The DoD is using a computer model to come up with a 9% figure or $7.2 million.

It looks like they are actually nailing people! I think these guys deserves it for walking up to the register with 5 shopping carts.

I can understand the short-ribs, but rice? I thought Korean rice was high quality. Why buy from the commissary?

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I guess the moral of this story is don't buy in bulk. Those are examples of 'stupid criminals', for lack of a better phrase. Who's to say that this isn't higher or lower. That is strange that rice is on there. I'm surprised that ketschup wasn't a major item.

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BOOM, BOOM. Out goes the Lights

Even though Korea produces way more rice than it consumes, it also pays huge subsidies to the rice farmers, and the politicians are afraid to back off from the subsidies for fear of not getting re-elected. So the market price in is inflated t the point where that 20 pound bag of rice at the commissary that costs around $10 - costs a whopping $40 at a Korean market.

This has been a very thorny issue for Korea because countries like the US (that produces a lot of rice, much of which is available for export) have really been turning the screws harder and harder each year to get Korea to open its agriculture market.

Korea counters by saying the import of rice will cause several significant effects, and the effects are closely related with the economy and culture of South Korea. Gov't experts say the import of rice will destroy the basis of agriculture in Korea. Currently, more than the half farmers in Korea grow rice, so about 400,000 farmers would lose their job after the opening of the rice market. And this would cause an already serious unemployment problem to get just that much worse.

Problem is - you can't have it both ways, i.e., open market for all your products in the US, but a closed market in your country for US products. The U.S. let Korea get away with this for many years because it was a poor, developing country. But things have changed.

So Korea is in a serious pinch, and the situation isn't getting any better.

I bet you would be surprised what is actually on the "black market" list in the commissary. I know you cannot buy more than 3 or 5 packs of hot dogs at 1 time, rice is on the list and who knows what else.

Their are also things in the PX that are on the black market list also. Golf Clubs are one of them. The gentleman that does the blacket market briefing said that the cheapest golf clubs in the PX were going for $2000 on the black market.

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CH-47 SI

They must find it difficult...

Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. --Gerald Massey

They probably change things by now but at one time you could go to Japan and pay for high $ items @ the PX/BX and bring them back to Korea without the usual paperwork or coming off your rations. Those nice little fixed winged pilots and crew memebers were notorious for this. Some would fly the General staf to Japan and perform a quick maintenence check, then off to AFFEES, return to the bird and finish the checks, etc. By passinig customs and USFK's ration policy.

To Willy: Thanks for clearing up the rice thing

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BOOM, BOOM. Out goes the Lights

Way back when (from the time USFK arrived in Korea up through the early-mid ‘90s), the thing that drove the black market in Korea was good ol’ fashioned “supply and demand.” Because many items in the PX and commissary were not available anywhere in Korea, and there was a big demand for them, the black market was a very popular way of making extra cash for GIs. You could easily make enough to cover a night’s worth of beer drinking by making a quick stop at the commissary and grabbing a bag or two of groceries on your way out to the ville. A very tempting proposition for a young GI who was broke until the next pay day.

By the ‘90s, many of the products that were traditionally popular on the black market, such as mayonnaise, were available on the Korean economy – and many of them were manufactured by same American companies as those in the commissary – but of course, the labels were written in Hangul.

It then became a matter of choosing between the real McCoy American version, only available on the black market, or the “made for Korea export” version (which many assumed was not made to the same quality standards as the original). There was (and always had been) the snob factor of having the black marketed American version (with no Hangul on the label) that probably didn’t taste any different than the imported version – but impressed the neighbors because having it meant you “must have connections.” Of course, the snob factor usually won out. Side note: the ultimate snob factor item for many years was a Yongsan decal for your car.

Although the American versions are probably still somewhat popular, I think many items have now been available for so long that the snob factor is mostly gone. In other, words, there are many who have grown up with the made for Korea versions, and they have come to suit them just fine.

Thus, I believe the thing that now drives the black market is good old-fashioned value. If you go out on the Korean economy and check prices – you will be astounded at how much Koreans pay for many things. The wife cooked me up a steak dinner the other night. She realized at some point that we were out of potatoes. I didn’t feel like trooping all the way over to the commissary (fighting rush hour traffic every inch of the way), so I went to a local store and bought four potatoes. They weren’t big lunker Idaho sized spuds – in fact they were below average size by American standards. Total was 2,600 won (around $2.75). They probably didn’t weigh much more than a pound all together. A five pound bag of potatoes at the commissary costs 99 cents. This is just one example. I’m not saying everything is this expensive in Korea – but a lot of things are. So the $6 bag of rice at the commissary – that goes for several times that much on the black market – is a hot item. Not because it’s American made (or grown, in this case), but because it’s a lot cheaper than what it would cost locally.

It really does not matter if you buy in bulk or moderation at the commissary. It is the aggregate of the monthly total. I am not sure if they still have the unit RCP where a unit could make purchases in bulk for an activity. Since AAFES has a ceiling on the expenditure before it is placed on the card they are able to operate under the radar. Coincidence? <LOL>

I believe I may have posted a while back where in the 80's Congress wanted a GAO investigation on the amount of Spam consumed in Korea. I do not recall the numbers however, it was in the stratosphere. They backed off I believe Hormel set up shop.

BTW: The pilots were not only bringing in high dollar items in the country. The flights coming in for major exercises from Hawaii were also carrying a green substance that emitted an odor when burned. A friend use to greet them with his dog.

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Chill

Having worked here in the commissary system in Korea for 9 years, I only saw one thing that almost eliminated the black market. It was the late 1997 Korean economy collapse. We hardly ever sold any black market items. There was even an article back then about it in the Stars and Stripes.

I've been aware of this for some time.

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BOOM, BOOM. Out goes the Lights

I guess I must have misread your posting.

>>"I guess the moral of this story is don't buy in bulk. Those are examples of 'stupid criminals', for lack of a better phrase. Who's to say that this isn't higher or lower. That is strange that rice is on there. I'm surprised that ketschup wasn't a major item."

An analyst is trained to spot data trends. The known variables are number of RCP's issued to a familiy. If the average family size of 4 consumes 10lbs of rice per month and there is a spike where one family is consuming 10lbs a day, this may be cause for further analysis?

A cardinal rule that analyst believe is data only provides you with the questions to ask. It is up to the officials to find the answers.

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Chill