The Korea Herald

[Kim Myong-sik] ‘Please all, and you will please none’

Nowadays, Aesop’s Fables are quoted not as frequently as in the past, perhaps because things taking place in reality are more fabulous than the episodes illustrated by the ancient wise man who once was a slave. But some recent acts of politicians, especially those of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and President Moon Jae-in, keep summoning the Greek sage’s particular tale of “The Man, the Boy and the Donkey” to my frustrated brain. 　A man and his son were going with their donkey to the market. As they

Jan. 30, 2019

[Kim Myong-sik] ‘Please all, and you will please none’

[Cathy Young] Is masculinity toxic or under assault?

Is there a war on men and maleness in America?Last week, a new Gillette razor company ad inspired by the #MeToo campaign was quickly denounced for supposedly slandering men as boorish and abusive.And earlier this month, the American Psychological Association was attacked for its new guidelines on male mental health, which critics said were biased against masculinity.Both controversies, which are still raging, have pitted “woke” progressives against defenders of traditional manhood. But each side

Jan. 30, 2019

[Alex Webb] What Microsoft can teach Facebook about playing nice

As another European Commission megafine on Alphabet nears, it prompts the question: can the Google parent ever free itself from the specter of penalties from the region’s regulators? The same goes for Amazon and Facebook, each of which is facing scrutiny for how it handles data. They could do a lot worse than looking to a fellow West Coast tech giant for a playbook.It wasn’t all that long ago that Microsoft was the European Commission’s nemesis. For most of the first decade of the millennium, th

Jan. 30, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] Wisdom of two great men for young people

As one gets older, he inevitably becomes clumsy, oblivious and pathetic. He also loses vitality, resilience and flexibility, and suffers deteriorating eyesight and hearing ability. Thus, King Solomon laments in “Ecclesiastes,” “Vanity of all vanities! All is vanity/All things are full of weariness/A man cannot utter it/The eye is not satisfied with seeing/Nor the ear filled with hearing.” Then, Solomon describes the sadness of aging metaphorically, saying, “Or ever be silver cord be loosed, the

Jan. 29, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] Wisdom of two great men for young people

[Kishore Mahbubani] Trump, Macron and the poverty of liberalism

No Western liberal would disagree that US President Donald Trump’s election was a disaster for American society, while that of President Emmanuel Macron was a triumph for French society. In fact, the opposite may well be true, as heretical as that sounds.The first question to ask is why people are engaged in violent street protests in Paris, but not in Washington. I have personally experienced these Paris protests, and the smell of tear gas on the Champs-Elysees reminded me of the ethnic riots I

Jan. 29, 2019

[Robert J. Fouser] Dangers in the upcoming US-North Korea summit

The first month of the New Year has been busy in Washington, DC. A 35-day government shutdown over funding for a wall along the US-Mexico border ended with President Donald Trump caving to a united Democratic opposition. One by one, candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination have begun to enter the race. Tensions with China over trade remain high, and Venezuela emerged as a new foreign policy challenge as the US recognized Juan Guaido as the legitimate president.Largely lost in the daily barr

Jan. 29, 2019

[Robert J. Fouser] Dangers in the upcoming US-North Korea summit

[Ramesh Thakur] Arrested diplomacy

On Nov. 19, Carlos Ghosn, the board chair and former CEO of Nissan, was arrested at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on suspicion of underreporting income and misusing corporate funds for personal purposes; he remains in custody. Less than two weeks later, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei and daughter of its founder, was arrested in transit at Vancouver’s airport on charges by the United States that Huawei had violated US sanctions against Iran; out on bail, she now awaits an extraditio

Jan. 29, 2019

[Tyler Cowen] One shutdown lesson is that Americans need to save more

Now that the government shutdown is over, perhaps it is appropriate to consider a delicate question: Is it still OK to tell people they need to save more money?It’s an issue that came to the fore during the last five weeks, when hundreds of thousands of federal government workers, and many contractors, didn’t get paid, leaving many of them illiquid. I sympathize with the frustrated, laid-off workers -- my wife was one of them -- and consider the government shutdown to have been flat-out stupid.

Jan. 29, 2019

[Jeffrey Frankel] The euro’s first 20 years

Since its introduction two decades ago, the euro has faced serious challenges. So far, it has survived intact. Yet, on the common currency’s 20th anniversary, it is worth identifying problems that have been encountered and, one hopes, to learn from past mistakes.A first critical problem was inherent in the application of a common currency to a large and varied set of countries: They did not meet the criteria for an “optimum currency area,” as American economists pointed out. In particular, the m

Jan. 28, 2019

[Jeffrey Frankel] The euro’s first 20 years

[John M. Crisp] Just what do we mean by ‘wall’?

Several news sources used the accurate but uncharitable term “cave” to describe US President Donald Trump’s capitulation Friday to the Democrats’ position on the wall and the government shutdown.It was a clear victory for the Democrats, but House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer were prudently restrained in their celebration. The victory is only a three-week reprieve. There’s no reason to believe that Trump has learned this episode’s most important lesson: A governme

Jan. 28, 2019

[Warren Fernandez] Looking back to chart way forward

The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.So the late British prime minister and famed orator Winston Churchill is once supposed to have said.This year, many will be doing so, with major milestones and anniversaries being marked around the world -- 150 years since the birth of India’s Mahatma Gandhi; 50 years after American astronaut Neil Armstrong’s great lunar “leap for mankind”; 100 years since the May Fourth Movement in China.Singapore, too, looks likely to sp

Jan. 28, 2019

[Warren Fernandez] Looking back to chart way forward

[Christopher Balding] China’s banks are desperate for capital

In the past decade, China has relied primarily on credit growth to fund its economic ambitions. The country’s banks are now feeling the constraints of this lending binge and need to raise a lot of capital over the next couple of years.The way China handles this challenge will determine its economic health. With 267 trillion yuan ($39.4 trillion) of total assets, and home to the world’s four largest banks by this measure, the country’s financial system doesn’t operate in isolation. Whatever happe

Jan. 28, 2019

[Eli Lake] Trump makes the right decision for Venezuela

Give Donald Trump credit. On Wednesday the US president recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim president. At least a dozen other countries in the Western Hemisphere have since followed suit.There were signs that such a move was in the works. Senior US officials had declared as illegitimate the 2018 election that gave President Nicolas Maduro a second term. On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence released a video pledging US support for popular protests against

Jan. 28, 2019

[David Ignatius] Can Pentagon build a bridge to tech community?

As the age of artificial intelligence transforms warfare, the Pentagon faces a delicate problem: How does it convince employees of high-tech companies based in the US that Americans are still the “good guys,” so that they’ll lend their talents to US national-security projects?The challenge is huge, given that Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and other tech giants see themselves as global companies with workers drawn from many nations. But tapping this talent base is essential for future US secur

Jan. 27, 2019

[David Ignatius] Can Pentagon build a bridge to tech community?

[Kent Harrington, John Walcott] Trump’s North Korean road to nowhere

When US President Donald Trump meets again with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un next month, he will be staging the second act in a comedy of manners that now passes for US foreign policy on the Korean Peninsula. Between Kim’s billets-doux to the White House and Trump’s gushing praise of Kim, the script could have been written by Oscar Wilde. Like any drawing-room farce, the plot is simple enough: Kim will pledge to abandon his nuclear weapons someday, while coquettishly concealing any details ab

Jan. 27, 2019

[Kent Harrington, John Walcott] Trump’s North Korean road to nowhere

[Tyler Cowen] US-China Cold War will get worse before it gets better

We are in the midst of a new Cold War, with the United States and China carving out separate economic and political orders. Let’s consider how it might look in a few years.There will be two separate internets, with the US and China as the two dominant players. American tech companies still will be kept out of China, and Chinese tech companies will find it hard to get Western contracts or sales, as Huawei is discovering with its plans to build 5G networks. National security and surveillance consi

Jan. 27, 2019

[Adam Minter] Why Big Brother doesn’t bother most Chinese

Who says the government can’t innovate? In one Chinese city, the local court system recently launched a smartphone-based map that displays the location and identity of anyone within 500 meters who’s landed on a government creditworthiness blacklist. Worried the person seated next to you at Starbucks might not have paid a court-approved fine? The Deadbeat Map, as it’s known, provides pinpoint confirmation, the ability to share that information via social media and -- if so inclined -- a reporting

Jan. 27, 2019

[Leonid Bershidsky] Maduro’s fall would be a defeat for Putin, too

If Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime falls, Russian President Vladimir Putin will have to write off yet another costly geopolitical bet. Just don’t expect Moscow to stop taking such gambles as it tries to counter US influence across the globe.Russia is Venezuela’s most important foreign sponsor after China. China’s investment has been estimated to be as much as $70 billion, most of it to be paid back in oil. Russia and its state-owned companies have lent and injected more than $17 bil

Jan. 27, 2019

[Leonid Bershidsky] German ‘yellow vests’ have a case, too

Can the yellow vest, that symbol of French anti-elite protest, travel? Well, it’s clearly not as internationally ubiquitous as the red flag of class struggle was some 100 years ago, but most of the 700 people who demonstrated in Stuttgart on Saturday were wearing yellow security vests.　Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chosen successor, has said she sees no room in Germany for a “yellow vest” movement like the French one. In reality, however, Germans have some of the

Jan. 24, 2019

[Leonid Bershidsky] German ‘yellow vests’ have a case, too

[Noah Smith] Big cities no longer deliver for low-skilled workers

David Autor, a labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a record of attacking the biggest and most important issues. He has raised alarms about disappearing middle-skilled jobs, pointed to the downsides of trade with China, warned about increasing industrial concentration, and attacked the question of whether automation will kill jobs.　In a recent lecture at the American Economic Association meeting in Atlanta, Autor attempted to weave many of those threads together into

Jan. 24, 2019