The Korea Herald

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] The new economics of happiness

ViewpointsSept 1, 2011

NEW YORK ― We live in a time of high anxiety. Despite the world’s unprecedented total wealth, there is vast insecurity, unrest, and dissatisfaction. In the United States, a large majority of Americans believe that the country is “on the wrong track.” Pessimism has soared. The same is true in many ot
[J. Bradford DeLong] Ben Bernanke’s dream world

ViewpointsAug 31, 2011

BERKELEY ― U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is not regarded as an oracle in the way that his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, was before the financial crisis. But financial markets were glued to the speech he gave in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Aug. 26. What they heard was a bit of a muddle
[Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus] Harvard’s No. 1 ranking makes us wonder

ViewpointsAug 31, 2011

The U.S. News and World Report “Best Colleges” rankings, which will be published next month, are viewed as a Baedeker and Bible by more than 5 million American parents considering colleges and universities for their high-school juniors and seniors. We think that parents should use this guide with ca
[Editorial] Fostering female CEOs

EditorialAug 31, 2011

Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee recently stressed the importance of utilizing women in the workforce, saying talented female employees should be allowed to become CEOs. Lee held a rare session last week with a small number of female executives from Samsung companies to express his commitmen
[Editorial] Education and politics

EditorialAug 31, 2011

Seoul education chief Kwak No-hyun’s alleged involvement in election campaign corruption has sparked a flurry of moves to reform the current system for electing education officials in the nation’s seven largest cities and nine provinces.A group of lawmakers of the ruling Grand National Party is movi
[Dominique Moisi] Who among us will help the poor?

ViewpointsAug 31, 2011

PARIS ― With the deepening of the economic crisis and the prospect of another recession looming large on the horizon, growing social inequality has become an increasingly urgent issue. How does one reinforce a sense of solidarity and responsibility within a country? Who will protect the weakest?&nbs
[Meghan Daum] Politics signals the invasion of the idiocrats

ViewpointsAug 31, 2011

You may not have seen “Idiocracy,” the 2006 sci-fi comedy set in an utterly dysfunctional nation 500 years in the future, but chances are you’ve heard it mentioned lately. References to the film seem to be everywhere, and not just in op-eds penned by cranky columnists (I mentioned it in a column las
[Eve Weinbaum and Rachel Roth] Beyond suffrage: How far have women come since?

ViewpointsAug 31, 2011

Today we celebrate the anniversary of female suffrage, a victory that took more than 70 years of political struggle to achieve. After women won the right to vote in 1920, socialist feminist Crystal Eastman observed that suffrage was an important first step but that what women really wanted was freed
[Hans-Werner Sinn] The trouble with eurobonds

ViewpointsAug 30, 2011

MUNICH ― German Chancellor Angela Merkel has withstood the pressure from southern Europe: there will be no eurobonds. For the markets, this is a disappointment, but there is no other way for these countries to rebuild themselves than to insist patiently on a phase of debt discipline and an end to la
[William Pesek] Steve Jobs trumps CEO of $5 trillion economy

ViewpointsAug 30, 2011

Things are bad when a world leader quitting registers less than a corporate executive. That’s what Naoto Kan gets for bowing out the same week as Steve Jobs. Markets reacted immediately to news of Jobs’s departure from Apple Inc.; there was barely a ripple after Kan cashed out and paved the way for
[Editorial] Jeju naval base

EditorialAug 30, 2011

The Jeju district court issued an injunction Monday to stop obstructions by radical activists and residents against the construction work for a naval base at Gangjeong on the southern coast of Jeju Island. However, the court ruling did not totally prohibit opposition activities around the constructi
[Editorial] Japan’s new premier

EditorialAug 30, 2011

Watching Japan install a new prime minister after his predecessor’s 15 months in office, we cannot but feel unease about continuing political instability in the neighboring country, which needs a strong leadership to weather the many political and economic problems ahead. Naoto Kan may take consolat
[Kim Seong-kon] Korean vs. American universities

ViewpointsAug 30, 2011

As someone who has taught at both Korean and American universities, I know there are some interesting differences between the two higher educational institutions. In Korea, for example, most high school students seem to believe that a college degree is imperative in order to climb the ladder of soci
[Daniel Fiedler] Child abuse and the failure of South Korean courts

ViewpointsAug 30, 2011

In November 1991 South Korea ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Since that ratification, the South Korean government has enacted a variety of laws to protect children from abuse and exploitation, the centerpiece law being the Child Welfare Act. More recently Korea b
[Albert R. Hunt] Changing Vietnam yearns for closer U.S. embrace

ViewpointsAug 30, 2011

Pham Binh Minh, whose father fought to force the U.S. out of Vietnam, is working fervently to elevate the interest and involvement of his country’s former enemy. Vietnam wants a U.S. presence for economic reasons and as a balance to China, the regional superpower. Minh is the new foreign minister; h