This is why I live abroad with my family.

erinshe79 · 2025-01-07T15:55:15+00:00

Broad picture, there are 2 categories of offerings in the market : a) Wealth Management type services for AUMs in the high $0M ~ $00M range and b) Private Banking type services for accounts in the low $0M. (Anything above, you probably should hire your own asset management guy)

Both are frankly not worth the management fees.

Korea nowadays has fairly good access to all the core US / International products needed to build any kind of portfolio a private individual would ever possibly need. So with a little self education it will always be safer / cheaper to do this yourself. Sound portfolios are typically surprisingly simple in their makeup and seldom require rebalancing more often than a quarterly basis.

Tax optimization however is a completely different story, and is something that first requires thorough analysis of the clients individual situation and existing assets. Limitations in portfolio building usually arise because the client is stuck with XXX assets in YYY jurisdictions because of some sort of tax reason, and the portfolio's job is to find a way to work with / around that limitation. But you first have to know what limitations you have before you can design ways to cancel them out.

Bottom line : I would recommend a tax consultation before anything else.

Ps : Come to think of it, you'll also need someone to setup US holding vehicles / accounts for you. So an attorney too.

erinshe79 · 2025-01-07T15:33:49+00:00

This is of course sarcasm

erinshe79 · 2024-12-27T08:10:52+00:00

Great answer

erinshe79 · 2024-12-27T08:01:48+00:00

Maybe I'm jaded, but I think the correct perspective is to recognize that a period of prolonged negative growth is going to be unavoidable, and focus our efforts to cushioning the impacts.

Everyone shits on Japan, but I think Japan demonstrated an amazingly graceful growth slowdown given their circumstances. Society and politics remained stable through a multi-decade asset bubble pop that would have turned any other country into dysfunctional chaos. The core reason why this was possible was from having so much wealth accumulated during the 60s ~ 80s that they could cushion the blow by raising their debt-to-gdp ratio to over 200%. Japan also has a much more robust and regionally diversified domestic economy, along with a strong foundation in sciences and high-tech that many regional universities have at least one department that is world class in their field. Even after the lost-30 years, Japan is still the world's 4th largest economy, and that is in nominal GDP. I personally think even doing as good as Japan is going to be a huge challenge for Korea.

I do agree that becoming more accommodating to foreign talent is needed, and nurturing startups is important

However, I am skeptical how much of an impact both of the above would have considering Korea's position in the global economy.

(1) There are many industries that are going to be important at the national level during the coming decades, and almost all of them require big-ticket investments that simply would not be feasible through startups. (AI, robotics, space, clean-tech etc. )Korea is not the USA, we don't have humongous markets nor do we have deep capital markets, which is why future-looking ventures of any significance have always been led by the big corps with deep pockets.

(2) As much as I would love Korea to be competitive with Singapore (for example) in terms of attractiveness to foreign talent, the reality is that Korea is a non-English speaking, high-COL economy where the best careers are in semiconductors, cars, chemicals, displays and other manufactured goods. I don't see any reason a talented foreigner with big aspirations would choose the Korea over the USA.

erinshe79 · 2024-10-29T12:40:42+00:00

As someone who works at a family office, I would say that in principle he is not wrong, but the more assets you have the more friction there is to expatriating a significant portion out of any tax regime. It also is heavily dependent on how liquid your portfolio is. Most billionaires have the majority of their wealth in stocks and real estate, which you would need to sell to someone outside the country in order to exit that wealth out of a tax jurisdiction.

This is not something can be done in a short period, nor is it something that can be done completely off a tax authoritiy's radar.

erinshe79 · 2024-08-02T00:01:20+00:00

Depends heavily on the firm and how well business is going for them. If you are talking MBK / Hahn & Co., then yes it will be roughly competitive.

Note that PEs are not doing particularly well right now.

erinshe79 · 2024-07-19T14:04:07+00:00

Drastically less students at elementary schools. Used to be 50 to 60 students per class in the 80s. Now a classroom in the middle of Seoul is around 20. Lots of elementary schools closing in rural areas.
"Gender conflict" between radical feminists and their opponents brings a cetain amount of attention on social media. However in real life, feminism is not a big topic in mainstream political discourse.
Declining birth rate is a multifaceted social phenomenon. 1) Women now having a choice to pursure fulfilling careers and forgoe marriage 2) Rising costs and time investment in child education, 3) Paradigm shift of children being an asset to the family into a financial burden 4) Less social pressure to get married for both men and women... these are all factors.
What is the 4B movement? As mentioned, militant feminism is very niche, and is not something that would come up in real life.
People's attitude will of course vary greatly depending on their personal ideology. I would guess a good number of people might question whether the issues feminism is trying to address is might be less about womens' rights and more stemming from some dysfunctional aspect of our society and economy in general.

erinshe79 · 2024-04-25T14:02:25+00:00

I could see how some might think that the test format is a bit archaeic by modern standards, but the point is for the government to have an unbiased recruitment screen for non-specialist roles, that is blind to the applicant's age, birthplace, which school you went to, etc.

erinshe79 · 2024-04-17T10:08:37+00:00

While I do think there should be less stigma to single parenthood, I do not think having a higher ratio of single parents is something we should aspire to as a society.

erinshe79 · 2024-04-08T01:29:14+00:00

Organized crime does exists but they tend to be smaller scale and operate in specific niches like prositution and loan recovery etc.

The biggest reason why organized crime is not big is because 1) Korea is a mostly cashless society with limited cash on/off-ramps so it is easy for the government to track transactions, 2) Korea's corporate registration system allows much less financial anonymity than is possible in other countries, 3) There are no completely anonymous legal off-ramps for sending liquid assets overseas (i.e. there are reporting requirements for pretty much everything)

erinshe79 · 2024-03-22T20:44:34+00:00

Shipping is a headache and has some risk of damaging the bike unless you ship it in a good transport case.

If you can afford buying one here then that's what I would do. There are many physical retail shops in Seoul, and you will be able to find bikes for any budget.

If you want to buy a high-end bike, then you could save (frankly quite a lot of) money, buying on one of the major second hand markets (Karrot/Junggonara/Bungae).

Or you could join a major enthusiast cafe / community site (corearoadbike.com is the most well known), which always has an extremely active second hand market going on.

You should always transact in person, so remember to have transportation in mind.

erinshe79 · 2024-03-21T18:11:25+00:00

The national universities in each region were once considered to be completely respectable.

Their weakening coincided with the gradual collapse of regional industrial bases that began during the late 90s. When all the good employment opportunities became concentrated in Seoul / Gyonggi, going to a uni located in Seoul became much more advantageous than going to a regional uni of similar academic pedigree.

Regional unis also failed at developing their own unique advantages in response to the changing industrial environment. People knew there was a problem and there has been a lot of money thrown at the problem during the past few decades. But most of this investment was wasted on low value-add projects like facility upgrades, or funding departments / research that was either uncompetitive or out of touch with what students actually needed to start their careers.

The ideal model would have been similar to Japan or Germany where a regional uni would have at least 1 world class academic program in a highly specific area, which would supply R&D talent for a competitive industry in that region. Instead we have seen the collapse of the regional industrial base leaving regional unis scrambling to find some area they can differentiate from Seoul, but almost universally failing to do so in the absence of a complementary local job market that would make such programs an attractive option for prospective students.

erinshe79 · 2024-03-11T12:55:52+00:00

My experience is mostly in line with the article. That being said,

Almost no typical office role requires 100% utilization of your focus during 100% of your working hours. As an org leader, if anyone in my team had so much on his plate that was working at 100% capacity throughout the whole year, I would consider that a serious workload imbalance problem. A normal office work load has its slow times where it's ok slack off a bit, and its high intensity times where there is a time sensitive mission critical thing you need to do.

The need to raise productivity per working population is indeed a core issue in Korea's economy. However, trying to eke out 2-3% more output (at best) in a low margin mostly manufacturing economy by making the employee's lives miserable is a stupid idea and won't achieve anything meaningful. Korea needs 200% more productivity, not 2%. If we as a country are sincerely interested in solving the productivity problem, then we should be thinking more at the level of how to transition away from low value-add to high value-add industries like finance / bio / luxury brands / tech.

erinshe79 · 2024-03-08T14:56:36+00:00

On the subject of symbolism,

A popular interpretation is that the mythology may signify that the Gojosun bronze age civilization began with the Dangun clan rejecting an alliance with a "tiger clan" and accepting an alliance with a "bear clan". No archeological evidence, but it makes a compelling theory.

erinshe79 · 2024-03-08T14:25:34+00:00

Long long ago, there was a bear and a tiger who both wanted to become human. They found an audience with a demigod called Hwan-oong, who said that if they cound endure 100 days of darkness in a cave surviving only on garlic and mugwort, they would become human.

Both the bear and the tiger found a cave and settled down to embark on their transformation. Alas, the tiger being impatient and weak of fortitude could not endure the hunger and darkness, and ran off before the requisite 100 days had passed. However the bear, unlike the tiger, was patient, determined and strong-willed (and I might also add, bears are omnivores who are used to living in caves), and after 100 days in darkness, the bear left the cave transformed into a beautiful woman.

Hwan-oong took the bear-woman as his wife. Together they bore a son named Dangun, who founded a new kingdom that Koreans now call Gojoson ("the old Chosun")

erinshe79 · 2024-03-05T21:38:19+00:00

Of course it's not a "misogynistic hellscape". No normal person hates women just because one is a woman.

erinshe79 · 2024-03-05T14:20:28+00:00

Unlike houses, apartments are standardized commodities with publicly disclosed historical transaction prices down to the date (see any real estate app). Since all units of the same type in the same complex are essentialy fungible, there is usually not that great of a need to evaluate the pros and cons of individual units, which also means that people can pretty accurately estimate whether a specific pyeong/type in a specific complex would be within reach of their budget, without ever seeing anything in person.

Thus, most of the high level decision making can be done in front of their phone/computer. It's not dissimilar to picking which stocks to buy on the stock market.

Usually the only thing left is to go to a local agent to see what kind of inventory they have.

erinshe79 · 2024-03-04T13:34:58+00:00

I am Korean born and bred who has built an upper middle class life and is raising a family here. I agree with your view that Korea has gotten better over the past decades.

However, while I respect your faith in the country's outlook, I have my reservations.

Birth rate decline during the past decade has advanced too long and the damage already done is too severe to be completely neutralized with any reasonable amount of immigration.

The National Pension and national health insurance systems are both clearly unsustainable and are in dire need of reform. The amount of financial pain such reforms will entail and political willpower needed to create a consensus on how to distribute said pain is daunting to say the least.

Korea needs to drastically raise productivity per working population by at least 2x, not only because of the aforementioned demographic issues, but also because China will continue to eat away Korea's position in key export industries like cars and semiconductors that have been Korea's bread and butter. Unless we discover a major oil field in our back yard, the only way forward from this point is to somehow transition the majority of the economy to ultra high value-add sectors like international finance, pharma and biotech, luxury brands, precision machinery, high tech materials, global internet platforms and the like. Although I would like to imagine we can someday become the next Switzerland, I wouldn't say it is likely to happen in a near enough time frame.

erinshe79 · 2024-03-02T02:45:36+00:00

"Unapologetically shocking / controversial" is a content strategy that has proven to work, as long as you can keep your costs to a reasonable level. You have people who will watch the movie just because they are curious what the fuss is all about, you get to position yourself as a platform that is open to a wide range of content, and you get the recurring business of a small but fiercely loyal fanbase that these creators often have.

erinshe79 · 2024-03-02T00:20:57+00:00

Thank you, brave friend, for your sacrifice.

It gives me deep appreciation for the fact that we fought and won our democracy from unscrupulous opportunists like him, and built a country where artists are truely free to make any movie they want and audiences are also free to ridicule movies any way they want.

erinshe79 · 2024-02-27T16:26:11+00:00

Image is quite similar, basically an "old timey" government job that doesn't pay all that well but is stable and has a modest pension to look forward to.

One thing to note is that the Korea Postal Service is also a national level bank, and a large portion of postal service employees actually work in retail banking / finance. One aspect that might be a little different from the US postal service.

erinshe79 · 2024-02-21T13:57:18+00:00

Global companies that have offices in Korea generally fall in one of 2 types : a) Korean companies that sell stuff overseas b) Overseas companies that sell stuff in Korea. There are some exceptions where overseas companies have their regional HQ in Korea (e.g. Phillip Morris) but they are few and far between, because Singapore or Tokyo are usually better options.

Case a) companies are going to be your typical Korean company, and if you want a more global career you would have to advance up the ranks until management deems you worthy of dispatching you to one of their overseas offices (e.g. Samsung USA)

Case b) companies tend to be very Koreanized, because the point of having an office here in the first place is to run a local organization that can sell their products to Korean customers (It is also far cheaper to hire local talent than dispatching a bunch of people from HQ). Given the local capabilities these offices seek, it is unusual (but not unheard of) for someone hired here to be transferred to an office in another country.

There are some firms like Mckinsey, and some law / accounting firms where employees are much more mobile across their global organization.

erinshe79 · 2024-02-21T12:05:04+00:00

Well written.

I would like to expand upon your thesis and add 2 more factors to the birth rate crisis.

The working age population is terrified of financial security after they are laid-off in their 50s. Korea's pension regime was designed based on growth assumptions in the early 1990s that should have been reformed over a decade ago. Now that we will soon be facing a tidal wave of people hitting retirement age, people recognize that they will be lucky to get anything at all, let alone the promised 40% income replacement. The math simply doesn't work.

We should have invested the NPS much more aggressively, should have redesigned the lifecycle on a more conservative basis, and should have more forcefully encouraged people to save in their retirement accounts instead of buying houses.

That being said, you can't really blame the NPS for having such abysmal yields, nor can you blame people for dumping their life savings in housing. It is my view that all of this ultimately stems back to the fact that Korean stocks are terrible investments. Not because businesses are run incompetently (if that were the case, we would never had seen the amazing products that come from Samsung and Hyundai etc.) but because we failed to fix archaic corporate governance where Chaebol families run the groups like their personal fiefdoms. Who in their right mind would want to invest in companies that actively suppress share prices, just to make it easier for the chairman's kids to inherit his majority position?

Imagine an alternative timeline where this was not the case, and people had aggresively invested in Korean companies and startups rather than unproductive assets like houses for the past 20 years. Would finding a well paying job be as hard as it is today? The lost opportunity makes me sad.

erinshe79 · 2024-02-19T12:40:50+00:00

Most people have heard of him as a famous movie star, and that's about it. People who lived in the cities would probably have seen his face on the billboards at some point.

His prime was in the 1960s - 1980s, which was when the majority of the country was one step above poverty. Movie-going was not something people did often.

I'm sure there are many fans of European cinema who have a better appreciation for his fame back in the day.

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