The Korea Herald

[Lawrence H. Summers] How to make global economy work for everyone

Since the end of World War II, a broad consensus in support of global economic integration as a force for peace and prosperity has been a pillar of the international order. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall a generation ago, the power of markets in promoting economic progress has been universally recognized. From global trade agreements to the European Union project; from the Bretton Woods institutions to the removal of pervasive capital controls; from expanded foreign direct investment to incre

Aug. 19, 2018

[Lawrence H. Summers] How to make global economy work for everyone

[Noah Smith] The great recession never ended for college humanities

Humanities education in the US is in free fall. And the decline probably shows that the nature of what American students want out of college education is changing -- more young people are in it for the money.　University of Washington history professor Benjamin Schmidt recently wrote a long blog post in which he showed, very convincingly, that the number of American undergraduates majoring in the humanities has dropped in the last decade. Five years ago, Schmidt thought that it might be a tempora

Aug. 19, 2018

[James Stavridis] US needs a Space Force and a Cyber Force

Sadly, the proposal for a new US Space Force has become a punchline on late-night TV. It is being battered as a needless new bureaucracy, a competitor for the private sector, and an idea that will lead to a vicious militarization of space. None of these arguments is correct.　Many of those denigrating the idea are under-informed and spring-loaded to dislike the idea because it is proposed by President Donald Trump. I have plenty of policy disagreements with the Trump administration, but on this i

Aug. 19, 2018

[Shannon O’Neil] Latin America needs better judges

Latin America’s judiciaries are engulfed in corruption scandals. In Colombia a former Supreme Court member was arrested on charges of corruption and bribery. In Peru multiple judges stand accused of trading favorable rulings and shortened sentences for money and perks. In Guatemala, lawyers and justices face charges of rigging Supreme Court appointments. And in Mexico the attorney general’s office fired one of its own for delving too deep into alleged bribes to the former head of the national oi

Aug. 19, 2018

[Therese Raphael] Erdogan makes some worrying friends

Relations between the US and Turkey have been deteriorating almost as fast as the Turkish lira. In a speech on the Black Sea coast Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the ultimate dig against an ally: He threatened to switch teams.　“Before it is too late, Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives,” he told the crowd. If the “disrespect” continues, his government will seek “

Aug. 16, 2018

[Therese Raphael] Erdogan makes some worrying friends

[Tyler Cowen] Trump hurts US exports in the marketplace of ideas

If you are a believer in free markets, you might be tempted to be pleased by some of the more positive policies of the Trump administration: Lxower corporate tax rates, more market-friendly judges, a greater emphasis on deregulation. Resist (the temptation, if not the administration). When it comes to ideas, the lifeblood of capitalism, the influence of President Donald Trump isn’t nearly so benign.　In fact, even without considering its policy on free trade, advocates of dynamic capitalism shoul

Aug. 16, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Worst lawlessness reigns in Street of Justice

The new Seoul Eastern Detention House, or “Dongbu Guchiso,” is located on Jeongui-ro, or “Justice Street,” in Munjeong-dong. Across the street are the Seoul Eastern District Court and Seoul Eastern Prosecutors’ Office adjoining each other. Opened a little over a year ago, Dongbu Guchiso has become the judgment grounds of old power, as it accommodates many “celebrities” from the administrations of presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye who are being prosecuted under the Moon Jae-in government

Aug. 15, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Worst lawlessness reigns in Street of Justice

[Eli Lake] Montenegro takes on Russia, US, former CIA officer

It sounds like a spy novel. A former CIA case officer joins a cabal of pro-Russian rebels attempting to kill the prime minister of a small Balkan country. The coup fails, the officer returns to the US -- and now authorities in the Balkans want the former spy for questioning.　Last week Montenegro announced it is seeking extradition of the retired US spy, Joseph Assad, for his role in an attempted coup there in 2016. If the allegations are true, this story has a twist worthy of an airport-bookstor

Aug. 15, 2018

[Cathy O’Neil] Mark Zuckerberg is totally out of his depth

I might be the only person on Earth feeling sorry for the big boys of technology. Jack Dorsey from Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, all those Google nerds: They’re monumentally screwed, because they have no idea how to tame the monsters they have created.　The way I see it, these guys -- and they are mostly guys -- were arbitrarily chosen. They started with some good ideas, some luck, great timing, got lots of people to believe in their rosy vision, and they won the unicorn lottery. Little

Aug. 15, 2018

[Tyler Cowen] How your personality traits affect your paycheck

What makes really smart people tick? Why do some end up earning so much more than others? And how much do these disparate outcomes have to do with their personalities? A new study by Miriam Gensowski, at the University of Copenhagen, sheds fascinating light on these and other questions.　Gensowski revisits a data set from all schools in California, grades 1-8, in 1921-1922, based on the students who scored in the top 0.5 percent of IQ distribution. At the time that meant scores of 140 or higher.

Aug. 15, 2018

[Yang Sung-jin] One small summer reading suggestion 　

With the suffocating summer heat slowly slackening a bit in South Korea, some vacationers on the beach may be still happily stuck with sci-fi and fantasy. If they have a couple more days to burn through their summer holiday by digging into the escapist genres, I recommend one more title. Or maybe three titles (sorry, I’m not good at math), since this is a three-volume series: “We Are Legion (We Are Bob)”; “For We Are Many”; “All These Worlds.” Written by computer programmer-turned-celebrated wri

Aug. 15, 2018

[Yang Sung-jin] One small summer reading suggestion

[Tyler Cowen] Americans own less stuff, and that’s reason to be nervous

Some social problems are blatantly obvious in daily life, while others are longer-term, more corrosive and perhaps mostly invisible. Lately I’ve been worrying about a problem of the latter kind: the erosion of personal ownership and what that will mean for our loyalties to traditional American concepts of capitalism and private property.　The main culprits for the change are software and the internet. For instance, Amazon’s Kindle and other methods of online reading have revolutionized how Americ

Aug. 14, 2018

[Robert Fouser] Changed political landscape and North Korea

Thursday is “malbok,” the day that traditionally marks the end of the summer heat. Temperatures at night will soon drop and fall will be in the air. Vacations will end, and schools will start; people will get busy again.　The end of summer also means a start in the next phase of diplomacy between South Korea, North Korea, and the United States. Plans are going forward for a third summit, this time in Pyongyang, between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. There is also talk

Aug. 14, 2018

[Robert Fouser] Changed political landscape and North Korea

[Conor Sen] China-US trade spat is just a start to the economic Cold War

China is not just another front in President Donald Trump’s war on trade. Unlike Mexico, Canada, Europe and other targets of the president, China will be a source of economic conflict for years to come, long after the tariff level on soybeans has been settled. Like the rivalry with the Soviet Union, economic competition with China may form a Cold War that shapes American politics and economic policy for a generation or more.　Until now, through flukes of timing, Americans have largely been distra

Aug. 14, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] Living under constant surveillance by AI

Is computer technology a blessing? The answer is yes, to be sure. Can you even imagine what life was like before the smartphone came out? Without a smartphone, there is virtually nothing you can do when, for example, you are late for a meeting or unable to attend due to some urgent reason, especially if there is no phone available at the rendezvous site.By the same token, can you imagine the world before the internet and Google? Without the internet, you cannot be connected to the world, and wit

Aug. 14, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] Living under constant surveillance by AI

[Therese Raphael] US-Turkey relations will never be the same

There are only two ways that the diplomatic rift between the US and Turkey can end: a compromise that salvages the relationship as best possible, or a complete rupture with devastating consequences both for Turkey’s economy and America’s regional strategic interests. Either way, there is no going back to the way things were.　The arrest in Turkey of American pastor Andrew Brunson nearly two years ago has led to a diplomatic spat that threatens a full-blown economic meltdown in Turkey. Brunson, al

Aug. 14, 2018

[David Fickling] Soviet collapse echoes in China’s belt and road

What causes empires to fall?　According to one influential view, it’s ultimately a question of investment. Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become over-extended, the splurge of spending to sustain a strategic edge leaves more productive parts of the economy starved of capital, leading to inevitable decline.　That should be a worrying prospect for China, a would-be great power whose current phase of growth is associated

Aug. 13, 2018

[David Fickling] Soviet collapse echoes in China’s belt and road

[Paul Hanley] The case against pets as property

Laws reflect societal attitudes and values, which obviously change over time. Since the 1970s, the perception of how animals should be treated has dramatically changed and a body of laws protecting the rights of animals has developed to reflect this change. Some countries have even incorporated the rights of animals into their constitutions. For example, in 1992, Switzerland became the first country in the world to protect the rights of animals in a constitutional provision recognizing “the dign

Aug. 13, 2018

[Paul Hanley] The case against pets as property

[Jay Ambrose] Craziness on the loose in public affairs

Don’t just stand there, do something, the old saying goes, and, in this peculiar, modern age in which we live, that often turns out to be something that achieves nothing good while doing a lot that’s bad. Excuse me. I said it achieves nothing good, but there is the soothing feeling that radical environmentalists, extreme leftists and their dupes likely get, for instance, when they ban plastic straws.　It’s an absurdity that pretty much started out when a fourth-grader and his mom did a calculatio

Aug. 13, 2018

[Anjani Trivedi] Carmakers are choking on blue-sky emission rules

Mazda Motor’s struggle to save the internal combustion engine from extinction threatens to choke in a cloud of faulty emissions tests. It may not be the only casualty: The widening global emissions scandal perhaps says as much about badly designed standards as the failings of automakers.　Mazda has eschewed the industry’s rush to develop electric vehicles. The Japanese carmaker announced its intention last year to commercialize a next generation of internal combustion engines that would be 20 per

Aug. 13, 2018