A weak labor market, like the one we’ve experienced since the financial crisis in 2008, imposes enormous stress on people. Given the added anxiety created by a weak economy, you might think life expectancy would decline. Oddly, though, during recessions, exactly the opposite tends to happen: Life expectancy rises. It’s happening again now. The age-adjusted death rate in the U.S. declined by 2 percent from 2007 to 2010, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Preven

Viewpoints Feb. 27, 2012

If Europe’s new plan for Greece succeeds, nobody will be more surprised than the politicians who designed it. At best, the arrangement is a holding action, one that fails yet again to deal with the much larger confidence crisis facing the euro area. The deal announced on Tuesday starts with private lenders. Their representatives agreed to accept even bigger losses on Greek government bonds than previously discussed. The bonds’ face value will be cut by 53.5 percent, and they’ll pay a low interes

Viewpoints Feb. 27, 2012

Haphazard and ill-conceived government policies lead to a waste of taxpayers’ money and give rise to unnecessary problems. For an example, one need not look further than the government’s child care policy.Starting next month, the government will provide a subsidy to all families with a child under 24 months old, regardless of their income, if they enroll them at a day care center. Previously, the subsidy was offered to families in the bottom 70 percent of the income scale.As expected, applicatio

Editorial Feb. 27, 2012

Political parties are moving again to increase the number of lawmakers in the Assembly. The ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party, which have been bickering over redrawing electoral districts, have patched up their differences by increasing the number of seats from the current 299 to 300.Rep. Joo Sung-young of the ruling party said on Sunday that the two parties have resolved the rezoning puzzle by embracing a proposal presented by the National Election Commission.

Editorial Feb. 27, 2012

Anything as big and as promising as shale gas is bound to be complicated. This energy source has much to recommend it. To begin with, the U.S. has a lot of it, enough to meet current natural gas consumption for 35 years. The increase in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the technique used to tap natural gas from shale, brought down the fuel’s price by 32 percent last year, to less than $3 per million Btu. Expanding the practice ― to New York State, for example, which now has a moratorium on it

Viewpoints Feb. 26, 2012

PARIS ― The United States is widely recognized as possessing the deepest, most liquid, and most efficient capital markets in the world. America’s financial system supports efficient capital allocation, economic development, and job creation.These and similar phrases have been common currency among American legislators, regulators, and financial firms for decades. Even in the wake of the financial crisis that erupted in 2008, they trip off the word processors of a hundred submissions challenging

Viewpoints Feb. 26, 2012

Recently, a prudent group of scholars made a compelling case for starting a movement named “Occupy Populism in Korea,” which aims to investigate the fundamental causes and impacts of populism deeply rooted in Korean political circles. At present, Korea is apparently overrun by populism: welfare populism, free populism, half-tuition-fee populism, good or bad populism, right-wing or left-wing populism, anticorporation populism, etc. Literally, populism is well defined by M. Canovan as “an appeal t

Viewpoints Feb. 26, 2012

LAHORE/NEW DELHI ― A subtle shift may be occurring in one of the world’s longest-standing and most intractable conflicts ― the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Increasingly, it seems, Pakistanis are questioning what the Kashmir dispute has done to their own state and society.When Pakistan was carved out of India by the departing British in the 1947 Partition, the 562 “princely states” (regions nominally ruled by assorted potentates, but owing allegiance to the British Raj) were r

Viewpoints Feb. 26, 2012

The Supreme Court has put an end to a long-running dispute over the status of workers at Hyundai Motor who are formally hired by the carmaker’s in-house subcontractors but work just like its regular employees ― for far lower wages.On Thursday, the court ruled in favor of a former Hyundai worker who filed a suit in 2005 claiming that he was unlawfully fired. The worker, who was then employed by an in-house subcontractor at the carmaker’s plant in Ulsan, claimed that he should have been converted

Editorial Feb. 24, 2012

In less than two weeks, Russians go to the polls for a presidential election exercise. The overwhelmingly likely outcome: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will dust off the old stationery from his first two terms as president.In the final run-up, Putin is publishing a series of position papers, the latest one focusing on reloading and reforming the Russian military. The most striking remark: “We need a response system for more than just current threats. We should learn to look ‘past the horizon,’ a

Viewpoints Feb. 24, 2012

A second bailout plan by the European Union and other concerned parties to deal with Greece’s debts has finally been sealed by eurozone finance ministers.Greece, which is suffering from an ever-worsening debt crisis, is scheduled to redeem a large amount of government bonds on March 20. Without further debt relief measures, it would have been difficult for the country to collect funds, resulting in a default that surely would have an adverse effect that will rock global markets.We welcome this d

Viewpoints Feb. 24, 2012