The Korea Herald

[Yang Sung-jin] Blizzard’s mobile misjudgment

I have long envied Blizzard Entertainment. Unlike some Korean game developers hell-bent on churning out cookie-cutter mobile games infested with dubious monetization tricks, Blizzard has proudly focused on gameplay over profit. Korean gamers, including hard-core fans of the “Diablo” franchise, were quick to praise the US-based company’s “legendary” game development culture. I had respected Blizzard’s dedication to making great games since I played “Diablo 3” with friends and was impressed by its

Nov. 7, 2018

[Yang Sung-jin] Blizzard’s mobile misjudgment

[Kim Myong-sik] Disorder in Gwanghwamun tops Korean maladies

When times are bad, people tend to become amateur historians. We search for a point in history that resembles the present and ponder its consequences in order to foresee where we are going, although we know history does not always repeat itself. Because people in power today talk much about “revolution,” I checked my mental archive to find when we last had a revolution. Korea had two “revolutions” in a little more than a year in the 1960s -- a student revolution in April 1960 and a military revo

Nov. 7, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Disorder in Gwanghwamun tops Korean maladies

[David Fickling] Railways put China on Belt and Road to nowhere

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, what are we to make of China’s plans to build a Silk Road railway through the heart of Asia?After all, those who think steel tracks are the best way to shift goods from the Pacific to the Atlantic have been able to use the Trans-Siberian Railway since 1916. In practice, the efficiency, flexibility, volume and logistical simplicity of maritime freight have won out again, and again, and again.That’s even been t

Nov. 7, 2018

[John M. Crisp] Trump loves military, but from safe distance

Andy Thomas’s painting, “The Republican Club,” achieved some notoriety recently when it was discovered hanging in a prominent location in the Trump White House. You’ve probably seen his kitschy rendering of nine Republican presidents -- Reagan, the two Bushes, Lincoln, Eisenhower, Ford, Teddy Roosevelt, Nixon and Trump -- huddling together for a drink and a few laughs.Lesser-known Republicans of the past, such as Taft and Coolidge, appear less distinctly in the painting, but the focus is on the

Nov. 7, 2018

[Lionel Laurent] France’s referendum lesson for Brexit Britain

A second referendum on Brexit has been portrayed as an attack on democracy by ardent Leavers, and outright rejected by the UK government. While a growing chorus of businesses and voters like the idea, some politicians say it would be divisive, unhelpful and akin to telling Brits they got it wrong first time.Yet over the weekend, a small South Pacific archipelago over 16,000 kilometers from London showed how a second -- or even third -- vote on a potentially radical constitutional turn of events

Nov. 7, 2018

[Ashoka Mody] Angela Merkel’s tragedy

What we care about most is often our undoing. So it was for Angela Merkel, who recently announced her intention to step down as leader of the Christian Democratic Union in December and as Germany’s chancellor in 2021.History placed Merkel amid raging storms: a series of eurozone crises that drove wedges between Europeans; economic tensions at home that fueled social fragmentation; and the largest migration wave since World War II, which intensified European and domestic anxieties. But, rather th

Nov. 6, 2018

[Robert J. Fouser] Thinking about Korea in Spain

During the last half of October, I stayed in Madrid to practice the Spanish that I had learned in high school and university. Instead of going to a school, I tried self-study and practice while walking around Madrid. Markets and bookstores were particularly good places because they forced me to use Spanish. The visit helped me recover some Spanish, particularly reading, but fluency will require a more intensive effort.On my second day in Madrid, I visited the Prado, one of the world’s most famou

Nov. 6, 2018

[Robert J. Fouser] Thinking about Korea in Spain

[Noah Smith] Don’t expect robots to take away everyone’s job

How many jobs are vulnerable to automation? Plenty of people ask that question, and plenty of people try to give numerical answers. A recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that about 46 percent of jobs have a better-than-even chance of being automated. A 2016 study by Citigroup and the University of Oxford reported that 57 percent of jobs were at high risk of automation, although a 2013 paper by two of the same researchers predicted 47 percent. A recent P

Nov. 6, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] From the land of mists to the land of micro-dust

In 1981, during the ruthless military dictatorship, poet Kim Kwang-kyu published a monumental poem titled “The Land of Mists.” When I first encountered this poem, I was mesmerized by the intense and powerful central metaphor that painfully renders the social milieu of the time: “In the land of mists/ always shrouded in mist/ nothing ever happens/ And if something happens/ nothing can be seen/ because of the mist/ For if you live in mist/ you get accustomed to mist/ so you do not try to see/ Ther

Nov. 6, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] From the land of mists to the land of micro-dust

[Michael R. Strain] Protect the gains made by low-skilled workers

The US economy is less than one year away from breaking the record for the longest expansion in the country‘s history. Despite the length of the recovery from the Great Recession, data from the middle two quarters of 2018 suggest the economy is still growing with considerable strength. It is on track to grow around 3 percent for the year, about an entire percentage point above estimates of its maximum sustainable rate of growth.This strength is reflected in the job market, which continues to exp

Nov. 6, 2018

[Shang-Jin Wei] The reforms China needs

This year marks a decade since the global financial crisis erupted. For the United States, 2018 is very different from 2008. The economy has gone from the brink of collapse to the brink of overheating, thanks to a massive tax cut. The attitude toward China has also changed dramatically. Recognition that cooperation with China was necessary to manage global demand has given way to protectionism and hostility.Yet, for China, 2018 feels similar to 2008 in an important way: negative shocks originati

Nov. 5, 2018

[Mihir Sharma] Can central banks survive the age of populism?

Is central bank independence the next casualty of the age of populism? In the US, President Donald Trump has declared that the Federal Reserve is “going loco.” He blames Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for threatening “his” recovery and for market volatility caused in part by uncertainty over the trade war Trump himself started.In India, reports emerged this week that the government might invoke a never-before-used section of the law governing the Reserve Bank of India to force it to reverse course o

Nov. 5, 2018

[Park Sang-seek] Transformation of Korean culture from collectivism to egotism

The main pillar of traditional Korean culture was collectivism. Collectivism in the Korean context can be defined as a culture based on the hierarchical social structure which subjugates the individual rights to the collective goods of society. This cultural structure is diametrically opposite to the Western cultural structure based on the egalitarian social structure which emphasizes that the collective goods are to serve the individual’s rights, not vice versa.After Korea regained independence

Nov. 5, 2018

[Park Sang-seek] Transformation of Korean culture from collectivism to egotism

[Shannon O’Neil] Latin America’s coming family feud

Mexico and Brazil have a long-simmering rivalry, each aspiring to lead Latin America. Now, as two strong-willed outsiders take office as president in each country, tensions that have been more or less innocuous could escalate, with negative consequences for the entire region.Consider the passive-aggressive diplomatic game Mexico and Brazil have often played. In global forums, each rarely votes in favor of the other: Brazil endorsed France’s Christine Lagarde over Mexico’s Agustin Carstens for th

Nov. 5, 2018

[David Ignatius] Mattis walks the Trump tightrope over sending US troops to border

When President Trump issues an election-time order to send up to 15,000 troops to confront what many experts say is a non-existent threat on the US-Mexico border, what should Defense Secretary Jim Mattis do about it?Mattis’ answer, so far, has been to support the president and mostly keep his mouth shut. He gruffly batted back a reporter’s question Wednesday about whether Trump’s troop deployment order was a political stunt by saying, “We don’t do stunts in this department.” Unfortunately, some

Nov. 5, 2018

[June H.L. Wong] Silenced like lambs

Just as bosses hate dealing with difficult employees, governments hate difficult citizens.Employers as a last resort can sack their recalcitrant staff, but that’s not an option for governments, much as they may wish to strip away their detractors’ citizenship.Generally speaking, governments in states with working democracies -- meaning there are strong enough institutions like an independent judiciary and free press to check those in power -- have to suffer the inconvenience and irritation of f

Nov. 4, 2018

[Bloomberg] New direction for China’s Belt and Road

“To get rich, first build a road” is one of those Chinese proverbs that tends to impress foreigners -- evoking a combination of farsightedness and concern for practicalities. As China is discovering with its globe-spanning “Belt and Road” project, though, the world doesn’t always play along. The initiative has run into trouble, and its success now depends on revisiting both the vision and the details.Five years ago Chinese President Xi Jinping began promoting a network of Chinese-financed roads,

Nov. 4, 2018

[Eli Lake] Trump bank sanctions will hit Iran where it hurts

For the last month, it looked as though President Donald Trump’s campaign of maximum pressure against Iran would include a loophole.Sanctions on Iran’s banks, oil exports, ships and ports, lifted in 2015 as part of a nuclear weapons agreement that Trump exited in May, were set to be reimposed on Monday. But it was not clear until Friday whether those banks would be allowed to participate in the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift. That is the system that allows

Nov. 4, 2018

[Eli Lake] Trump bank sanctions will hit Iran where it hurts

[Noah Feldman] Google walkout a new kind of worker activism

The global walkout by Google workers, a response to parent company Alphabet’s reported protection of executives accused of sexual misconduct, may be a harbinger of something new in employer-employee relations: empowered workers’ moral-political protests directed as much against the general culture as against management.Although the walkout is connected in a broad sense to workplace conditions, this is not the trade union strike of old. Google’s workers are mainly professionals: engineers, not la

Nov. 4, 2018

[Christopher Balding] China’s fighting the wrong battle for the yuan

As the US dollar hits highs for the year, the People’s Bank of China seems determined to hold the value of the yuan at 7-to-1, or stronger. This barrier holds little technical significance, but its psychological value and the central bank’s interest in holding the line are enormous.While it’s difficult to confirm, there’s strong evidence that the PBOC is managing prices in the foreign-exchange market. Renminbi forward rates are essentially unchanged from spot rates extending out as far as three

Nov. 4, 2018