AUSTIN, Texas ― “You’ve got mail.”There was a time, say about 1998 when the hit romantic comedy of the same name made its debut, that the phrase was cute. Email was a fast, special way to be connected. AOL’s ringy-dingy reminder was charming. Then email stopped being cute and special because everyone had it. Then it stopped being charming because it never stopped. Now we find ourselves stuck with the most ironic of unintended consequences of the once efficient email: Its vast inefficiency.The em

Kwon Hyouk-se, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, has recently warned of a new financial crisis, which may be triggered by household debt. The warning reflects the possibility of delinquencies soaring in home-backed loans if home prices continue to fall as they do now.But it is not the home-backed loans alone that are posing a threat to the financial industry. A similar threat is coming from loans secured by commercial properties whose prices are also dropping.Currently, homeowners a

Top economic policymakers were undoubtedly taken by surprise when Statistics Korea said on Tuesday that industrial output, spending and corporate investment declined in June. Prior to the announcement, the policymakers had maintained that the economic conditions were not as bad as they looked.According to a report from the statistics agency, the June retail and investment in industrial facilities fell 0.5 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, from May. Adding to the nation’s economic woes was i

Mitt Romney and I are competing in a new Olympic event that involves proffering unvarnished criticism of the Olympics themselves. We’re the Lochte and Phelps of this event ― appearing united when necessary and when it serves us both, and appearing divided when Mitt says something really stupid.Last week, I blamed cronyism for the awarding of the sole-source security contract for the entire Olympic Games to a company that failed to deliver, requiring the British military to step in at the last mi

Thanks to the Year of the Dragon baby boom, Taiwan will see a respite from the greying of its population. The latest figures from the Council for Economic Planning and Development delay the arrival of zero population growth from the earlier estimation of 2022 to between 2024 and 2027. Taiwan is estimated to officially become an aged society (with 14 percent of population over 65 years old) by 2018, one year later than previously estimated.With one of the lowest birth rates in the world, Taiwan h

Japan has fallen to 25th place in a world ranking of innovation ― down five places from 2011 ― according to a study conducted by INSEAD, an international graduate school and research institution concerned with innovation in countries around the world. Japan’s economy, still the third-largest in the world, continues to rest on past achievements rather than advancing toward a better future.While Japan ranked relatively highly in some sections of the study, Japan’s knowledge and technology output c

Market activity to promote the use of electronic books is picking up this summer. Efforts should be made to improve the environment for the spread of e-books so it can lead to further development of the culture of the printed word.Rakuten, Inc. a leading online shopping service, has begun marketing a low-cost electronic reader. U.S. online retailer Amazon.com, the largest operator in the market, will soon launch digital readers that can display Japanese. Meanwhile, more publishers are moving the

The Seoul education office this week announced a plan to pull out nearly all native-speaking English teachers from public middle and high schools in the city. It cited low cost-effectiveness of hiring them at secondary schools where the focus of English class is put on reading and grammar.The measure will not affect native teachers employed at elementary schools, where education officials say English lessons are mostly speaking-based.It is necessary for the education office to reconsider the pol

The rapid aging of society has brought about another embarrassing problem ― a sharp increase in sex crimes committed by aged men, which are targeted mainly at children and other vulnerable people.According to figures from the police, the number of sex offenders aged 61 or older increased by more than 50 percent from 710 in 2008 to 1,070 last year. More than one in 10 child sex crimes in 2011 were committed by people in their 60s or 70s.In the latest case, a 66-year-old janitor of a primary schoo

For an economy that’s growing at an anemic rate of 1.5 percent, you would think there would be more discussion of the U.S. housing market on the campaign trail. The sector has powered past recoveries and is responsible for as much as one-fifth of gross domestic product. Yet President Barack Obama has made little more than a passing reference to housing in his campaign, calling it a drag on the economy and recommending an expanded mortgage-refinancing program. Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt

Premier Wen Jiabao’s call to open up the economy further to private investors is a reminder that we have a lot more to do to provide a level playing field for the private sector. Wen urged the country during Monday’s executive meeting of the State Council to fully implement the policies encouraging the private sector’s growth. Admittedly, the government has been increasingly aware of the importance of the private sector and has devised a series of policies to facilitate the growth of private ent