[Kim Seong-kon] Dreaming of a white Christmas in Spain

When I was a little boy right after the 1950-53 Korean War, I received a Christmas present from Santa Claus. On that Christmas Eve, I woke up in the middle of the night and found the gift next to my pillow. I was overjoyed because it was the first Christmas present I had ever received.The present turned out to be six pencils made in the U.S.A., arrayed in an orderly fashion in a gorgeous pencil box. At that time, Korea suffered postwar poverty and quality pencils were rare and expensive. Thus, t

Dec. 24, 2019

[Noah Smith] High-speed rail is going nowhere fast in US

Some leaders in the US are intent on reviving the old dream of high-speed rail. Sen. Bernie Sanders is proposing $607 billion for a new high-speed train network as part of his Green New Deal. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez included it in her own plan earlier this year. On Twitter, Sanders’s political allies sing the praises of high-speed rail systems such as China’s.High-speed rail puts an optimistic, futuristic face on an economic agenda that might otherwise seem mainly abo

Dec. 23, 2019

[Leonid Bershidsky] Airbnb is a tech company, but Uber is a taxi firm

Plenty of companies have raised billions of dollars by selling themselves as tech unicorns rather than firms in traditional businesses -- for example, taxi services or office rentals. Regulators have been a harder sell for such stories than investors. But now, a unicorn, Airbnb, has managed to establish in Europe that it’s a tech company, not a real estate agent.The European Court of Justice has already had occasion to rule on the tech champion/disguised traditional business dilemma. In 20

Dec. 23, 2019

[James Gibney] An impeached Trump can’t be trusted on NK

President Donald Trump’s all-but-certain acquittal in his impending Senate impeachment trial will likely embolden him in all sorts of ways, some more frightening than others. One deal he will be sorely tempted to make, after three years of erratic and mostly unproductive diplomacy, is to accommodate his “friend” Kim Jong-un and ease sanctions on North Korea. It will be up to the US Congress to stop him.“If I weren’t president, you’d be at war with North Korea,

Dec. 22, 2019

[Jeffrey Frankel] Six tax-based ways to tackle US inequality

Three years ago, Donald Trump’s victory in the United States’ presidential election triggered a search for explanations of what is still a shocking outcome. One immediately came to dominate: His Democratic opponents had been insufficiently aware of the problem of income inequality, or had neglected to propose effective solutions.That is presumably the logic behind the radical proposals to tackle inequality coming from some of the leading candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidentia

Dec. 22, 2019

[Josep Borrell] Time for real Europe-Asia partnership

A few days ago, I chaired the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). What might seem to be a rather bureaucratic acronym, actually is a politically highly relevant event for our continents. I had offered to host this meeting in Madrid when I was still Foreign Minister of Spain and I chaired it as EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. It underlines my personal interest in the fast-moving continent that is Asia today. The meeting confirmed my conviction in a world of accelerati

Dec. 19, 2019

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] The UK’s electoral system failed

On the most important issue in the United Kingdom’s modern history -- whether to leave the European Union or remain -- the UK’s electoral system produced an absurd result. A majority of the UK public wants to remain in the EU, and actually voted accordingly in the parliamentary election on Dec. 12. Yet the election produced a large majority for the Conservative Party, which backs a quick Brexit. The reason is as simple as it is troubling: the failure of the first-past-the-post electo

Dec. 19, 2019

[Kim Myong-sik] Awaiting young leaders who reject left, right extremism

South Korea’s political leaders are neither too old nor too young. Out of some 18 people so far mentioned in the media as presidential aspirants, 10 are in their 60s, seven are in the 50s and the oldest, Sohn Hak-kyu of the Bareunmirae Party, is 71. Lee Hae-chan of the ruling Democratic Party, not a serious contender, is 67 years old.Sorry to say this, but the news of Sanna Marin, 34, being installed as the new prime minister of Finland made the power contestants here, who are almost twice

Dec. 18, 2019

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] US-China deal a short-term truce

There are times, including in armed conflict, when adversaries see it in their own interests to opt for a truce and sell it to the outside world as a steppingstone to a comprehensive peace. But both sides know it will be only a prelude to renewed tensions down the road.This could well be the best way to think of the “phase one deal” between China and the United States. Yet, it’s not how the equity markets see the situation. Instead, they are pricing the deal as simultaneously i

Dec. 18, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] ‘A Lone Lighthouse Keeper’ of Korea

Recently I came across a book of memoirs by Kim Yong-chol, professor emeritus of Sungkyunkwan University. The book, “A Lone Lighthouse Keeper: Memoirs of Kim Yong-chol,” is the author’s reminiscence of the particularly turbulent period of modern Korean history that he has lived through. Indeed, Kim’s life is an embodiment of modern South Korea itself, and his autobiography is an important social document vividly depicting nearly all the major events that occurred in the 2

Dec. 17, 2019

[Robert J. Fouser] Looking back at the 2010s in South Korea

In a couple of weeks, we will enter the third decade of the 21st century. For South Korea, the 2010s saw continued progress amid anxiety over the future. The decade began with solid, though not spectacular, economic growth as the world recovered from the 2007-08 financial crisis, although the crisis affected South Korea less than most other developed nations. South Koreans gained confidence from weathering an economic storm better than most. Toward the end of the decade, the aging of the po

Dec. 17, 2019

[Zev Chafets] Israel will not be third time lucky

Against all expectations, political logic and basic commonsense, Israel’s major parties have refused to form a unity government, and are dragging an irate public back for a third national election in less than a year.The contest, scheduled for March 3, will likely reprise the two previous stalemates. Early polls show that the underlying electoral arithmetic hasn’t changed. Israel suffers from the same sort of polarization that currently afflicts many other democracies. It is a recipe

Dec. 16, 2019

[Lionel Laurent] EU prepares for next Brexit punch-up

After a year of gridlock in Westminster that has frustrated the UK’s attempts to leave the European Union on amicable terms, British voters have handed Prime Minister Boris Johnson a thumping majority to do just that. They might also be handing Brussels a tough new competitor on Europe’s doorstep.This is sobering for the EU, which is on course to lose an important economic and defense partner worth 14 percent of the bloc’s gross domestic product. It could have been much worse,

Dec. 16, 2019

[Simon Kilmurry] New US visa requirement is silencing foreign filmmakers

Social media are indispensable to many foreign documentary filmmakers. They are the way they connect with the subjects of their films, research the stories they are telling and share their work with global audiences. But the Trump administration’s new visa application requirements are now leaving these filmmakers with little choice but to censor their online speech if they ever want to be able to present their films in person to US audiences.To stop this dangerous and unconstitutional over

Dec. 15, 2019

[Noah Smith] LBJ’s Great Society won War on Poverty

In 1964, speaking at the University of Michigan, President Lyndon Johnson called for the US to become a “great society.” That term came to be synonymous with the Johnson administration’s raft of antipoverty programs, sometimes known as the War on Poverty. The Great Society initiative led to the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the modern version of food stamps, Head Start, various jobs programs, expansion of many kinds of Social Security benefits, urban renewal spending and a

Dec. 15, 2019

[Leonid Bershidsky] Europe’s young leaders are bucking politics as usual

The emergence of 34-year-old Sanna Marin as Finland’s new prime minister is no fluke: In recent years, Europe has seen its leaders get younger as the new generation appears better at navigating increasingly complex political landscapes.The average age of global leaders actually has increased since the 1950s, according to the Rulers, Elections and Irregular Government dataset, created by Curtis Bell from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. In Europe, though, it has been going down sin

Dec. 12, 2019

[Noah Smith] Military spending on R&D a boon for private sector

There has been a clamor for the US government to spend more on research and development. Economic theories such as those of Paul Romer, who won the Nobel Prize in 2018, suggest that spending more on R&D would promote long-term economic growth. A growing number of economists also believe that basic research is a job that only government can do; because basic research is so hard to profit from directly, there’s a clear pipeline from government-funded discoveries to private sector innovat

Dec. 12, 2019

[Doyle McManus] President Trump gets little credit for foreign policy

Last week’s NATO summit in London should have been a nice little success story for President Donald Trump.For once he went to an international meeting without intending to blow it up. Instead, he planned to trumpet how he had convinced several European allies to boost defense spending, one of his foreign policy priorities.But that storyline got lost the moment Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on camera making fun of the president, drawing laughter from British Prime Minist

Dec. 11, 2019

[Andrew Bacevich] Why US can’t end ‘endless wars’

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has imported into the American military lexicon a new rationale for US military actions in the Middle East. It’s called “mowing the lawn,” but it has nothing to do with keeping the grass trimmed. “To mow the lawn,” Esper recently remarked to reporters, “means, every now and then” giving your adversary a good, swift kick in the shins. “You have to do these things,” he explained, “so that a threat doesn&rsq

Dec. 11, 2019