[Kim Seong-kon] What do Americans fear most?

It is widely known that Americans value individuality, independence, and self-sufficiency. Indeed, Americans do not want others to interfere with their lives and thus resist when the government tries to restrict their freedom or regulate them. Tony Tanner, a renowned British professor at the University of Cambridge, pointed out what Americans fear most: “There is an American dread that someone else is patterning your life, that there are all sorts of invisible plots to rob you of your auto

Feb. 17, 2021

[Fred Bronstein] The fine arts grapple with COVID-19

In August, the Brookings Institution published a study on the impact of the pandemic on the arts and culture industry across the United States. The study painted a devastating picture of the immediate loss of jobs, revenues and artistic talent. Since the Brookings study, there have been numerous other studies, articles and blogs written about the performing arts industry -- its recovery, and the best ways to get from here to there. Clearly, it is essential for us to individually and collectivel

Feb. 17, 2021

[Storer H. Rowley] How Biden can fix America’s tarnished image

In the shadow of his predecessor’s impeachment trial, President Joe Biden is taking up the challenge of restoring America’s tarnished image in the world by making this case: The nation has survived an attack on its own democracy and actually emerged from it stronger, not weaker. This may sound like a rationalization, given his presidency is living now with a violent, abusive partner in the domestic opposition, but Biden actually is smart to be tackling the GOP elephant in the room.

Feb. 16, 2021

[Slawomir Sierakowski] Will Russia’s future be Belarus’s present?

The biggest wave of protests in years has swept Russia, raising hopes that popular pressure will persist and intensify, gradually eroding an autocratic regime, as is happening in neighboring Belarus. But we should be wary of allowing the two countries’ similarities -- which include history and language, religion and repression -- to obscure profound differences. In Belarus, protests erupted in August 2020, after President Alexander Lukashenko -- Europe’s longest-serving leader -- ri

Feb. 15, 2021

[Robert J. Fouser] Pandemic leadership needed

Positive news about vaccines at the end of 2020 raised hopes that the COVID-19 pandemic would soon end in 2021. Less than two months into the new year, those hopes are slipping away. Mutant variants that first appeared in the UK, South Africa and Brazil are even more contagious, and in the case of the South African mutant, vaccines are less effective. This turn of events has caused a new round of lockdowns and border closings as public health experts and vaccine makers race to assess the situati

Feb. 15, 2021

[Noah Feldman] Impeachment doesn‘t violate Trump’s rights

The extended trial brief filed by Donald Trump‘s lawyers advances three defenses: that Trump did not incite the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol; that the Senate can’t try a president who is no longer in office; and that the First Amendment protects Trump from being impeached for words that, they say, don‘t meet the requirements for criminal incitement conviction laid down by the Supreme Court. The factual defense is highly unconvincing, as anyone who watched Trump’s speech

Feb. 11, 2021

[Kim Myong-sik] Lying chief justice abandons public trust in court

During the past four years, President Moon Jae-in anxiously pushed reforms in South Korea’s law enforcement system, whether for the sake of social justice or for the security of his leftist rule. In the area of prosecution, the campaign has faced significant obstruction from Prosecutor-General Yoon Suk-youl and most mainstream prosecutors. In the court, Moon has had far better cooperation from the top leader of the judiciary, if not from the entire benches of law. The National Assembly&r

Feb. 11, 2021

[Kim Seong-kon] The Divided States of America vs. divided Korea

I have always thought that South Korea was radically different from America. In recent history, however, I have found striking similarities between the two countries, albeit in opposite ways. I am not alone: American political analysts, too, have argued that there are many common factors between the Moon administration and the Trump administration. They point out, for example, that both administrations adopted populist policies, disregarded democracy and favored conspiracy theories. Both governm

Feb. 10, 2021

[Doyle McManus] Joe Biden opted to go big

When Joe Biden arrived in the White House, he promised a new dawn of unity and bipartisanship. But when he began to pursue a COVID-19 relief bill, he met with Republican senators for only about two hours before deciding to push the measure through the US Congress without further negotiations. Biden had two goals at the outset: to go big and to make the process bipartisan. They turned out to be incompatible. “We got a chance to do something big here,” the president said Friday in a

Feb. 10, 2021

[Eli Lake] Biden wants to mend US-Saudi ties

Anyone paying attention for the last three years should not be surprised that President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the end to US support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen, calling the war a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.” Most of Biden’s party has given up on the Saudi regime, particularly after its agents murdered and then dismembered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. But it would be a mistake to read too much into the Biden admin

Feb. 9, 2021

[Andreas Kluth] US-German discord over Russian gas

The new transatlantic honeymoon isn’t over yet. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, like most European leaders, is still basking in the afterglow of Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th president of the US. After Number 45, of course, she’d have warm feelings for anybody. And yet, it’s just a matter of time -- days or weeks -- before they’ll need to have an awkward talk. The topic will be Russia. The US and Germany have long been at odds about an almost finished pipel

Feb. 8, 2021

[Ram Garikipati] GameStop frenzy amid shorting debate in Korea

Retail investors across the world, including South Korea, were captivated recently by the revolt against short selling by Wall Street hedge funds, which jacked up the stocks of a few firms, video game retailer GameStop in particular. Shorting refers to transactions in which an investor borrows stocks and sells them soon in hopes of buying back later at a lower price before returning them, taking advantage of perceived arbitrage opportunities. In the case of GameStop, institutional short selle

Feb. 8, 2021

[Digital Simplicity] Spotify and Teleparty signal importance of new digital experience

Audio streaming service Spotify made its debut in South Korea on Tuesday, signaling a fresh round of competition among streaming apps. A lot of digital music fans here have high hopes for Spotify, which has a library of some 60 million songs and allows users to listen to plenty of music under a “freemium” plan. The high level of attention Spotify attracts actually reflects the solid positions of Korean streaming players such as Melon, Genie Music and Flo. Even though Apple Music,

Feb. 6, 2021

[Noah Smith] Take heart, doomscrollers, America's on the way back

Last year made it feel as if the US was a nation in steep decline. And in some worrying ways it is. But looking back on 2020, and looking ahead to 2021, there are signs that the country has robust reservoirs of strength and effectiveness that will cause it to outperform the gloomiest expectations. It may not be morning in America yet, but it’s past midnight. The clearest example is the vaccination race. Despite problems with the initial rollout, the US public health system has now found i

Feb. 5, 2021

[Lee Kyong-hee] A filmmaker’s odyssey to uncover history

An estimated 100,000 children were orphaned during the Korean War (1950-1953). Families in North America and Western Europe adopted many of the South Korean orphans. That is well documented. But much less known is the fate of North Korean children who lost their parents amid the bloody conflict. It’s been said that thousands of them were sent to Eastern Europe to receive “foster education.” “Kim Il Sung’s Children,” a 2020 indie documentary film, traces the N

Feb. 4, 2021

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Biden goes big in COVID stimulus

US President Joe Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion rescue plan to help the American economy recover from the pandemic. Many Republicans oppose it, suddenly consumed with the fiscal religion they unceremoniously abandon whenever their party controls the White House. The massive tax cuts the GOP bestowed on billionaires and corporations in 2017 resulted in the highest US fiscal deficits on record. But the promised investment and growth never materialized. By contrast, Biden’s proposed spen

Feb. 4, 2021

[Kim Seong-kon] Between shame and fame, repelling and charming

Recently, we have been watching the fall of our prominent politicians due to their disgraceful acts or fraudulent lives in the past. The irony is that these hypocrites have preached social justice, fairness, and equality, while clandestinely pursuing unfair privileges and unjust advantages, abusing the powers that they were given. To make matters worse, the hypocrites do not hesitate to do evil things under the pretense of good. Obviously, they believe that the end justifies the means. So they

Feb. 3, 2021

[Contribution] Three considerations for changing climate action

A quote from the book “The Art of Praise” by Yoshiyuki Suzuki has recently caught my eye: “The act of praise is completed when you convey the words the other person truly wants to hear.” I think this quote can be applied to complimenting others, but also to different types of communication. We can also apply this quote to climate change. Different sectors and levels of society have been calling for immediate action for climate change. But do the messages about climate ac

Feb. 2, 2021

[Tyler Cowen] Focus on families, not on wages

The Democratic Party has before it a choice between two economic policies: a big increase in the federal minimum wage, to $15 an hour from $7.25; and a per-child cash benefit of several thousand dollars a year. The decision will have major implications, for the future of both the party and the US economy. The cash benefit is clearly the better option. One problem with the minimum wage hike is that it is not clear how many people are harmed and how many low-skilled workers will lose their jobs,

Feb. 2, 2021

[Ivo Daalder] Biden takes a balanced approach to Russia

For the past 30 years, every new president entering the White House since the Cold War did so determined to improve relations with Russia. Bill Clinton believed more economic assistance would help Russian President Boris Yeltsin transform the economy and strengthen democracy. George W. Bush famously looked into President Vladimir Putin’s eyes and “got a sense of his soul.” Barack Obama promised to press the “reset” button in his relations with President Dmitry Medv

Feb. 2, 2021