King back to the throne

At long last!

After two years of waiting for the right timing, Lee Kun-hee is finally back to Samsung, this time as CEO of Samsung Electronics.

Of course the company has been building up its case why former chairman of the Samsung group should come back. Here is what Choi Gee-sung said last september.

“To achieve ‘strategic focus,’ we need owner’s determination.’ We need owner’s vision for the future.” He went on to say “there are many times when we need to put together all the strength the company has in order to win in this highly competitive world, which is not possible under the current system.”

The company put out this morning the statement that read :

As of today, Lee Kun-hee returns as chairman of Samsung Electronics.

Samsung presidents’ council discussed his return to management on 17th and 24th, and agreed that Lee’s experience and leadership is needed to Samsung in taking a lead in the global market amid rising uncertainty and rapidly changing management conditions in the global economy.

The council wrote up a letter asking his return after the Fabruary 24th meeting, and Lee Su-bin, Chairnman of Samsung life insurance, gave the letter to Lee Kun-hee.

Lee Kun-hee said “now is a real crisis. Best companies in the world are collapsing. We don’t know what is going to happen to Samsung too. In the coming 10 years, businesses and products that represent Samsung today will mostly disappear. We need start anew. No time to hesitate. We should go forward."

So the company need a hero to salvage it from a 'real crisis'? Does this giant comapny still need a babysitter? This whole claim is to about scarying the Korean people into a belief that Samsung can't survive without its founding family. What does this company take its countrymen for?

To be fair, the country's biggest conglomerate might need to treat the old hero better for his substantial role over the past decades in the company's astronomical growth.

Lee Kun-hee stepped down April 2008 over tax evasion and breach of trust charges against him. His regination then helped this scandal to fizzle out. He later paid fines and received a suspended jail term, as widely expected.

It was a disgraceful departure of chairman of the Korea's biggest chaebol surely for the founding family and many executives who have been close aides to Mr. Lee.

Though some people close to the matter say he is not going to be involved in day-to-day business matters, most Koreans consider this as the 'return of the king.'

No one will doubt that he exerts enourmous influence over the group. In fact he has never lost that power since he took the helm.

what a moron

Korea Communications Commission Chairman Choi See-joong told a group of female reporters last week that women should stay at home rather than having a job and just being a good mom and wife contributes to society.

Saying that his two daughters got married as soon as graduating from Ewha Woman’s University, women’s mission should be based on home, otherwise there is no way to resolve this low birthrate problems, he said.

So he basically echoed this repetitive claim, which has been made again and again by many men in Korea, that working women are solely responsible for the country’s record-low birthrate, and they should stay at home and have more babies!!!

Wow, I knew that many helpless old ajussis often make that kind of ridiculous charges, but how dare he spoke that in front of FEMALE REPORTERS?

Facing a barrage of criticism by women activists groups and female reporters, he made a public apology three days later, and again the next day he tried to appease angry women, saying “I have total respect in and support for the value of women’s participation in the workforce and sex equality…and will try to make a social environment where women can juggle work and family.”

If he is not alone in this absurd mind-set, Korea has a really long way to go. This makes me really sick.

Unlikely politician interviewed by LA Times

Kang Ki-kab, a farmer-turned-lawmaker, is one of the most unlikely politicians you can think of being in the National Assembly to execute law and order.

He is infamous for being stubborn, reckless, and irrational. In particular, he is famous for his Kung-fu-like kicking and punching in the National Assembly. He once was so angry for not being paid attention to by other politicians, so he stomped angrily on top of a table, turned it over, and wielded a hammer. He said he wanted to be heard, which he said was ignored.

If you ever paid attention to TV debates during the highly contentious US beef 'crisis'-I'd like to call the crazy time a crisis- a few years ago, you must be quite familiar with this guy who asserted so strongly about how hazardous US beef was to the health of Korean people. As far as I remember, he hardly offered solid evidence for it.

As LA Times pointed out, once he believes in something, all the other arguments fell on his deaf ears. Once something is branded evil to his eyes, it is OUT forever.

Though his arguments, to me, often doesn't make a sense at all, his unique stubbornness makes him, to some others, a sincere believer in Korea's dirty political scenes where political opportunists seem outnumber hard-working honest politicians.

But lawmakers should maintain decency and manner. The last thing Korea's politics needs is another violent activist. We have had enough of them whose actions have spoken more than their words.

He showed enough of himself during his two consecutive terms to let voters know he is not qualified to represent people for another term. It shouldn't just happen.

**see the below link to LA Times story on Kang Ki-kab

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-korea-outsider2-2010mar02,0,2857319.story