The frozen housing market is showing early signs of thawing following the government’s stimulus package announced a week ago. According to reports, apartment sale prices in Seoul rose 0.03 percent last week, the first rise in 14 weeks. A price rise was also spotted in cities around Seoul, with the average apartment sale prices in the capital zone inching up 0.01 percent, the first gain since March 2011.These signs are encouraging. To help the budding recovery take root, it is incumbent upon the

Editorial Sept. 3, 2013

If anyone still believes this country has a “pay for performance” system for corporate executives, it’s time to put the notion to rest. For more than two decades, corporations have gotten away with this sham ― at the expense of workers, shareholders and taxpayers.The good news: there’s reason to hope that members of Congress could come together across the aisle to help end this charade by closing one loophole in the tax code.The “pay for performance” myth has been unraveling for years. Most of t

Viewpoints Sept. 3, 2013

BRUSSELS ― There is a saying, too often used in interpreting international relations, that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Sometimes it proves true; often it does not.Thirty years ago, the Afghan mujahedin were mistaken for friends of the West when they fought their country’s Soviet invaders. But how lazy that assumption seems now, given all that has since happened.Syria’s deepening crisis, and the criminal use of chemical weapons there, has created a similar dynamic and dilemma. But the West nee

Viewpoints Sept. 3, 2013

India’s economy has stalled. Growth in the second quarter fell to 4.4 percent at an annual rate, down from 8 percent two years ago. The rupee has slumped. Consumer-price inflation is about 10 percent and rising. The country faces what could be a full-scale financial crisis. This would be a testing situation even if India had a well-functioning government, but it doesn’t. With a general election due next May, politics are paralyzed. Between now and the vote, the Reserve Bank of India, led by its

Viewpoints Sept. 2, 2013

For five years, President Obama has more or less successfully adhered to a very specific, though not immediately discernible, doctrine when formulating American policy in the Muslim world.Many foreign policy experts believe that Obama doesn’t have a Middle East policy at all ― a clear-cut set of ideas that guide American engagement in the greater Middle East. This, we are told, is a big problem.But the conventional wisdom is wrong. There is, in fact, an Obama doctrine. And for the first time sin

Viewpoints Sept. 2, 2013

So the U.S. launches a military strike. Then what?As the Obama administration and the U.S. military plot military action against Syria, they should be spending just as much time ― and arguably more ― considering what happens next. Once Washington crosses the threshold of action, there’s no retreating from blame for anything that follows, whether through action or inaction. And in the weeks and months to come, dangers will only deepen.First, quick hits rarely achieve enduring political goals ― an

Viewpoints Sept. 2, 2013

Think the United States is fairing badly in the Middle East? Convinced that our policy is chaotic, confused and contradictory, from North Africa to the Persian Gulf?Think again. It may not be politically correct to admit it, but when it comes to furthering America’s core national interests, Washington isn’t doing badly at all. And here’s why.Defining U.S. national interests is a critically important task, and not enough attention is paid to it. If you don’t know where you’re going, the old saw g

Viewpoints Sept. 1, 2013

Fifty years ago, on a hot Wednesday afternoon in the nation’s capital, Martin Luther King Jr. stood in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln and told America about a dream he had.There is no way he could have imagined then that an African-American boy, who was only 2 years old at the time, would grow up to be president of the United States. And that on another Wednesday afternoon, exactly 50 years later, that black president would stand on the same steps of the Lincoln Memorial to deliver a speech in co

Viewpoints Aug. 30, 2013

Steve Ballmer’s announcement last week of his retirement from Microsoft Corp. after 13 years at the helm leaves some puzzling questions for his successor ― about Microsoft’s epic decline, its uncertain future and the ultimate purpose of a public company. Resolving them may well prove impossible. And that’s OK. Under Ballmer, who succeeded Bill Gates as chief executive officer in 2000, Microsoft failed to anticipate or adequately respond to almost every technological innovation that came along, f

Viewpoints Aug. 29, 2013