The Korea Herald

안녕하세요 Bloomberg 기자입니다.

Articles by Bloomberg

[Eli Lake] Don’t be fooled by North Korea’s Olympic ploy

ViewpointsJan 19, 2018

For those vulnerable to displays of pageantry and pacifism, the news from the Koreas this week must have been alluring. At a moment when North Korea’s dictator is threatening the world with hydrogen bombs and long-range missiles, the North and the South agreed to march together in the Olympic ceremonies next month under a common flag.　Well, I have some bad news for the dreamers. Now is not the time to give peace a chance.　The gambit from North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, is transparent to anyon
[Adam Minter] China’s real offshore disaster

ViewpointsJan 19, 2018

Last Sunday’s sinking of an Iranian oil tanker 180 miles off the coast of Shanghai certainly looks like an environmental disaster. Depending on how many of the ship’s 1 million barrels of condensate were released into the ocean and not burned off, the accident could end up being one of the biggest oil spills in half a century. The irony? Even that wouldn’t represent the biggest disaster to befall the area.　The fact is, thanks to massive overfishing in China’s territorial waters, there isn’t much
[Eli Lake] Trump’s policy should focus on Iran’s people, not its centrifuges

ViewpointsJan 17, 2018

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel is worried once again that President Donald Trump will blow up the Iran nuclear deal.　It’s not just that the Europeans assert that Iran is complying with the terms of the 2015 accord. It’s also that Gabriel believes exiting the agreement would send the wrong message to North Korea. “It’s absolutely necessary to have the signal that it’s possible by diplomatic approaches to prevent the development of nuclear weapons in a time when other parts of the world ar
[Ferdinando Giugliano] After Trump and Brexit, Italy falls for nostalgia

ViewpointsJan 17, 2018

Italy’s politicians often stand accused of lacking the courage needed to shake up the country’s ailing economy. What if, however, the issue was Italian voters, who don’t want a reformist government? 　This question springs to mind watching the depressing campaign ahead of Italy’s general elections, which will be held on March 4. Italians look increasingly set on going back to the future, supporting the 81-year old media tycoon and convicted felon Silvio Berlusconi, a four-time former Italian prim
[Leonid Bershidsky] A soccer precedent for a Brexit revote

ViewpointsJan 16, 2018

Nigel Farage, that most notorious of Brexit agitators, hasn’t made any friends by suggesting that the UK should “maybe, just maybe” have a second referendum on EU membership. Fellow nationalists, the Conservative government, the opposition Labour Party -- no one seems to want a replay of the 2016 vote. But even if Farage is just fishing for attention, he’s essentially right. Here’s a sports analogy the Brits might want to consider.In 1999, Arsenal was the second-strongest team in England’s Premi
[Matthew Winkler] Dubai’s the very model of a modern Mideast economy

ViewpointsJan 16, 2018

For more than 100 years, the Middle East has been defined by oil exploration, production and its boundaries. Now the region is getting repurposed by its aspiration to grow beyond fossil fuel. The shake-up in Saudi Arabia’s royal family was as much about becoming a 21st-century economy as it was about rooting out corruption.　None of the region’s petrostates has moved further from its oilfield roots than Dubai, which has been diversifying its economy since the 1970s. The result is a thriving gatew
[Megan McArdle] The real reason Walmart raised its minimum wage

ViewpointsJan 15, 2018

“Walmart workers” used to be a handy synonym for “low-paid.” But over the past few years, the company has steadily raised the wage it offers its lowest-paid employees, and it has now announced that base pay will go up again, to $11 an hour.　Actually, there are a lot of reasons to care about this. The first is that this tells us interesting things about what’s going on in the labor market. While CEO Doug McMillon credited the new Republican tax bill with freeing up cash the company could use to p
[Leonid Bershidsky] Why Russians are choosing Malta over Putin

ViewpointsJan 15, 2018

Despite growing hostility between Russia and the West, President Vladimir Putin clearly hasn’t succeeded in convincing the Russian business community that it should be more patriotic. The list of new citizens of Malta, published by the island nation’s government, has enough well-known Russian names to drive home an uncomfortable truth for the Kremlin: The Russian elite doesn’t feel attached to Putin’s besieged fortress project.Malta’s so-called Individual Investor Program allows a nonresident fo
[Mac Margolis] Argentina’s Macri has a tough road ahead

ViewpointsJan 15, 2018

Mauricio Macri had a pretty good year. Having settled a sulfurous quarrel over past-due debts with cranky hedge funds, the Argentine president went on to dismantle market-warping energy subsidies, rehabilitate the census bureau, slow inflation, and thwart a Peronist revolt to lead his fledgling Cambiemos political coalition to a major victory in the October midterm elections. Then, just before Christmas, he persuaded Congress to roll back corporate taxes and even tweak old age pensions, the gran
[Conor Sen] Cool down cryptocurrencies with regulation, not rate hikes

ViewpointsJan 14, 2018

As the crypto mania continues to spread into financial markets, now at “real companies” like Eastman Kodak and Seagate Technology, policymakers are going to grow more concerned about broader implications for financial markets and the real economy.　Is cryptocurrency exuberance a sign of financial market froth more broadly? If so, that could trigger concerns about financial stability and justify an accelerating pace of rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. But rather than that knee-jerk response, t
[Noah Smith] Be careful when raising minimum wages

ViewpointsJan 14, 2018

Minimum wages are one of the most contentious topics in economic policy. Many states and cities are experimenting with big minimum wage increases, so that there is now a lot of variation across the country.To many in the news media and in the world of think tanks and activists, being pro- or anti-minimum wage is akin to a religious belief. But even in the world of economics research, there’s plenty of disagreement.　A slew of recent minimum-wage studies illustrate the point. The first, which I pr
[Leonid Bershidsky] Europe has completely turned the tables on Brexit

ViewpointsJan 14, 2018

The UK’s obvious turnabout on the desirability of a no-deal exit from the European Union shows how completely the tables have turned in the Brexit negotiations. With less than a year to seal a trade deal, the EU is nudging the UK toward an understanding that the only benign outcome is agreeing to a long transition period. That could allow a different UK team to emerge with a humbler approach.David Davis, the UK Brexit minister, has written Prime Minister Theresa May a letter complaining that the
[Eli Lake] Europe’s high representative for appeasement

ViewpointsJan 11, 2018

If Federica Mogherini didn’t exist, the world’s autocrats would be trying to invent her.　As the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, she is a tireless advocate for engaging rogue states. Few diplomats though have pursued this kind of engagement with such moralizing puffery. In Mogherini’s world, diplomacy with dictators should not aim to transition these countries to open societies, but rather to prevent conflicts at all costs.　Just consider her trip last week to Cuba, a pla
[Jonathan Bernstein] How Democrats can avoid wiping out in 2018

ViewpointsJan 11, 2018

Things are certainly going the Democrats’ way so far in the 2018 elections. They seem poised to win a majority in the US House and possibly even the Senate, and to win back dozens and dozens of other offices they lost in 2010 and 2014. But there’s still plenty of time for the party to sabotage itself.　The sheer number of people seeking to run creates a two-stage trap for Democrats. If they nominate the wrong candidates, they could lose races they should‘ve won. If they elect the wrong candidates
[Danielle DiMartino Booth] US households may rue the binge of 2017

ViewpointsJan 9, 2018

Will 2018 be the year of the household hangover? The latest data on the saving rate, which broke under 3 percent to 2.9 percent in November, the lowest since 2007, suggests that an encore to the ebullient buying over the holidays will not happen in the new year.Without a doubt, households are as buoyant as they’ve been in years. In the most recent consumer confidence report, only 15.2 percent of those surveyed reported jobs were “hard to get,” a 16-year low. The few economists who have forecast