The Korea Herald

[John Kass] Trump, journalism galas and pithy ditties

Mar 5, 2017

President Donald Trump may have done American journalism a favor by refusing to attend next month’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.A huge favor.But in their typical “opposition party” peevishness, the Washington Beltway journalistic elite can’t grasp this. When Trump announced he wouldn’t attend the event, many journalistic hands were wrung all but raw.He denounces the media as the enemy of the people, and the journalists rage. Now it’s a drama, a clique of middle school mean girls furious t
[Minouche Shafik] Restoring trust in expertise

Mar 3, 2017

“Why did nobody notice it?” Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II famously asked the faculty at the London School of Economics in November 2008, just after the financial crisis erupted. Almost a decade later, the same question is being asked of “experts” following the extraordinary and unforeseen events of the past 12 months -- from the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum to Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States.Experts in general, not just pollsters and economists, have been the targe
[Mihir Sharma] Is Indian data turning Chinese?

Mar 3, 2017

Being the fastest-growing large economy in the world is India’s destiny, and even the most poorly conceived economic policy imaginable can’t stop destiny. At least, that is, if you believe the government’s statisticians, who said Tuesday that India’s GDP grew at 7 percent in the very quarter that the government withdrew high-value currency notes from circulation.Is India becoming another China, with incredible growth momentum and statistics nobody quite believes? One hopes not. But the governmen
[Other View] China's chance to lead

Mar 3, 2017

If South Sudan’s famine is “man-made” -- and it is -- then maybe man can also unmake it. Given the country’s unstable government and the US’ uncertain global leadership, however, most of the effort will have to come from China.　More than 40 percent of South Sudan’s 11 million people don’t have enough to eat not because of drought or other natural causes but because of their country’s civil war, which started in 2013. Mayhem and disorder have taken tens of thousands of lives and forced more than
[David Ignatius] Trump sells snake oil to Rust Belt

Mar 2, 2017

Donald Trump boasts that his “America First” trade and economic policies are bringing well-paid manufacturing jobs back to America. That's probably his biggest “deliverable” to Trump voters. But is this claim true? Trump won the presidency partly because he voiced the anger of American workers about lost jobs and stagnant wages. But in the process, he fundamentally misled the country by claiming that trade is the major cause of job losses, and that renegotiating trade agreements would save the m
[Rachel Marsden] ‘Capitalism’ is still a dirty word in French politics

Mar 2, 2017

For those thinking that the French could be on the brink of a collective epiphany, you might want to hold your bets. Even if the people of France wanted a badly needed economic upgrade to bring their nanny-state system into the 21st century, there's no presidential contender willing to give it to them.Any candidate who ever tiptoes into economic reality is promptly vilified and has to maneuver to avoid criticism. And while some say that the French would never go for serious economic reforms, how
[Mihir Sharma] Who will solve India’s slow-motion banking crisis?

Mar 2, 2017

India’s slow-moving banking crisis continues to drag on, as ponderous and unstoppable as the state-controlled banking sector itself. A recent study found that the gross “non-performing assets” of state banks rose 56 percent in 2016, and 135 percent in the last two years. They now account for 11 percent of all state bank loans.These are hardly reassuring numbers. Yet the government -- which, after all, owns these banks and thus dominates the Indian financial sector -- appears relatively unconcern
[Irfan Husain] A tale of two Koreas

Mar 2, 2017

The two Koreas seem to exist on different planets: prosperity and democracy in the South, and grinding poverty and repressive dictatorship in the North. These differences were highlighted in the recent assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Korea’s dictator, the murderous young Kim Jong-un. Since the two Koreas went their own paths over 60 years ago, the North has become ever more repressive and closed off, with mass starvation an ever-present threat. But at the same time, the
[Elly Burhaini Faizal] Is media verification effective in stopping fake news?

Mar 2, 2017

China is the only major nation to be able to impose strict internet control. With a strong censorship apparatus, including a reported 30,000 personnel policing the internet, China is the major country with the harshest online control. Using its extensive internet control apparatus, China manages to crack down on online information deemed false or not in conformity with the country’s ideology, communism.Stressing its desire to protect the public from the plague of fake news on social media, Indon
[Noah Feldman] Trump's love-hate relationship with the First Amendment

Mar 1, 2017

President Donald Trump’s war on the news media violates the spirit of the free press. How far can he go before he violates the letter of the First Amendment? Case in point: the exclusion of CNN, the New York Times, Politico and other media outlets from a White House press briefing Friday. It violates the basic constitutional ideal that the government can’t discriminate among various speakers on the basis of their viewpoints. Under existing case law, however, the exclusion probably doesn’t violat
[The Kansas City Star] America is stressed out, and the cause won’t surprise - politics

Mar 1, 2017

Feeling stressed?We are. According to a new survey from the American Psychological Association, so are you.Freaked out. Anxious. Nervous. That’s what America is these days, and the psychological association places the blame squarely on -- you aren’t going to be the slightest bit surprised -- politics.That means the rise of President Donald Trump and the usual Washington crew that voters greatly mistrust.The poll (yes, we know: Can you trust it?) of 1,000 adults taken right before Trump’s inaugur
[Justin Fox] Time to restart that old capitalism death watch

Mar 1, 2017

The global capitalist system has been having a tough decade. We can probably all agree on that.Lots of explanations have been offered for why things have been going so poorly: inadequate regulation, excessive regulation, excessive monetary easing, inadequate fiscal stimulus, inequality, “secular stagnation,” you name it.Wolfgang Streeck has another possibility for you to consider: Maybe capitalism is dying.Streeck is a German sociologist, the emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for the
[Kim Myong-sik] The most desirable of three possibilities

Mar 1, 2017

Quite eerily, a notion that struck me upon hearing the news of Kim Jong-un’s suspected killing of his half brother Kim Jong-nam was whether evils can be measured and compared. The young dictator’s alleged orders to poison his international vagrant sibling to remove a potential rival to power will go down in history as the crime of the year or decade, putting its perpetrator at the top rank in the scale of evil, if there is such thing. Then my liberal thoughts are directed to a source of great co
[Other View] How Europe can defend itself

Mar 1, 2017

Say this for Donald Trump: He is forcing Europeans to think more seriously about how to protect and defend their continent. 　The US president’s disparagement of NATO goes too far, and his focus on getting Europeans to spend more on defense is misplaced. That said, European nations have for too long treated their defense budgets as an extension of social policy. Expenditure on personnel is more than 50 percent of military spending in nearly all EU countries, compared with about a quarter in the U
[Kim Ji-hyun] South Korea, it's your good name

Mar 1, 2017

Reputation. It’s hard to build, and easy to forfeit. In fact, it’s one of the most fickle things in the world, especially for public figures who may one day be the public enemy, but the next become thoroughly redeemed with one right move. Speaking of reputations, one of the world’s most dangerous men lurks above the South Korean border -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who is suspected of masterminding the recent murder of his half brother Jong-nam.The crime, according to many, is interpreted t