The Korea Herald

[Ramesh Ponnuru] Trump should declare victory on China and retreat

In any “trade war,” the most important thing to remember is the limit of the martial metaphor. When a foreign company sells Americans something they choose to buy, it is not an act of aggression. Trade negotiations aren’t a zero-sum game in which one country wins and the other has to lose.　 The point is being forgotten right now, and not just by protectionists. Practically everyone is saying that President Donald Trump is losing, surrendering, caving or capitulating to China. But “losing” may be

Viewpoints May 27, 2018

[Ramesh Ponnuru] Trump should declare victory on China and retreat

[Faye Flam] How scientists succumb to corruption and cook results

Horrible bosses can cause misery in any kind of business, but in science, they wield uniquely destructive power. In a recent survey compiled by the journal Nature, a number of young scientists reported that they felt pressured to find “particular results” that would presumably please their bosses, as opposed to the truth. That’s a problem for society at large, since it degrades the integrity of research that we’re supporting.　 Last week, a number of experts weighted in for a special section of t

Viewpoints May 27, 2018

[Tobin Harshaw] China outspends US on defense? Here’s the math.

When is $227 billion greater than $606 billion? When comparing Chinese defense spending to that of the US -- and if Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley is the one doing the math.　At a hearing last week, the ranking Democrat of the Senate’s defense appropriations subcommittee, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said to Milley: “You tell us that one of our biggest threats, greatest enemies, is Russia; turns out we read recently that Russia spends about $80 billion a year on its military. So let me get this stra

Viewpoints May 27, 2018

[Tobin Harshaw] China outspends US on defense? Here’s the math.

[Adam Minter] Fake news laws are fake solution

In the waning days of Malaysia’s recent election campaign, then-opposition leader Mahathir Mohamad was investigated under the country’s anti-fake news law. Had he been charged and convicted, he could have spent as much as six years in prison. Instead, Mahathir was elected prime minister with a pledge to repeal the law.　 After his unexpected success, Mahathir initially seemed to back off his promise; other members of his government have since sent different signals. While Malaysians have many rea

Viewpoints May 27, 2018

[Barry Ritholtz] Never mind the millionaires. Here’s advice from billionaires.

Last month, I described an email that promised vast riches if I would adopt “The Millionaire Mindset.”　This is the sort of silly wishful thinking I hate:　Consider, instead, the Cartesian pitch as applied to self-help being sold today: Just think it and it will happen. This stuff, along with crystals and horoscopes, joins a long list of things that have never been proven to have much value beyond a placebo effect.　Wishful thinking alone is insufficient to get any job done. “All you need is a doll

Viewpoints May 27, 2018

[Eli Lake] Trump can win by walking away from Korea talks

President Donald Trump finally did it. On Thursday he pulled the plug on next month’s big summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. In sadness, but not anger, Trump said Kim’s insults were too much for now. That said, he left the door open for a future meeting. Why did Kim get cold feet and resume that anti-US rhetoric?North Korean apparatus tell us that their dear leader is skittish about negotiations after Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, suggested the “Libya model” for ridd

Viewpoints May 25, 2018

[Eli Lake] Trump can win by walking away from Korea talks

[Anjani Trivedi] Trump’s auto misfire will do nothing for Detroit

The latest salvo in President Donald Trump’s trade war promises to do more damage than good to an already anxious American auto industry.　Trump on Wednesday ordered the US Commerce Department to probe whether auto imports threaten national security under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act -- the same executive power he used to apply tariffs on steel and aluminum earlier this year.　The president’s latest idea risks unwinding a global supply chain that powers sales of almost 20 million cars a

Viewpoints May 25, 2018

[Clive Crook] Europe’s Italian problem is bigger than Brexit

The new government finally taking shape in Italy is one of the weirdest coalitions you could imagine -- and a pretty effective combination if your aim was to sabotage the European Union. Although predictions about where this Italian misadventure is heading are difficult, it could easily be worse than Brexit for the EU.　 The coalition partners -- the left-populist Five Star Movement led by Luigi Di Maio and the right-populist League led by Matteo Salvini -- are poles apart in most respects, but c

Viewpoints May 24, 2018

[Clive Crook] Europe’s Italian problem is bigger than Brexit

[Justin Fox] Ending China’s birth limits won’t bring a baby boom

It looks like China’s decadesold policy of limiting births is finally going to bite the dust. As Bloomberg News reports from Beijing:　 China is planning to scrap all limits on the number of children a family can have, according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be a historic end to a policy that spurred countless human-rights abuses and left the world’s second-largest economy short of workers.　It would in fact be a historic move. Will it have much of an impact on China’s birth ra

Viewpoints May 24, 2018

[Cass Sunstein] The destructive cycle of hating

There has been a great deal of discussion of social division and polarization in recent times, but those terms are inadequate. What besets the United States is much worse.　Both the right and the left are increasingly defined by a form of Manichaeism, in which the forces of light are taken to be in a death struggle with the forces of darkness. We are in a Manichaean moment.　Manichaeism was a religion founded in the third century by the prophet Mani, born in what is now Iraq. Seeking to synthesize

Viewpoints May 24, 2018

[Cathy O’Neil] Let’s not forget how wrong our crime data are

Legalizing marijuana makes sense for a lot of reasons, but there’s one valuable thing we’ll lose when police stop arresting people for smoking pot: A sense of just how misleading our crime data are.　Data on arrests and reported crime play a big role in public policy and law enforcement. Politicians employ them to gauge their success in making neighborhoods and the entire country safe. Police departments use them to determine where to deploy more officers to look for more crime. They are fed into

Viewpoints May 23, 2018

[Michael Pettis] Even $200 billion isn’t enough

Questions remain about just how many more US exports China’s promised to buy to avert a trade war: US officials have floated the figure of $200 billion annually, which would cut the bilateral trade deficit in half. Even if that were true, however -- and Chinese officials have denied it -- that massive buying spree wouldn’t bring down the overall US trade deficit one whit.　China should be able to rebalance its trade relationship with the US relatively quickly by reorienting its purchases of indus

Viewpoints May 22, 2018

[Michael Pettis] Even $200 billion isn’t enough

[Julian Lee] Russia flexes its soft power muscles

Oil has touched a level above $80 a barrel for the first time since November 2014. OPEC’s inventory target for output cuts has been met.　But even though its oil companies want to turn on the taps and its finance ministry may be worried about prices rising too far, Russia won’t bring its output deal with the group to a juddering halt when the participants meet in Vienna next month. Instead, it will stand alongside its Saudi partner and continue to toe the line on production restraint.　Its partici

Viewpoints May 22, 2018

[Noah Smith] Resentment of crazy-rich Americans isn’t just envy

In the forthcoming movie “Crazy Rich Asians,” an American woman discovers that her boyfriend belongs to Singapore’s secretive, obnoxious jet set. It’s fun to laugh at the ultrarich when they’re just a caricature on a screen. But it’s possible that the increasing visibility of crazy rich Americans is fueling rising anger about inequality.　In the past few decades, the US has greatly improved its social safety net. And the country’s middle class has seen real income gains. But a 2015 New York Times

Viewpoints May 21, 2018

[Noah Smith] Resentment of crazy-rich Americans isn’t just envy

[Leonid Bershidsky] How Europe can keep money flowing to Iran

The determination of European nations, Russia and China to keep the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran alive isn’t necessarily futile. Europe has more influence than the US on SWIFT, the Brussels-based global payments network.　The system was founded in the 1970s by a group of global banks that wanted to standardize the way they shared transaction information, instead of letting each country, or even big banks, impose their own standards. SWIFT is owned by its members and provides the backbone of m

Viewpoints May 21, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] How Europe can keep money flowing to Iran

Articles by Bloomberg