Isn Korea a poor country?
Not any more. Korea has grown rapidly in the past 20 years. Although their per capita income is still lower than in the US, it broke US$10,000 in the early 2000s and by 2007 had passed US$21,000. In 1990, Korea had one automobile for every 22 Koreans; in 2000, the ratio was 1:6. By 2009, Korea had one vehicle for every 2.8 people (over 17 million vehicles). There are plenty of Koreans below the poverty level (and a growing gap between rich and poor). There are people whose homes don’t even have indoor plumbing. But the typical middle-class Korean owns a small modern apartment of several hundred square feet, drives a Hyundai Sonata, watches an LG (Goldstar) television, and talks on a Samsung cell phone. Korea went through some rocky times in 1997 and 1998 because of the recession which affected all of Asia. They sold their soul to the IMF in return for a quick recovery, and since then their economic growth has been mostly respectable if variable. But they haven’t been immune to the glob
