As previously mentioned on our [Home Page], there are over 7.4 million South Koreans living abroad outside of South Korea (which is more than the entire population of the nation of Israel). These Korean expatriates develop enterprises and create businesses in every country of their residence abroad.

Outward Expansion of Koreans Moving Abroad

The outward expansion (internationally) of Korean owned businesses is often due to Koreans looking for better opportunities outside of South Korea. One motivating factor which causes Koreans to go abroad is the high cost of land and rental property in Korea. Those who start business enterprises in Korea my have to pay a huge price for rental property and buying property is terribly expensive. This means that to lease needed business space they would have pay a major part of their income for rental costs alone. The high cost of the limited land space and limited business space in Korea is one major factor in causing large numbers of South Koreans to seek better opportunities outside of South Korea.

Another factor that contributes to Koreans moving abroad is “social pressure” because when over 80% of the population seeks to have a college degree, then the remaining Koreans (without a degree) will typically consider themselves as belonging to the lowest 20% of society. Therefore, there is great “social-pressure” to obtain a higher education which causes students to nearly exhaust themselves trying to qualify to pass a college entrance exam to be accepted into a Korean University. But the high number of college graduates in South Korea has caused the market to be largely saturated. There are presently numerous Korean college graduates who are unable to find employment within their field of study after graduation.

Currently the best opportunity in Korea is to obtain a good-paying job within a Korean “Chaebol” (a large industrial conglomerate like Samsung or LG). But the competition for finding such a job is fierce and there are far more applicants than there are jobs available. Also, there is evidence that the present-day Korean “Chaebols” are now decreasing financially within the global economy and their “profitability” is now faltering. Again, these are several more reasons which causes Koreans to seek better opportunities abroad when competition for good paying jobs is so intense in Korea and the once” iron-clad” financial security offered by chaebols is now waning.

Creating Our Own Opportunities

There are good job opportunities and business opportunities for Koreans working abroad. But even better than seeking employment abroad is if we will pool our resources together as a group and start our own business enterprises and thus create new job openings for our own people. One example of this moving to Russia to create a new “non-centralized” living system. Russia provides the opportunities of receiving “Free Land” and also plans to issue ten-million “Dual-Citizenships” for foreigners who will come and develop the largely uninhabited far eastern regions of Russia. We already have the technology needed to create a living system which can produce food and energy and products within any environment on earth. It would be easy for us to join together as a group and pool our investments and create the innovations we need to build our own living system within any remote region on earth (including Russia).

Again, see the link “Developing Remote Regions” for more details.

Enterprises and Pooled Funds

I often use the example of “pooling funds for investments” from what my friend Matt Ruhl accomplished when he started a “Real-Estate-Club” in Seattle, Washington. At that time, he was working for a barge company that transported goods to Alaska by barge. This was the lowest priced option for moving large volumes of products and goods and equipment and machinery to Alaska. The demand for this service was high so everyone working at the barge company were earning good wages and had a lot of over-hours. What Matt Ruhl did was to organize the employees at the barge company to pool their wages together in order to buy real estate for cash. They were using their “expendable” wealth for investments (that income which was over and above their immediate living expenses) and this money was invested in real estate. They pooled their money to buy rental houses and they fixed them up and rented them out. This had a snowball effect because the more houses they purchased the more rental income they received and soon they could buy more rental houses. They purchased these houses for “cash” (without bank loans) and they were surprised just how fast they were able to buy houses when a “lion-share” of their income was not being “bled-off” to pay the “parasite” bankers. In just a relatively short period of time they were able to purchase enough rental properties to create a retirement income for every member of their club. This was working so well that the members continued working at the barge company and continued investing their expendable wealth in purchasing real estate properties.

This real-life example shows what can be accomplished when many people pool their resources together for investments. Even those who previously had “bad-credit” (and could not borrow money) were able to purchase rental houses for cash as a part of this group. But when Matt left the real estate club and moved to Kansas (so his wife could pursue a career in health care) then he was not able to buy more than one rental property on his own. But those who remained in the real estate club in Seattle, continued to prosper in “snowballing” manner together by their group investments. In the same way, we can make investments as a group and can accomplish together what we cannot do alone (if we operate as lone “individual” investors).