The Korea Herald

Revisiting the Federal Reserve’s crisis

Mar 5, 2014

BERKELEY, California ― Reading through the just-released transcripts of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee meetings in 2008, I found myself asking the same overarching question: What accounted for the FOMC’s blinkered mindset as crisis erupted all around it?To be sure, some understood the true nature of the situation. As Jon Hilsenrath of the Wall Street Journal points out, William Dudley, then the executive vice president of the New York Fed’s Markets Group, presented staf
The West needs Russia’s help more than it realizes

Mar 5, 2014

PARIS ― Remember when you were a kid and packed your bag to run away from home, only to quickly realize that you lacked the requisite means to follow through on your threat? Mom and Dad, after giving you a little time to save face, had to drive down the road and toss your penniless little behind and your Transformers backpack into the backseat. We’re now witnessing a similar scenario with the pathetic display of political theater underway between the West and Russia over Ukraine.Those first few
[Lee Jae-min] Learning a new playbook

Mar 4, 2014

Has the Trans-Pacific Partnership scheme hit a stumbling block? Questions are lingering as the ministerial-level talks in Singapore in late February ended without a final deal. This outcome raises a red flag as it is the second failure to meet the deadline in as many months. Nor has there been any mention of a new deadline, for that matter. Of course, the issue is not simply about deadlines: after all, deadlines can be missed and adjusted. What grabs outsiders’ attention, however, is that the Si
South Korea’s wildly plausible growth plan

Mar 4, 2014

Clearly, marketing isn’t Park Geun-hye’s thing. That’s become painfully apparent as the South Korean president pitches a “474 vision” to revitalize the nation’s economy ― a task her predecessor failed at, despite deploying an eerily similar slogan.Park’s numeric acronym stands for generating 4 percent growth, a 70 percent employment rate and average per capita income of $40,000. You’d think Park would’ve steered very clear of any catchprase that reminded the world of Lee Myung-bak’s “747 plan” f
Actions needed to check Putin’s adventurism

Mar 4, 2014

BRUSSELS ― Russia’s seizure of Crimea is the most naked example of peacetime aggression that Europe has witnessed since Nazi Germany invaded the Sudetenland in 1938. It may be fashionable to belittle the “lessons of Munich,” when Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier appeased Hitler, deferring to his claims on Czechoslovakia. But if the West acquiesces to Crimea’s annexation ― the second time Russian President Vladimir Putin has stolen territory from a sovereign state, following Russia’s seiz
[Kim Seong-kon] Embracing those who are different

Mar 4, 2014

At the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia declared internationally well-known Russian writers as its cultural icons. The great writers proudly presented included Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Nabokov. No one would argue that these celebrated writers have influenced the world enormously. When I was in high school, for example, I burned the midnight oil reading Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter,” Tolstoy’s “Resurrection,” Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and Chekhov’s “The Cherry
India’s task: From poverty to empowerment

Mar 4, 2014

MUMBAI ― As India gears up for its general election next month, it has some cause to celebrate: extreme poverty is finally in retreat. In 2012 ― two decades after the government launched a series of economic reforms aimed at opening up the economy ― the official poverty rate had reached 22 percent, less than half the rate in 1994. But it is time for India to raise its aspirations. Escaping abject destitution, though an important milestone, is not the same as achieving a decent standard of living
[Dominique Moisi] The African paradox

Mar 3, 2014

PARIS ― Earlier this month, the trial of Pascal Simbikangwa, accused of complicity in the genocide in Rwanda, in which 800,000 people were killed between April and July 1994, began in Paris. Unfortunately, mass killings in Africa continue. In South Sudan, Africa’s newest state, massacres of civilians are still taking place, particularly around the city of Bor. And French military intervention in the Central African Republic has not put an end to severe inter-communal violence there.Yet, paradoxi
Economic tools to use against Putin

Mar 3, 2014

There seems to be an acceptance that little can be done to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from fully invading Ukraine if he chooses, because while Russia may be willing to go to war over the country, the U.S. and Europe are not.This fatalism is misplaced. The world is knit together in ways that it wasn’t during the Cold War. Russia, which is dependent on oil and gas exports for about half of its government revenues, and is by now well-integrated into international finance systems, is ver
Homophobia and tyranny curtail freedom

Mar 3, 2014

NEW YORK ― President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has just signed a new law introducing harsher penalties for homosexual acts, including life imprisonment in some circumstances. A Nigerian law that took effect in January punishes homosexual acts in that country with 14-year prison sentences.The fresh wave of anti-gay legislation in Nigeria and Uganda (according to Amnesty International, homosexuality is illegal in 38 of 54 African countries) follows the recent embrace of official repression of homo
[Peter Singer] The price of watch and last laugh in Ukraine

Mar 3, 2014

MELBOURNE, Australia ― Last year, when Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski went to Kyiv for talks, his Ukrainian counterparts reportedly laughed at him because he was wearing a cheap Japanese watch. Several Ukrainian ministers had watches that cost more than $30,000. In a column I wrote about this incident, I pointed out that quartz watches perform a watch’s function ― telling the time accurately ― better than mechanical “prestige” watches that cost hundreds of times as much.Sikorski has h
The banks that ate the economy

Mar 3, 2014

LONDON ― Bank of England Governor Mark Carney surprised his audience at a conference late last year by speculating that banking assets in London could grow to more than nine times Britain’s GDP by 2050. His forecast represented a simple extrapolation of two trends: continued financial deepening worldwide (that is, faster growth of financial assets than of the real economy), and London’s maintenance of its share of the global financial business.These may be reasonable assumptions, but the estimat
[David Ignatius] China’s center of power

Mar 2, 2014

SHANGHAI ― What Xi Jinping has accomplished over the past year doesn’t look like an old-fashioned Communist Party putsch. There aren’t red banners in the streets or blaring loudspeakers. But Chinese and Western analysts agree that Xi has achieved a remarkable consolidation of power.Since taking over as party chief in November 2012 and president last March, Xi has transformed what was a colorless collective leadership into an aggressive instrument of control and reform. “Xi Jinping marks the arri
[Yu Kun-ha] When will another venture boom materialize?

Mar 2, 2014

President Park Geun-hye marked her first anniversary in office on Feb. 25 by unveiling her new economic vision and a three-year reform blueprint geared toward it.Park’s new vision is dubbed the “474 plan.” During her term, she hopes to raise the nation’s potential growth rate back to the 4 percent range, ratchet up its employment rate to 70 percent and boost its per-capita income beyond $30,000 toward $40,000.The three-year plan enumerated a host of action plans to realize Park’s vision. Yet the
Baseball umpires show bias and mercy

Mar 2, 2014

In his Senate confirmation hearing in 2005, the aspiring chief justice, John Roberts, offered a memorable analogy: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules.”The analogy was effective, because many people want judges to be umpires, dedicated to neutral application of the rules. In baseball, however, many fans don’t agree that umpires are objective. Are they right?We are obtai