President Lee Myung-bak was elected to be the 17th president of South Korea at the end of 2007 by a landslide. He received 48.7% of the vote, while his next rival received only 26.1%. His conservative platform was aimed at revitalizing the economy, and as the Mayor of Seoul, and previous CEO of Hyundai Construction, he seemed to have the economic clout to do it. But the president, whose nickname during his time at Hyundai Construction was the Bulldozer, has met with setback after setback during his administration. The whole world is quite literally against his economic revitalization plans, and political enemies have opposed specific projects by his administration. But so far, his administration has been a trail of disappointment.

Supporters of his administration say that now is the time for rallying around the national leader to encourage the nation to get through the global crisis. His opponents allege that his policies, which have earned the moniker Mbnomics, are partially to blame for the current economic problems specifically affecting Korea. But from both perspectives it must be admitted that the president simply hasn't delivered on any of his promises yet.

This administration was the first conservative term in 10 years. His predecessors left a slumping economy with high youth unemployment, so the economic issues he spoke about were close to the hearts and minds of most of his constituents. His plans were to stimulate the economy through deregulation, tax cuts, and extensive development projects.

However, his first part of deregulation was the deregulation of US beef imports, in order to get in line with the upcoming KORUS FTA. That move met with a shocking amount of protest from Korean citizens, as months-long candlelight vigils in the capital turned violent. These protests made it impossible for the administration to push any more of their ideas, as a cross-country canal project and school reforms were abandoned by the wayside of political battle. The Bulldozer was unable to push forward.

In the grand tradition of Korean politi- cians, Lee had also created a catchy economic plan with a number for a name, the 747 plan. It stood for 7 percent economic growth, an increase of per capita growth to US$40,000 within ten years, and the goal of becoming the world's seventh largest economy, a big rise from the current 13th. However, right away his plan seemed to fall apart and be crushed under the mounting oil prices in the world economy. And, right after that, the subprime mortgage crisis in the US began to spread to its major trading partners around the world, tripping up businessmen all over the world, including Korea. The administration had to settle for much less ambitious goals, like providing government spending to slow rising unemployment rates and subsidize the national currency. 

Since then, the global financial market turmoil has spread to the real economy, forcing companies to cut production and their workforce. Meanwhile, consumers have tightened their purse strings to cope with the increasingly pessimistic economic outlook, with plunging sales hitting businesses hard.

The Lee administration has cut 13 trillion won (US$8.58 billion) in taxes and spent 22 trillion won (US$14.5 billion) more to try to encourage companies to expand investment and create more jobs. The President also initiated a restructuring drive to turn public companies into profitoriented and efficient entities to save taxpayers' money. However, this is not quite the ride that the Korean people signed up for. And, even all these efforts were not enough to immunize the nation from the global economic downturn. The Korean economy is expected to take more turns down because of a wildly falling export forecast and continued slow domestic consumption.

Furthermore, the GDP will fall 2 percent this year, instead of growing 3 percent as was the target. The Korean government projected a 3 percent fall, however, the IMF projected a 4 percent fall.

According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), GDP shrank 5.6 percent between October and December. The figure was much higher than its earlier forecast of 1.6 percent and the worst performance in a decade since the economy nose-dived 7.8 percent in the first quarter of 1998, when the financial crisis shook the country.

Korea recorded a US$6.41 billion current account deficit in 2008, marking the first shortfall since 1997, when the deficit reached US$8.3 billion in the wake of the Asian financial crisis.

According to the National Statistical Office (NSO), 103,000 jobs were lost last month after a net slide of 12,000 in December. It marks the largest job loss since September 2003, when the nation lost 189,000 jobs, following the bursting credit card bubble.

Consumer prices rose 4.7 percent in 2008 from a year earlier, up from a 2.5 percent gain in 2007. The increase was the highest since 1998, when prices jumped 7.5 percent.

Against a host of unfavorable business conditions, President Lee and his economic advisors have vowed to stimulate domestic demand and create more jobs by mobilizing all possible pump-priming measures.

Strategy and Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said the government will soon come out with a supplementary budget of up to 20 trillion won (US$13.2 billion) to boost the economy. The nation's top economic policymaker also said the government will make the labor market more flexible and will target creating more jobs. Will this be enough to keep things from getting worse Or will the administration even be able to turn things around Those watching the economy closely would have to say no.