The Korea Herald

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] erstanding Japan’s crisis from economic standpoints

Mar 25, 2011

NEWPORT BEACH ― As we all struggle to comprehend the economic and financial impact of Japan’s calamity, it is tempting to seek historical analogies for guidance. Indeed, many have been quick to cite the aftermath of the terrible 1995 Kobe earthquake. But, while that example provides some insights, it is too limited to understand what lies ahead for Japan, and excessive reliance on it could undermi
Put an end to the absurd budget farce

Mar 24, 2011

Last week, Congress passed yet another stopgap measure funding the U.S. government through April 8, but lawmakers still can’t decide on a final budget for the current fiscal year. It was the sixth such temporary extension since the budget year began. “It’s a terrible way to do business,” said Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va. Apparently, lots of frustrated Americans agree with him.A new Pew Research Cent
[Margaret Carlson] Girl power tests history’s great-man theory

Mar 24, 2011

There’s no better way to make the point that President Barack Obama is indecisive, dithering and prone to bow (literally) and scrape (figuratively) to foreigners than with a flood of reports claiming it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, watching Colonel Moammar Gadhafi turn back the rebels and strafe his own citizens, who declared war on Libya.Not by herself, of course, and not “war,” which
[Robert Shiller] A bubble candidate for next decade

Mar 24, 2011

NEW HAVEN ― People frequently ask me, as someone who has written on market speculation, where the next big speculative bubble is likely to be. Will it be in housing again? Will it be in the stock market?I don’t know, though I have some hunches. It is impossible for anyone to predict bubbles accurately. In my view, bubbles are social epidemics, fostered by a sort of interpersonal contagion. A bubbl
[Roger Bilham] Japan’s megaquake is template for U.S. west coast

Mar 24, 2011

As the world’s attention remains fixed on Japan’s crippled nuclear reactors, scientists are beginning to understand the details of the megaquake that brought so much ruin to Japan, saying it’s probably the largest temblor to hit the nation in 1,000 years.Seismologists have known for some time that over periods of millennia such megaquakes occur. They pack the punch of three or more major earthquak
[William Pesek] Buffett ‘buying opportunity’ meets next big one

Mar 24, 2011

The Z/Yen Group just published its annual Global Financial Centers Index and Tokyo is tied with Shanghai for fifth place. If the survey were retaken today, what might happen to Tokyo’s standing?What a difference 12 days make: a massive earthquake, deadly tsunamis, radiation panic that only now is coming under control and blackouts that halted production at the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. Japan’s w
[Sanjeev Sanyal] Human cost of indifference to genocide

Mar 24, 2011

NEW DELHI ― It is exactly 40 years since the Pakistani military regime of Yahya Khan initiated “Operation Searchlight” in March 1971. That military expedition was but the latest in a series of pogroms carried out to intimidate the restive population of what was then called East Pakistan ― today’s independent Bangladesh. What followed was one of the worst massacres in human history, now all but for
Convey a positive vision for Latin America

Mar 23, 2011

President Obama’s first extended tour through Latin America comes not a moment too soon. There’s nothing like a personal visit by the president to showcase U.S.-Latin American relations and disarm critics who feel the president has neglected the region. To make this visit count, the president must speak to the region’s concerns and anxieties.Brazil, his first stop, has been labeled “the country of
‘Arab spring’ spreads from county to country

Mar 23, 2011

Far from the perils of Japan, the world’s attention also focuses on Libya. There U.S. and allied warplanes and cruise missiles aim to force dictator Moammar Gadhafi from power, or at least help antigovernment rebels keep fighting.That’s the riveting Main Event at the moment in the greater Middle East. But peel away from that military spectacle for a moment. Take a glance across the rest of the Mid
[Edward N. Luttwak] Libya: It’s not our fight

Mar 23, 2011

Once again the United States is bombing a Muslim country to liberate its people from their own sanguinary rulers. Once again we are told that innocent civilians are being massacred and that the United States must intervene as a matter of moral duty, in its capacity as a great and good nation. But in this case ― even as part of a broader, U.N.-sanctioned coalition to enforce a no-fly zone ― the U.S
[David Ignatius] An allied intervention in Libya

Mar 23, 2011

WASHINGTON ― Many Americans ― and Arabs, too, for that matter ― have a visceral sense that if there’s a war in the Middle East, the United States must be in the vanguard. I’m glad that’s not the case with the Libyan intervention. Americans should be happy to let France and Britain, who live in the neighborhood, take the lead. President Obama is turning a page, by letting other nations take the fir
[Mycle Schneider] Nuclear fallout comes with aura of arrogance

Mar 23, 2011

Some people just shouldn’t be in charge of high-risk nuclear facilities.As far back as 2005, I warned Eisaku Sato, governor of Fukushima at the time, about the dangers of letting spent fuel accumulate in cooling ponds at the prefecture’s nuclear plants and the need to put it into much safer dry stores as soon as possible. He seemed to be the only one who listened. But clearly there were people who
[Amity Shlaes] Harvard is just worth mom’s party chatter

Mar 23, 2011

Anxious families awaiting April college admission news are living their own March Madness.Their insanity is captured in Andrew Ferguson’s new book, “Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College” (Simon & Schuster). He describes the vanity of a desperate mother at a cocktail party who is dying to announce her daughter’s perfect SAT scores:“‘We were really surprised at how well sh
[Dominique Moisi] Sarkozy does right by going to war

Mar 23, 2011

PARIS ― In 2003, France, under President Jacques Chirac, took the lead in opposing America’s planned invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin’s flamboyant speech at the United Nations encapsulated the “spirit of resistance” against what proved to be a dangerous adventure. In 2011, under President Nicolas Sarkozy, France has again taken a highly visible stand
Reasons why some things are best left unsaid

Mar 22, 2011

In our past editorials, we have touched on the topic of political correctness (PC), concluding that Taiwan as a nation could use a good dose of PC. However, it appears that the United States, the “Land of the Free” and arguably one of the most PC-striving countries in the world to which we look up, has shown some deeply abhorrent behavior, from high-profile radio personalities to university studen