The Korea Herald

[Doyle McManus] Job creation is Obama’s biggest challenge

Aug 10, 2011

The central question facing Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign is this: Can the president persuade voters to let him keep his job when so many of them have lost theirs?Last week, after another run of bad economic news, the president and his staff tried their best to sound upbeat. In public, the
[Virginia Postrel] Obama glamour can’t fix charisma deficit

Aug 10, 2011

One thing is clear in the aftermath of the debt-limit debate: U.S. President Barack Obama has lost his glamour. The alluring icon of hope and change has become just another pol, derided by his supporters as well as his opponents. As one headline succinctly put it: “Obama succumbs to the ways of Wash
[Editorial] Falling bank stocks offer a too-big-to-fail wakeup call

Aug 10, 2011

Bank of America and Citigroup stood out for all the wrong reasons in Monday’s market meltdown. Shares of the two banks led the decline amid new doubts about the quality of the assets buried on their balance sheets. Investors now believe that Bank of America’s net worth is only about a third of what
[Brahma Chellaney] Ethnic minority lands emerge as China’s Achilles heel

Aug 10, 2011

NEW DELHI ― In the face of spreading civil unrest among China’s Uighur population, the Chinese government’s love-fest with its all-weather ally, Pakistan, may be starting to sour. Indeed, the authorities in China’s Xinjiang province are charging that a prominent Uighur separatist that they captured
[Lee Jae-min] The Arctic Ocean in the heat

Aug 9, 2011

Icebergs, cold water and the Arctic Ocean: What else could be a better topic to cool off during the sizzling weather of August? Global warming has brought yet another issue to the table: navigation through the Arctic. As the icebergs melt and frozen swaths give way, new shipping routes emerge throug
[Peter Orszag] Four ways Congress can upgrade credit rating

Aug 9, 2011

Now that Standard & Poor’s has downgraded the U.S.’s “AAA” credit rating, it is important to respond boldly and, at the same time, lower expectations. The first step is for our political leaders to frankly acknowledge the problems at hand: The U.S. economy will face a hard slog for an extended perio
[Kim Seong-kon] Military absurdity for dual citizens

Aug 9, 2011

A poet once wrote, “All Korean men were once soldiers.” Not quite so. When I joined the ROK Army in 1971, nearly half of the young Korean men my age managed to be exempted from mandatory military duty according to statistics released in later years. Those whose parents had money and power must have
[Noah Feldman] Debt-deal disaster shows genius of democracy

Aug 9, 2011

Imagine you are a senior official of the Chinese Communist Party trying to figure out whether democracy is a good idea. The brinkmanship over raising the debt ceiling is a prime example for the argument that democracy is irrational, right? So say the commentators, one and all. Just think of the reli
[Editorial] S&P downgrade should make U.S. deal easier

Aug 9, 2011

Sunday was splendid for beach-goers and bikers. But it also brought nasty tail winds from the first credit downgrade in United States history:― For the half of U.S. households that own stocks, the news from Tel Aviv ― where Sunday is a trading day ― suggested a turbulent Monday as world markets dige
[Editorial] Leaders, central banks should stop the stampede

Aug 9, 2011

Financial markets can create their own dangerous dynamic, as Warren Buffett pointed out after Standard & Poor’s downgraded U.S. debt securities on Aug. 5. Buffett was on the mark. The downgrade triggered panic selling around the globe on Monday, leading to demands for more collateral from investors,
[Joseph E. Stiglitz] A contagion of bad economic ideas

Aug 8, 2011

NEW YORK ― The Great Recession of 2008 has morphed into the North Atlantic Recession: it is mainly Europe and the United States, not the major emerging markets, that have become mired in slow growth and high unemployment. And it is Europe and America that are marching, alone and together, to the den
[Dominique Moisi] What failed in Norway?

Aug 8, 2011

PARIS ― Japan in March 2011 and Norway in July 2011: any comparison between the madness of nature and the pure madness of man in Norway may sound artificial. Yet, confronted with their respective tragedies, Japan and Norway displayed a very similar combination of qualities and flaws.In both countrie
[Sung-yoon Lee] N.K.’s carrot-and-stick strategy

Aug 8, 2011

July is typically the time of year when North Korea makes peace overtures toward the United States. This is when it tries to rekindle expectations, reset deadlines and heal the previous year’s wounds. Last week, Pyongyang’s chief nuclear negotiator arrived in New York for talks with Stephen Bosworth
[Peter Allen, Barry Eichengreen and Gary Evans] Europe’s plan does nothing to reduce Greek debt

Aug 8, 2011

Postmortems of last month’s European Union summit meeting have now turned to why the Greek debt rescue failed to restore investor confidence in the country’s finances. Many reasons are advanced: the failure to communicate clearly; the complexity of the plan; the inability to coordinate with th
[Editorial] S&P’s dubious downgrade

Aug 8, 2011

We’ll find out soon enough what the markets will make of the decision by Standard & Poor’s to downgrade its rating of U.S. sovereign debt to AA+ from AAA. But the early response from the people who matter most in the controversy ― the Asian and European nations that Hoover up Treasuries ― seems to s