Korea as an attractive investment destination

Rogers Holdings Chairman Jim Rogers is known as the world's top-3 investors along with Warren Buffett and George Soros. Rogers became a legend recording an a accumulative profit margin at 4,200 percent until 1980 since he founded the "Quantum Fund" with Soros in 1969 when he was 27 years old. Rogers is also famous for his vision, predicting the future based on what he saw and heard while travelling around the world.

After travelling 100,000 miles around 52 nations in six continents in 1990, Rogers predicted China would become the center of the world. At that time, China was going through a rough patch over the revolution and opening after the Tiananmen Square movement, While many raised their eyebrows over his prediction, China indeed rose as the world's second largest economy at the current time. Rogers has made his judgment that Korea is not an attractive investment destination, a diagnosis he has made Friday when he visited Korea to shoot a TV program forecasting 100 years of Korean economy.

Rogers said he visited the "local community where students study for public officials entrance examinations" and met students who hit the books for fifteen hours a day. Rogers then asked "what kind of a future would this country hold if teenagers dream of becoming public servants, instead of the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg?" Indeed, it has been a long time since public servants maintained its solid position as the dream job among teenagers. A similar case can be found in France where French teenagers study endlessly to be admitted to the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA), an academy designed to teach future presidents, ministers, and high officials. Still, this is merely for the elites in France. As Rogers has pointed out, Korea may be the only country where people study so hard in order to become "just public officials" regardless of what position or job they will take.

It is indeed immensely disappointing to see so many people choose to land on a public position not based on their commitment to serve the country, but solely for fixed retirement and job security. In England where the history of public service goes back to over 100 years, public service has become a "3D job" among and British in their 10s and 20s. Not only do these jobs pay less than the entire average, but also they can be fired anytime. Surely, Korea is at a loss, and would just have to wish Rogers' "prediction" turns out to be wrong for the sake of Korean youngsters and the country.