Four years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the near-total paralysis of capitalism’s central nervous system ― the moment fear completely overwhelmed greed on Wall Street ― we are starting to see a few glimmers of hope. The good news: Several big banks have finally started taking steps to reform Wall Street’s out-of-control compensation system, which rewards bankers and traders with big bonuses for taking insane risks with other people’s money. The bad news: These banks are

What do Americans want done with killers in Libya who murdered U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others on Sept. 11, our national day of mourning?We want their heads stuffed into a burlap bag. We want to see that bag tossed into some town square, landing with hollow thunks, the bag opening, its cargo rolling along the ground.That’s revenge talking, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Americans were murdered. While our politicians make speeches about “resolve” and President Barack Obam

While political parties are engrossed in a debate on economic democratization, Korea has reached a profound demographic tipping point.A recent Bank of Korea report says Korea’s working-age population ― those between 15 and 64 years of age ― will peak in 2016 before starting to decline rapidly for the next half a century. Yet the report draws attention to an important demographic shift that is already taking place: The share of the working-age population in the total population reaches a peak thi

The Financial Supervisory Service recently said it would consider resuming the practice of disclosing data on corruption in the financial sector, as criminal activity by executives and employees of financial companies shows no signs of abating.Until 2004, the watchdog made public its corruption statistics for each segment of the industry. But it discontinued the practice in the face of opposition from financial companies.Financial firms have since made voluntary efforts to prevent their official

It’s a shame that France’s two most powerful people, its president and its richest man, were unable to get beyond populist posturing and recrimination as they battled over taxes this week. They may have missed a golden opportunity to find common ground on restoring growth to their country’s beleaguered economy. The clash erupted after Bernard Arnault, the chief executive officer of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, acknowledged that he has applied for Belgian citizenship. He said this was a “

Enough is enough! Obviously, the political leadership in Tokyo and Seoul never learned the First Rule of Holes: when you find yourself in one, stop digging. Each side seems to be going out of its way to make a bad situation worse, even while providing private assurances that it won’t let the situation get too far out of hand. In all likelihood it is probably impossible to start making significant repairs until after upcoming elections: December in Korea and who knows (but probably sooner rather

Sept. 28 marks the 2,563rd anniversary of the birth of Confucius.Few people realize that the Bible discourages people from studying foreign languages. The story of the tower of Babel informs us that there is one humanity (God’s), only that “our languages are confused.” From a European historical perspective, that has always meant that, say, any German philosopher could know exactly what the Chinese people were thinking, only that he couldn’t understand them. So instead of learning the foreign la

A fight against corruption has never failed to make it to the top of each presidential candidate’s list of election promises.Rep. Park Geun-hye, the presidential nominee of the ruling Saenuri Party, has recently unveiled an anti-corruption proposal, focused on all the president’s men and women. The main opposition Democratic United Party, which nominated Rep. Moon Jae-in as its presidential candidate Sunday, is reportedly working on a similar anti-corruption plan. Moon said earlier that corrupti

President Lee Myung-bak has until Friday to make a decision on whether to sign into law or veto a bill on the appointment of an independent counsel empowered to look into a land-purchase scandal involving him, his son and one of his top security service officers. The bill, passed by the National Assembly earlier in the month, will be made into law automatically if no action is taken by Friday.In the past, lawmakers close to the president and the minister of justice have hinted at a presidential

What does it say about China when the man seen as the next president disappears for 13 days and leadership circles pretend nothing is amiss? The answer is that officials in Beijing still cling to their Kremlin-like ways. It is one thing for Ethiopia, with $32 billion of output, to be mired in similar intrigue (Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was confirmed dead last month after weeks of rumors and conspiracy theories). It is quite another when it takes place in a country whose economy might surpass t