The Korea Herald

[Robert Reich] Why U.S. needs progressive tax

The so-called “flat tax” is all the rage among Republican presidential hopefuls. Herman Cain was the first. Now, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have come up with their own flat-tax proposals.The flat tax is a fraud. It raises taxes on the poor and lowers them on the rich.The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that Cain’s flat-tax plan (the only one that’s been set out in any detail) would lower the after-tax incomes of poor households (incomes below $30,000) by 16 percent to 20 percent.Meanwh

Oct. 30, 2011

[Robert Reich] Why U.S. needs progressive tax

Republicans must favor schools over tax cuts

The Republican presidential debates have been replete with discussions about our economic future, but to listen to the candidates you’d think that the biggest problem is an onerous U.S. tax code. I’m all for sensible tax reform, but prosperity depends far more on our skill base than on cutting tax rates that are already low by international standards. If the Republicans want to battle for a more prosperous, and stronger, country, they must start spending a lot more time fighting the failures of

Oct. 30, 2011

Lending should start playing catch-up with economy

There are tantalizing signs that the worst of the disastrous credit crunch may be over. The most tangible evidence can be found in the latest earnings reports from some of the U.S.’s largest banks. With a few exceptions, financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. reported increases in lending to big businesses and, to a lesser extent, to consumers. Since consumers power growth, making up about two-thirds of the U.S. economy, their ability to get credit may determin

Oct. 30, 2011

[Mai Yamani] Saudi’s old regime grows older

LONDON ― The contrast between the deaths, within two days of each other, of Libya’s Col. Moammar al-Gadhafi and Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz is one of terminal buffoonery versus decadent gerontocracy. And their demise is likely to lead to very different outcomes: liberation for the Libyans and stagnation for the Saudis.But the death of Sultan, at 86, marks the beginning of a critical period of domestic and foreign uncertainty for the Kingdom. After all, Sultan’s half-brother, King Ab

Oct. 30, 2011

[Mai Yamani] Saudi’s old regime grows older

Tunisia vote raises hopes for Arab women

As Tunisians await final results in their national election, the first in a country remade by the Arab Spring, it’s worth paying particular attention to the outcome for women there. One hopes it leads reformers in other Arab states to understand that it will be impossible to advance their societies if half of the population is held back. Tunisia’s caretaker government crafted an innovative system to ensure that women were represented in the new constituent assembly. Candidates for 217 seats divi

Oct. 28, 2011

[Hans-Werner Sinn] Italy’s capital flight and austerity

MUNICH ― In August, the European balance-of-payments crisis moved beyond the eurozone’s periphery and began buffeting Italy. Interest spreads for Italian government bonds began to rise, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s administration was alarmed enough to implement an austerity program, and the European Central Bank helped with extra liquidity.The ECB directed the central banks of all eurozone members to buy huge quantities of Italian government bonds during the crisis. While the national cent

Oct. 28, 2011

[Hans-Werner Sinn] Italy’s capital flight and austerity

Japan, France need nuclear safety cooperation

To make nuclear power generation as safe as it can possibly be, it is important to examine ways to enhance the development of nuclear engineers and establish a system to promptly respond to nuclear accidents.Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and visiting French Prime Minister Francois Fillon issued a joint statement on nuclear and energy policies following their meeting Sunday.The focal point of the joint statement is a set of specific principles aimed at bolstering nuclear power safety through coop

Oct. 28, 2011

Comments add to tensions

Judging from the remarks made by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in his ongoing Asia tour, it is crystal clear that Washington is involving itself deeper in the affairs in the Asia-Pacific region. Worse, it is not difficult to conclude that Washington, even though it is outside the region, is openly assuming the task of raising the temperature over the South China Sea issue; an issue that should only involve China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In a meetin

Oct. 28, 2011

Prisoner swap in Israel

The exchange of some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for one kidnapped Israeli soldier is a victory for humanitarianism in a region too often characterized by brutality. The decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make the deal goes against every one of his impulses, which were over-ridden in this case by his political pragmatism. Especially difficult for him to swallow is the boost it gives to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip: It is considerably strengthened b

Oct. 28, 2011

[Iwan J. Azis] Better get used to high food prices

Catastrophic flooding and crop losses in Thailand, the world’s leading rice exporter, are raising concerns that another food crisis may be in the offing. Further disquieting is the possibility that the world may have already entered a new era where persistently high food prices are the “New Normal.”At a time when policymakers are grappling with a host of thorny economic issues, the possibility may be unwelcome, but must not be ignored.Although volatility in commodity markets is nothing new, ther

Oct. 28, 2011

[Iwan J. Azis] Better get used to high food prices

Obama risks losing oil opportunity in Libya

Because it’s the U.S. Army’s Energy Awareness Month, it may be a good time to remind President Obama of oil’s importance to economic security, and the role that wartime leadership and image play in getting your hands on it post-victory. He can’t just quietly outsource and downplay war because it’s icky, then call dibs on victory, as he has just done with Libya. Something has to give.When Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi was killed in the fog of war last week, Obama was quick to praise the “strength of Am

Oct. 27, 2011

[Shlomo Avineri] Ambivalence in Turkey’s diplomacy

JERUSALEM ― The recent surge in Turkey’s military actions against the Kurds in northern Iraq is an indication that, somewhat surprisingly ― but not entirely unpredictably ― Turkish foreign policy has undergone a 180-degree turn in less than two years. The Turkish offensive is also an indication that these changes go beyond the current tensions between Turkey and Israel, which are just one facet of much deeper trends.Just a couple of years ago, after the European Union slammed the door in Turkey’

Oct. 27, 2011

[Shlomo Avineri] Ambivalence in Turkey’s diplomacy

[Dominique Moisi] The logic of repenting for past wrongdoing

PARIS ― National repentance is in the news again, as it has been with remarkable frequency in recent years. In 2008, Australia’s then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized to his country’s Aborigines, while Queen Elizabeth II offered a moving gesture of contrition in Ireland a few months ago. And now, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on a recent visit to the Caucasus, reiterated his advice to the Turks to “repent” for the massacres of Armenians committed by the decaying Ottoman regime in 1915.Of

Oct. 27, 2011

[Dominique Moisi] The logic of repenting for past wrongdoing

Women of the Arab Spring: Their issues are everyone’s issues

BOSTON ― The capture and killing of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, on-going demonstrations for an end to the oppressive reigns of Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh and Syria’s Bashar Assad, and new elections in Tunisia show that one thing has not changed in the Arab Spring ― change itself. Even in Saudi Arabia, where requests for reform have not called for regime change, change is proving inevitable with the death of Crown Prince Sultan and questions about what direction the soon-to-be-named new crown prince

Oct. 27, 2011

[Yang Sung-chul] Steve Jobs and the demise of two cowardly dictators

Col. Moammar Gadhafi is dead at age 69. His demise has ended 42 years of brutal and erratic dictatorship in Libya. He and his cronies have left the country in ruins after eight months of civil strife. It may take years, if not decades, to launch a viable functioning democratic government, let alone to reconstruct and rehabilitate the nation.In December 2003, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (1939-2006) was captured by U.S. forces in a dirt hole at a farmhouse near his hometown, Tikrit, as a fugitiv

Oct. 27, 2011

[Yang Sung-chul] Steve Jobs and the demise of two cowardly dictators

[William Pesek] Crisis of 2012 may hurt China more than the U.S.

Economists were probably too busy watching markets gyrate to contemplate last month’s big news in science. Physicists detected particles travelling faster than light, which, if the reading was accurate, means time travel is possible. Now, let’s play a quick mind experiment that would surely captivate the deans of the dismal science: Pretend you have just been transported 10 years into the future to see how this incipient global crisis pans out. It would be hard to find anyone who isn’t desperate

Oct. 26, 2011

[David Ignatius] The Mideast deal that almost was

WASHINGTON ― To the catalog of missed opportunities for peace in the Middle East, we can add a tantalizing if also depressing chapter: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s secret offer in 2008 to create a Palestinian state that would feature international control of holy sites in a divided Jerusalem ― a concession many Israelis have said was impossible. Condoleezza Rice discusses the Olmert proposal in her new memoir, “No Higher Honor.” She writes that as she listened to Olmert’s plan during a M

Oct. 26, 2011

[David Ignatius] The Mideast deal that almost was

Obama would be crazy to drop Biden from ticket

Vice presidents are a vestigial limb of politics. The position persists even though a vice presidential candidate rarely carries a state, leads a constituency or even commands a portfolio beyond whatever he negotiates ad hoc with the principal. Research suggests that veep candidates don’t bring many votes to a presidential ticket, although an especially bad one can do damage at the margins (see Sarah Palin) or worse (Thomas Eagleton). Once in office, a few vice presidents have been notably troub

Oct. 26, 2011

U.S. troops to central Africa is a sensible ‘adventure’

As real-life bad guys go, it doesn’t get much worse than Joseph Kony. He’s the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a cultish militia in central Africa that survives by plundering villages, massacring adults and forcing boys to become soldiers and girls to become sex slaves. President Barack Obama has ordered the deployment of 100 military advisers to Uganda to help regional militaries capture or kill Kony and his commanders. It’s a modest and reasonable plan, and a good idea. The LRA, which pr

Oct. 26, 2011

Libya, Tunisia still face obstacles on the road to democracy

What a glorious week for the world.Free and fair elections in Tunisia, Muammar el-Gadhafi’s demise. All the fomentation and death brought by the Arab Spring have produced two new states that stand as shining examples ― not just for the still-struggling people of Syria and Yemen, but also for China, Belarus, Cambodia, Zimbabwe and countless other unyielding authoritarian states.“You have won your revolution,” President Obama proclaimed with a big smile just after Gadhafi’s death. And on Sunday ne

Oct. 26, 2011