WASHINGTON ― A prominent Bush administration official was talking privately about Barack Obama last week: He’s probably going to win in 2012, this Republican said. He deserves credit for “going big” in the budget talks and capturing the center of the debate. But why isn’t he projecting his goals and philosophy more clearly to the country? Why does he so often seem to react, rather than lead? Given

Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman and Republican candidate for president, is making a muscular showing in the polls. She is telegenic. She is clever. Some of her Republican opponents worry she may be unstoppable. But never fear, oh Republican opponents of Michele Bachmann: I’ve devised a fail-safe way to bring her to a state of cognitive paralysis. This method will require some travel

It’s really past time for Korea Railroad Corp. to stop the operations of its problem-ridden bullet trains and make a comprehensive safety check. This year alone, KTX high-speed trains have stopped 36 times for various reasons, including derailment and equipment malfunctions. This is an unmistakable sign that something is seriously wrong with Korail’s high-speed trains. In a latest incident that to

On Aug. 15 last year, President Lee Myung-bak proposed the introduction of a unification tax to secure the funds that would be needed to finance reunification with North Korea. Given that the North is, for all intents and purposes, an economic basket case, it is impossible to dispute the need for the South to prepare for reunification. But this does not necessarily mean that the public would welco

In the 1960s, young Americans questioned social traditions one after another, ringing in the feminist movement and celebrating sexual freedom. Today they have become the divorced generation. While the overall divorce rate in the U.S. has declined over the past 20 years, it has doubled for Americans aged 50 and over. Today, more than one in three in this category has ended a marriage. No doubt, the

As public debt in advanced countries reaches levels not seen since the end of World War II, there is considerable debate about the urgency of taming deficits with the aim of stabilizing and ultimately reducing debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. Our empirical research on the history of financial crises and the relationship between growth and public liabilities supports the view that cu

There are three types of contagion in a financial crisis, when the potential collapse of a firm, bank or country threatens to spiral out of control. The European Union today has all three. The first type is purely psychological ― the panic of herd behavior. The second comes from thinking through the real effects that a collapse would have, as the potential spillovers dawn on people. The third, and

JERUSALEM ― In the early days of the Egyptian revolution, Tahrir Square provided a tantalizing glimpse of what the new Egypt might look like if differences of class, religion, gender and age melted into insignificance. Muslims and Christians mingled; the old followed the young’s lead; men and women became comrades.“The social problems that have plagued Egypt for years seem to have dissolved in the

JYJ became honorary ambassadors for Jeju Island as part of its bid to become one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. JYJ started activities to promote the island and encouraged us, the fans, to vote for Jeju.As we love JYJ so much, and we also like Korea from the bottom of our hearts, we started voting for Jeju Island in order to help Korea and make JYJ happy. We did this believing and trusting

Park Chung-heeIt ain’t necessarily so. That’s what New York University economics professor William Easterly essentially says about crediting “benevolent autocrats” like South Korea’s Park Chung-hee for high growth rates.In “Benevolent Autocrats,” a provocative working paper posted in May, Easterly 1) argues that economists should be skeptical of the “benevolent autocrat” theory; (2) questions whet

I was in Korea on a project when the financial meltdown of 2008 started. In a Seoul cab chatting with an American colleague in the early stages of the debacle, he confided that the worst was yet to come. Indeed, it came with a tsunami force. By the end of 2008 when I was back in the U.S., the shambles was evident, and was getting worse.The term “black swan” is now in vogue after Nassim Taleb’s boo

NEW YORK ― During the four decades since the Watergate affair engulfed U.S. President Richard Nixon, politicians have repeatedly ignored the scandal’s main lesson: the cover-up is worse than the crime. Like Nixon, they have paid a higher price for concealing their misdeeds than they would have for the misdeeds alone.Now, for once, comes a scandal that breaks that rule: the United Kingdom’s phone-h

A newly independent country in North Africa has got off to an uncertain start. The country needs support from the international community until it can move ahead on its own.South Sudan, officially the Republic of South Sudan, became the 54th independent nation on the African continent when it officially separated from Sudan on July 9.Over the past half-century, the Sudanese people suffered from ci

There was more bad news about the global economy last week. It looks as if the major developed economies are facing worsening problems that will not go away.This does not augur well for the developing world, as it is still dependent on the richer economies.An economic slowdown in the United States was indicated by last week’s data of a rise in unemployment to 9.2 percent and only 18,000 new non-fa

The introduction of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks and online video-streaming sites has revolutionized the concept of “breaking news” and information distribution.Using the highly visual and instantaneous new media can allow something to spread faster than the proverbial wildfire, creating a borderless, 24-hour wellspring of data that simultaneously attracts millions of eyeballs acro

For the print media struggling to survive in a world that seems to be inexorably bent on embracing the electronic media, the news that News of the World, London’s biggest selling weekend tabloid, was closing was, indeed, cruel, cruel news. If only for the paper’s longevity, the last issue last Sunday of the 168-year-old News of the World was headline news many times over. The News was an instituti

It is noteworthy that over the years whenever there has been a rift in Sino-U.S. ties, bilateral military relations have always been the first to be affected and that even when bilateral relations are warming, military-to-military exchanges are usually the last to thaw. With the unfolding of a series of reciprocal visits and dialogues between the two militaries this year, including former U.S. Sec

LONDON ― When the history of the 21st century is written, people will rightly ask why it was that Europe was found wanting during its most intractable economic crisis.They will ask why Europe slept as an undercapitalized banking system floundered, unemployment remained unacceptably high, and the continent’s growth and competitiveness plummeted.Worse still, if a reconstruction plan does not come so

Among the many proposals to raise taxes and cut and reallocate government spending to regain our country’s economic health, one of the most sensitive is decreasing the tax deductibility of charitable contributions.The independent Congressional Budget Office recently reviewed 11 options for revising the income tax treatment of charitable giving, and it grouped them into four categories. All establi

The long drawn-out controversy over the establishment of for-profit hospitals in Korea has been rekindled as the government and the ruling Grand National Party seek to pass bills allowing such hospitals on Jeju Island and in the Incheon Free Economic Zone. If passed through the National Assembly in August as planned, the bills will allow private investors to set up and operate hospitals in the two