You have to hand it to economists -- they say the darnedest things.In a Wall Street Journal survey, a group of economists “put the odds of the next downturn happening within the next four years at nearly 60 percent.” Oh no.Today, we will make another entry in the catalog of how worthless predictions tend to be, and more specifically why economists’ long-term forecasts are so uniquely useless.Let’s start with the math: Saying a recession might occur within the next four years is a statement that

Viewpoints Oct. 19, 2016

In December, the Pentagon finally opened all combat jobs to women. Since then only 180 have signed up for the two branches that previously were off-limits -- infantry and armor. To illustrate how few that is, the US Army’s active-duty infantry is made up of more than 60,000 soldiers. The number of female troops volunteering for the newly opened “close-combat” jobs is a pittance.The US Army’s highest-ranking noncommissioned officer recently sent an email to every soldier in the ranks, asking wome

Viewpoints Oct. 19, 2016

Cheers rose from prominent voices around the world this month when almost all countries agreed to reduce the climate costs of international air travel. The United Nations and White House applauded the deal, as did the airline industry and even some environmentalists. Yet the agreement hardly qualifies for the praise. It stands to do little to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from airplanes.　These emissions are certainly a problem. Airlines currently account for just 2 percent of global greenhouse

Viewpoints Oct. 19, 2016

Stanford historian Ian Morris is fond of saying that “each age gets the thought it needs.” According to this maxim, ideas like the Enlightenment, communism or even Christianity are a product of the economic and political circumstances of their times.It’s easy to believe that libertarianism might have been a good fit for the late 20th century. Coming out of World War II, governments were huge, bureaucratic and militaristic. The Soviet Union and Mao’s China were implementing particularly destructi

Viewpoints Oct. 19, 2016

Korean conglomerates are actively tapping tax havens worldwide for the apparent purpose of reducing their income tax burdens, a development that was highlighted during the National Assembly’s audit last week.It is widely believed that, in some countries in the Caribbean, global investors can easily attain documents that could register their operations there. It is known that these sort of documents are available via brokers within several days of application.Arguments start from the point whethe

Editorial Oct. 18, 2016

You’ve probably heard about employers that block workers’ access to personal email accounts on work computers. But now, thanks to a new Department of Labor overtime rule, some employers are blocking workers’ access to work emails after hours.Why? Because although many employers probably want employees to be able to check work email whenever they want, they don’t want to be forced to pay employees time and a half for doing so, which is what the overtime rule mandates.Under the new rule, employers

Viewpoints Oct. 18, 2016

Uber now offers rides in more than 200 US cities. Rival Lyft does too.But Uber gets an estimated 60 percent of its US revenue from just five metropolitan areas (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington), according to a new report from the research firm 7Park Data. You can see a similar regional concentration in ride-business data released this week by the Brookings Institution.Brookings senior fellows Ian Hathaway and Mark Muro gathered these numbers (and similar data on the

Viewpoints Oct. 18, 2016

I was admiring the silk damask wallpaper woven in 1898 in our historic inn’s dining room at the end of a cozy family dinner when you found a way to disturb my reverie with your appalling confrontation. I try to imagine how our table looked to you. An Asian woman speaking in a slightly elevated voice to her elderly Asian grandmother in a room filled with more guests who looked like you than us. And I realize you took the opportunity to approach me only after my Caucasian husband left the dining r

Viewpoints Oct. 18, 2016

In a groundbreaking move, the Dutch government recently announced it is working to end all experiments on animals. The Netherlands had already passed a motion in parliament to phase out experiments on nonhuman primates, and now its goal is to be using only human-relevant, nonanimal testing methods by 2025. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals UK scientists have met with government officials and provided a 70-page document outlining areas of experimentation that can be ended immediately an

Viewpoints Oct. 18, 2016

The practices and the words of relatively new president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, present a problem for the United States in its relations with that country. What he does, what he says and what may be a tendency on his part to try to play the United States off against China and Russia in East Asia could become a problem.At this point, given the long-standing although complex relationship between the Philippines, a nation of nearly 100 million, and the United States, at least two quest

Viewpoints Oct. 18, 2016

The controversy touched off by former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon’s memoir exposes – once again – how naive, censurable and risky the South Korean government’s policy toward North Korea has been.  Song, who served as the top diplomat under Roh Moo-hyun who succeeded Kim Dae-jung’s engagement policy toward the North, said in the memoir that Seoul sought the view of Pyongyang before abstaining from the 2007 UN vote on a resolution about the human rights infringement in the North. This promptly

Editorial Oct. 17, 2016