Most conservative leaders and mass media in South Korea say that Koreans live well but are not appreciative of it, and they live in a very serious security environment but are not aware of it. On the other hand, most progressive leaders and mass media claim that a majority of people are not well-off because the wealth disparity is wider than ever and that South Koreans live in a serious security environment because the past conservative governments failed to ameliorate the situation.These percep

An American in Seoul recently confessed to me that when he first came to the city, he woke up terrified one morning, hearing a man shrieking in a hair-raising voice, “Sa-tan! Sa-tan!” Momentarily, he thought he had awoken in a haunted house and shuddered in horror. Later, he found that it was the voice of a laundryman collecting and delivering laundry in his apartment building. He also realized that what he had heard was not “Sa-tan!” but “se-tak (laundry)!” Hearing his nightmarish but humorous

WASHINGTON ― Reading the devastating memoir by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, people are likely to ask the same troubling questions that emerge from the morning newspapers these days: How did the Obama administration’s foreign-policy process get so broken, and how can it be put back together? Gates’ book certainly helps answer the first riddle. Obama’s “original sin” in foreign policy, by Gates’ account, was his December 2009 decision to add 30,000 troops in Afghanistan but with limits o

NEW YORK ― Economics is often called the dismal science, and for the last half-decade it has come by its reputation honestly in the advanced economies. Unfortunately, the year ahead will bring little relief.Real (inflation-adjusted) per capita GDP in France, Greece, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States is lower today than before the Great Recession hit. Indeed, Greece’s per capita GDP has shrunk nearly 25 percent since 2008.There are a few exceptions: After more than two decad

2014 must be the year when we finally do something to protect our privacy, now that seven months of serial scoops about government spying and snooping have gotten our attention.We are all on the case, sort of ― shaken out of our complacency and apathy by those revelations of America’s domestic and global spying, in those top-secret documents rookie contractor Edward Snowden stole so easily from the impenetrable National Security Agency.Many Americans now worry that a raging Big Brotherism is sec

The government is all out to stimulate private investment, especially in the service sector, to strengthen the still-fragile momentum of economic recovery and ensure the nation’s long-run economic growth. In her recent New Year’s news conference, President Park Geun-hye unveiled a three-year economic revitalization plan, which can be summarized as an attempt to put the economy back on track by spurring investment. To facilitate investment, Park pledged bold deregulation efforts in the five key s