For two years, polls have shown that the American people have two strongly held beliefs. First, they think the president should do more to create jobs. Second, they believe federal spending should be cut, and the government should shrink. To the progressive economists who form the cadre of President Barack Obama’s advisers ― and indeed, to most mainstream economists ― these two views are mutually

Viewpoints June 30, 2011

There rarely are second acts, to borrow a phrase from F. Scott Fitzgerald, in American politics. Larry Summers, lauded as President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary, made a comeback to government two and half years ago as President Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser with expectations he would become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. Instead, he returned to Harvard University, his reput

Viewpoints June 29, 2011

Nearly every day for three years, Josue Melquisedec Diaz reported to work by going to a New Orleans street corner where contractors, subcontractors and people fixing up their places went to hire day laborers. It was there, one day in 2008, that a contractor picked him up and took him to Beaumont, Texas, just across the Louisiana line, to work on the cleanup, demolition and reconstruction projects

Viewpoints June 29, 2011

The surge in Afghanistan was supposed to change the incentives of the Taliban so that they would choose to join the government rather than fight it. That was how the Iraq surge of 2007 worked to end the civil war there, and that was the main objective in Afghanistan. But it didn’t succeed. The great bulk of the Taliban are still in fighting mode, and negotiations with the insurgents are nascent at

Viewpoints June 29, 2011

Watching Greece slide into chaos from 6,000 miles away is painful. Asia, after all, was the last region to experience what Europe may be about to endure. Asia’s implosion in 1997 toppled leaders, touched off riots, set back living standards a decade or more and tarnished the International Monetary Fund’s reputation. Expect similar developments as Europe’s grand monetary experiment cracks. Asia and

Viewpoints June 28, 2011

The Communist Party of China has coined and promoted many slogans from Mao Zedong’s time to the present day. A slogan-driven regime treats its people simultaneously as morons and a dangerous rabble. Mao said that China’s people were “poor and blank” and one could write beautiful things on a blank sheet of paper.In other words, Mao wanted to write his own script on this blank sheet of paper after h

Viewpoints June 27, 2011

President Barack Obama will want Americans to see his announcement of upcoming U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan as proof that we are defeating the Taliban. But for many, his decision will only confirm that 10 years of war, more than 1,600 American lives and $444 billion of taxpayer money have been wasted. The verdict need not be so dire. It is possible to get to an acceptable outcome, but o

Viewpoints June 26, 2011

The past five years must have been good times for Korea’s chaebol groups. During this period, the nation’s 30 largest business groups saw their number of affiliates more than double. According to data compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service, the figure surged from 500 in January 2006 to 1,087 in April this year. This means the conglomerates added a new member to their fleet of subsidiaries e

Editorial June 24, 2011

Controversy is raging over the government’s plan to make general household medicines available at supermarkets and convenience stores. The Health and Welfare Ministry recently announced a list of 44 over-the-counter pharmaceutical products that would be sold at retail outlets starting August. If the plan goes as scheduled, it will be the first time in Korea that OTC products are sold at places oth

Editorial June 24, 2011

Suddenly finance god John Paulson isn’t looking so omniscient. The New York-based hedge-fund manager was the star of the 2008 subprime crisis, capitalizing on Wall Street’s misrepresentations to the tune of $15 billion betting against U.S. mortgages. Now, fraudsters may have taken him in. That is, if a June 2 report by Muddy Waters LLC is correct and Sino-Forest Corp. lied about its finances. I do

Viewpoints June 24, 2011

Whether 2 million bacteria in 1 milliliter of fresh milk qualifies for the label “the globally worst,” as some have called it, is probably debatable. But we do know that the new national dairy safety standards are substantially lower than before. The previous bottom-line for protein content in every 100 grams of fresh milk was 2.95 grams. Now it is 2.8 grams. The number of bacteria permitted in ea

Viewpoints June 24, 2011

China’s surprisingly aggressive assertion of “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea has startled governments around the region, and puts the emerging superpower on a collision course with its partners in the region as well as the interests of the other, long-established superpower, the United States.Misconceptions about the issue clutter the public discourse in the Philippines, howeve

Viewpoints June 24, 2011