The Korea Herald

[William Pesek] Sex ratio does magic in China

Feb 27, 2011

The world abhors China’s one-child policy. Officials in Beijing must be quietly toasting its very existence as the Middle East burns.A common thread linking events in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere is big populations of disaffected youth. They’re angry about greed, corruption, the rich-poor divide and unaccountable leaders. Many Chinese harbor similar gripes, yet demographics works i
[Matthew Lynn] Madman is wanted to fill Europe’s job from hell

Feb 27, 2011

It comes with a nice office and a grand title. You would probably have a pretty generous expense account. And there may well be a lucrative consulting gig with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. when it is all over.Even so, you would have to be bordering on insanity to accept the role of European Central Bank president when Jean-Claude Trichet steps down in October this year.It’s the job from hell. The euro
Target’s turnaround for political donations

Feb 25, 2011

Target has adopted new guidelines for donations to trade associations that prohibit the use of the company’s contributions in political campaigns. The decision is a victory for gay rights activists, who objected to the retailer’s donation to a group that supported a candidate opposed to same-sex marriage. But Target’s turnaround has a wider importance. It shows that consumers and activists can hol
[Tim Rutten] A tipping point for labor in U.S.

Feb 25, 2011

The nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has released a fascinating poll that finds that people on the West Coast are far more likely to regard their states’ budget crises as “very serious” and are increasingly open to solving them through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.Those findings suggest that circumstances and popular attitudes may be turning in favor o
[David Ignatius] Jordan King Abdullah’s balancing act

Feb 25, 2011

AMMAN, Jordan ― Jordanians are clamoring for reform these days, like everyone else in the Arab world, but what they mean depends partly on which side of the Jordan River their ancestors hail from. Yet both sides look to the Hashemite monarchy for protection, which is one reason it’s still standing amid the hurricane that’s blowing through the neighborhood. When Jordanians of Palestinian descent ta
[Editorial] Japan’s risk from rising global prices

Feb 25, 2011

A part from agreeing on a set of indicators to measure economic imbalances, the Group of 20 emerging and developed economies that met in Paris last week shared the observation that rising prices of primary industry commodities including food are becoming a risk factor for the global economy.Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 economies agreed to analyze the causes of excessive price
[Editorial] N.Z. shows horror of near-field quakes

Feb 25, 2011

It was a bleak scene that prevailed after Tuesday’s earthquake in New Zealand ― buildings and other structures were reduced to piles of rubble, including an old British-style brick church.The disaster that struck Christchurch, the largest city on the country’s South Island, has palpably demonstrated the ferocity of quakes that have their focus just below urban areas, known as near-field temblors.T
[Editorial] Blame is misplaced in deportation row

Feb 25, 2011

The Philippines sent a special envoy to Taipei on Monday to explain away a misunderstanding in regard to its deportation of 14 Taiwanese nationals to China rather than Taiwan for trial on fraud charges. Manuel Roxas, a former senator and confidant of Filipino President Benigno Aquino III, refused to apologize on Wednesday for what Manila calls a regrettable incident. It all started right after 24
[Zhang Monan] Demographic dividend: A loss not to worry about

Feb 25, 2011

Labor shortage, previously felt in some of China’s economically developed regions, is becoming a reality in the rest of the country now. This became evident again when some inland provinces entered into a fierce battle with eastern and coastal areas for laborers shortly after lunar New Year. The supply of abundant and cheap labor, called “demographic dividend” by many, is considered one of the mos
Another bite by Apple into music services

Feb 24, 2011

As CD sales plummeted, music executives looked in hope toward a new business model: Instead of trying to sell albums for $15 to $20 apiece, offer unlimited access to songs online for a flat monthly fee. The idea, however, has yet to catch on with the masses of music fans. The main impediment for many years was that subscribers couldn’t use the services on the MP3 players that most of them owned, A
[Peter Goldmark] Questions for China and the U.S.

Feb 24, 2011

Every serious global problem has an important China angle. The Chinese are everywhere, and they’re not going away any time soon.As a matter of fact, the Chinese are firmly convinced that this is “their” century, and that they will displace the United States as global economic leader.The last country with a dominant global economic role that had to face a boisterous, fast-growing upstart was Britai
[Yang Sung-chul] The ‘homo electronicus’ revolution

Feb 24, 2011

The two recently fallen dictators in the Middle East, Zine al Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s dictator-president of 23 years, and Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s autocratic president of 30 years, sternly reminds us that liberty is worth fighting for. A political cataclysm is now reverberating in the region and beyond. Libya’s brutal dictator for 42 years, Moammar Gadhafi, too, is at a tipping point. So is Yemen
[Jens Bastian] Euro gets cold shoulder at ballot box of outrage

Feb 24, 2011

The result in Hamburg couldn’t have been more punishing for the Christian Democratic Union and for Chancellor Angela Merkel. The first of seven regional elections in Germany this year left no doubt about where German voters stand on a much larger issue: the euro crisis.The race for mayor of the city-state, the equivalent of the premier in other German states, was won by the candidate from the oppo
[Laurence Kotlikoff] When pretending fails to hide bankruptcy

Feb 24, 2011

Our country is bankrupt. It’s not bankrupt in 30 years or five years. It’s bankrupt today.Want proof? Look at President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget. It showed a massive fiscal gap over the next 75 years, the closure of which requires immediate tax increases, spending cuts, or some combination totaling 8 percent of gross domestic product. To put 8 percent of GDP in perspective, this year’s employee
[Robert B. Reich] A strategy to split working Americans

Feb 24, 2011

The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class ― pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.By splitting working America along these lines, Rep