - which, as we all know from high school biology, is the 'powerhouse of the cell' - and is only ever passed down by females.

While the baby's mother is healthy, around a quarter of her mitochondria carried the faulty Leigh syndrome genes, and, after almost 20 years of trying for a baby, her only two children had died from the condition, leading her to reach out to John Zhang at the New Hope Fertility Centre in New York.

There are several ways to make 'three-parent' babies - the technique that's approved in the UK is called pronuclear transfer, and it involves fertilising both the mother's egg and a donor's egg with the father's sperm.

Before these two fertilised eggs begin dividing into an embryo, the researchers replace the donor egg's nucleus with the mother's nucleus - giving them a fertilised egg with a healthy donor mitochondria, and the mother's DNA in the nucleus.

But the parents of the five-month-old baby are Muslims, and had ethical issues with a fertilised cell being destroyed. So Zhang used a different approach called spindle nuclear transfer, which works in much the same way, but the nucleus transfer is done before the eggs are fertilised. 

This was all carried out in Mexico where "there are no rules" about three-parent babies, Zhang told Hamzelou.

The technique created five embryos, but only one developed healthily, and was implanted into the mother. The baby is now five months old and seems to be developing normally, with no signs of Leigh syndrome.

Despite having no guidelines to follow, Zhang made sure the technique was carried out ethically - first of all, his team selected a male embryo, which can't pass down the donated mitochondrial DNA, so can't transfer any potential problems resulting from the technique.

They also avoiding destroying any embryos in the process. "It’s as good as or better than what we'll do in the UK," said cardiac pharmacologist Sian Harding, who reviewed the ethics of the UK procedure.

But there's still concern from a lot of scientists that the procedure could lead to health problems for the child in the future. 

Right now, less than 1 percent of the boy's mitochondria carry the Leigh mutation, which doesn't seem to be affecting his development at all. But Bert Smeets from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who wasn't involved in the research, told New Scientist that the child needs to be monitored closely, and the technique should be more rigorously tested before we can deem it 'safe'.

"We need to wait for more births, and to carefully judge them," he said.

But even though this is the first baby born using the new 'three-parent' technique, there are already children out there who have DNA from three parents, due to a slightly different method used in IVF in the US in the late '90s.

As Michael Le Page reported for New Scientist earlier this year: "Up to 17 people in the US may already have been born with donor mitochondria, because of a technique one clinic used to boost the success of IVF between 1997 and 2002 - when the FDA stepped in to stop it."

Some of those babies went on to develop genetic disorders, which is why many scientists are still reluctant to use the new technique.

Only time will tell whether it can safely help women with mitochondrial disease to have children  - but with the birth of the first healthy child, it seems inevitable that the technique is going to be used again, and we'll be watching the cases closely.

Zhang's report on his technique hasn't been peer-reviewed or published as yet, but the case study will be presented by his team at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Scientific Congress in Salt Lake City in October.

Article source : http://www.sciencealert.com/the-first-baby-has-been-born-using-new-3-parent-technique

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<Questions>

Q1. How do you think about this technology? 

Q2. This tech was applied in some people who have a genetic disorder. If this is your case, would you apply this tech. to yourself or wait and see for more safe application? 

Q3. If you can choose your decedents' genetic characters, what would be the traits you want to eliminate and what would be the traits you want to maintain? 

Goodbye Boozy Dinners: Korean Business Braces for 

Corruption Crackdown

by Jiyeun Lee/ August 30, 2016 

 Companies face new restrictions on entertainment spending

 Some policy makers say the law could slow economic growth

Extravagant dinners with whiskey and wine, golfing weekends, pricey beef and seafood gift sets. South Korean companies are trying to figure out how to do without these common forms of business hospitality before the nation’s toughest-ever anti-graft law takes effect next month.

Conglomerates LG Group and SK Holdings are among those preparing information sessions for employees to ensure they comply with the new law. The Korea Chamber of Commerce is holding seminars, and retailers and restaurants are expanding their offerings of low-cost meal sets and gifts.

The law will weaken practices referred to in South Korea as "jeopdae," which focus on entertaining business colleagues, government officials and journalists. Passage of the legislation came after public anger boiled over when ties between regulators and the shipping industry were exposed in the wake of the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster.

South Korea has seen a dozen high-profile corruption cases this year alone, including the arrest of a senior national prosecutor on charges of accepting bribes from the founder of the country’s largest on-line game maker. Personal relations between those in business and the public sector have often led to lax supervision or illicit favors.

Lotte Group Vice Chairman Lee In Won was found dead last week, just hours before he was due to be questioned by prosecutors in connection with an investigation into alleged corruption at the conglomerate, one of the country’s largest. A four-page letter was found in a car nearby, police said. Lotte has said it’s cooperating with prosecutors and declined to comment on the allegations.

The nation ranked 37th out of 168 countries in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index last year, behind regional peers Japan, Taiwan and Singapore. About 60 percent of South Koreans surveyed by the country’s Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission in 2015 said they thought Korean society was corrupt.

Economic Concerns

While there has been little debate about the importance of improving transparency, some say the new spending restrictions will dent consumption and hurt the food, agriculture and leisure industries. Finance Minister Yoo Il Ho and Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju Yeol have both cited the anti-corruption law as a risk to the economic growth rate.

In China, President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has seen fallout affecting ed everything from luxury good prices in Hong Kong to gambling revenue in Macau.

Under South Korea’s new Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, government employees, teachers and journalists will be subject to fines if they are treated to meals worth more than 30,000 won ($27) -- including drinks -- or receive gifts worth more than 50,000 won. So will the companies that provide them.

Hardest Hit

The Korea Economic Research Institute estimates the law could cost affected industries about 11.6 trillion won annually. The food industry would see the biggest hit -- about 8.5 trillion won each year, the institute estimated. 

The agriculture ministry is among several government agencies urging the anti-graft commission to lift the price limit to at least 50,000 won for meals and to 100,000 won for gifts. The commission will release a final decision on limits before the law takes effect Sept. 28.

Some businesses on the receiving end of jeopdae spending aren’t waiting for the commission’s final decision.

Korean seafood restaurant chain Haewoori will introduce a new dinner set costing 29,000 won, said Kim Eun Hee, the company’s marketing manager.

BYO Alcohol

“Previously, the cheapest dinner set was 36,000 won,” Kim said. “Since the law sets the limit at 30,000 won per meal including drinks, we plan to allow customers to bring their own alcohol with no corkage charge.”

Lotte and Shinsegae department stores have increased the number of gifts priced at 50,000 won or below, partly in response to the new spending restrictions as well as growing demand for lower-priced gifts.

The new anti-graft law will promote fairer competition, a long-term positive for the economy, said Shin Kwang Yeong, a professor of sociology for Chung-Ang University in Seoul. 

“Some business traditions in Korea have been a hurdle for the economy to become more globalized and open. Now there is an opportunity to change this,” Shin said.

Kim Mun Cho, a professor emeritus at Korea University in Seoul, warned that the new rules could also have unintended consequences.

“The limits are expected to draw support from the public, but we could see other private, secretive ways of forming business relations emerge,” Kim said.

Article source : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-29/korean-business-culture-set-for-shake-up-as-anti-graft-law-looms

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South Korea’s New Anti-Corruption Law Could Have 

Economic Ramifications

MAY 27, 2016• SOUTH KOREA• BY EW NEWS DESK TEAM

The South Korean government will implement a new law known as the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act in September, which bans pricey gift exchanges during business transactions, according to Bloomberg.

Critics contend that the law will affect an economy already suffering from low consumption and lackluster GDP growth. Under the mandate, officials cannot receive meals over 30,000 won and gifts over 50,000 won, but journalists and teachers would be subject to the same rules.

Opponents argue that South Korea retains a culture of corruption, but the government is attempting to crackdown on criminal activity through indictments and anti-graft laws. South Korea ranks high in terms of corruption, and many South Koreans hold little faith in their institutions and public officials.

Powerful firms are often caught in scandals, but face few repercussions. While these companies play a heavy role in economic advancement, corruption and dirty dealing hurts the economy in the long run. Authorities lose revenue from tax evasion and other underhanded dealings, while tarnishing South Korea’s image in the eyes of the world community.

Furthermore, such illicit activity has real-world consequences that could lead to lost lives. For instance, the sinking of a ferry that killed over 300 people in 2014 stemmed from corruption, negligence, and loose regulations, notes BBC.

The men involved in the disaster were arrested and jailed, but the incident traumatized the nation while solidifying the public’s distrust of authority. The government recognizes this, which is why they are banking on the new anti-corruption law, but the measure is not without its flaws.

Citizens could inadvertently violate the law when exchanging gifts during holidays or social occasions. The details could change before the law takes effect, but supporters argue that the new measure would clean up South Korea’s business culture, while reducing the amount of lobbying within government.

The restrictions will also impact certain industries such as beef, fishing, and agriculture, however. The fishing industry alone expects a 1.1-trillion-won decline in sales, as delicacy gifts would fall out of favor. Another problem is that the law doesn’t take inflation into account, which does not bode well for an economy with a history of inflationary spikes.

South Korean President Park Geun Hye assured the public that prices would be adjusted accordingly. While the president acknowledges the inherent risks in passing such a law, she has launched an all-out crusade against corruption in wake of numerous high-profile scandals plaguing the government.

Analysts believe the new law will affect 9.0% of the workforce, and it is considered the harshest anti-corruption law in the country’s history.

Article source : http://www.economywatch.com/news/South-Koreas-New-Anti-Corruption-Law-Could-Have-Economic-Ramifications0527.html

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S. Korea edges up to 37th in global corruption index

2016/01/27 17:55

SEOUL, Jan. 27 (Yonhap) -- South Korea climbed 6 notches in an international corruption awareness ranking to 37th out of 168 countries in 2015, a report by a global anti-corruption watchdog showed Wednesday.

South Korea scored 56 out of 100 in the 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) report issued by Berlin-based Transparency International (TI).

The index eval‎uates countries based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be, using corruption-related data collected by governance and business experts, according to TI.

A score of 70 and above is considered generally clean, while a score of 50 and above means not entirely corrupted.

Among the 34 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), South Korea ranked 27th, unchanged from the last two years.

Compared with 2008, South Korea neither significantly improved nor declined in corruption perception scores or ranking. It scored 5.6 out of 10 and ranked 40th in 2008, Transparency International Korea, the local chapter, said.

"In 2015, a sensation was generated as a list of politicians who allegedly received money from Sung Wan-jong was revealed, and a following series of corruption in the defense industry shocked the public," TI Korea said.

Sung, the late chairman of construction firm Keangnam Enterprises Inc., left an alleged "bribery list" that included high-profile politicians before hanging himself in April last year, just hours before a court hearing that would have determined the legality of his arrest regarding embezzlement charges.

"Still, there were some positive changes including the legislation of the anti-corruption law," it added.

The so-called Kim Young-ran law, named after its proposer, subjects public officials, journalists and private school faculty to a maximum penalty of three years in prison or five times the amount accepted in money or valubles if they are worth more than 1 million won (US$900) from one person in one installment, regardless of whether it was in exchange for favors or related to their work. The new law is to take effect from September.

North Korea, which joined the list in 2011, scored 8 out of 100 and shared last place with Somalia in 2015, according to the report.

Denmark topped the list with 91 points, followed by Finland with 90 and Sweden with 89.

Singapore ranked the highest among Asian countries at 8th. Hong Kong and Japan were next, sharing 18th place.

Article source : http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2016/01/27/0200000000AEN20160127008800315.html

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<Questions>

Q1. How do you think about the implementation of new anti-corruption law in Korea? 

Q2. Have you ever treated or been treated by others with boozy dinner? Why does boozy dinner matter? 

Q3. Have you ever been damaged by unfair opportunity due to the corrupted behavior of competitors in your community?

Q4. Which sector corrupted the most in our society? Political sectors? Business sectors? or Education sectors? or All sectors? Because they are all connected each other? 

Q5. What is the 'Fair Opportunity based Society' or the 'Inclusive growth based society'? Do you think our society is based on this concept? What is the reality? 

Q6. Why do we need this bill in our society? 

Q7. Why do we need a clean society based on anti-corruption? 

[Judy*]

아~연휴에도 잉홀 하는군요!
남편 바쁘고 애들 셤기간이고 뭐하고 노나 했는데...
모임 끝나고 이차는 안면도로 쏜다면 조인할 수 있는 사람?ㅋㅋ
스칼렛? 노는 것 좀 추진해보심이?ㅋㅋ
내 적극 지원하리다~

[Scarlet]

ㅎㅎㅎ 저는 올해는 좀 힘들고 다른분들과 함께 한번 추진해 보셔도 좋을듯요.ㅋ
쥬디님과 안면도행 관심있으신 분들 한번 꼬릿말로 한번 달아보세요.ㅋ
재미난 일들이 많을거 같아요.ㅋ

[Judy*]

ㅋㅋ저 놀아주시는거 걱정 안해도 되요~
남편이가 내일 같이 놀아주신다네~브릿짓존스 다이어리 보고 서해로 뜨기로ㅋㅋ