![[Wang Son-taek] A year after an insurrection](jpg/news-p.v1.20251203.1d1235f2f39244b297712d54d3434b24_t119b4.jpg)
![[Boram Jang] A 6-hour lesson from Korea](jpg/news-p.v1.20251203.54377cdf56e94fe6aa93b08fd00ddfca_t119b4.jpg)
![[Matt K. Lewis] Reasons Republicans bucking Trump](jpg/news-p.v1.20251202.d4be012dd3b9474d937b675eabf106b2_t119b4.jpg)
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![[Kim Seong-kon] Korea as a symbol of our contemporary world](jpg/news-p.v1.20251202.90c3fb20af474fbc8177f59dcb074fde_t13496.jpg)
[Kim Seong-kon] Korea as a symbol of our contemporary world
Does today’s Korea capture the essence of the current situation and problems that the world confronts? If so, could we say that Korea is an emblem of our times? Perceiving the similarities between Korea’s predicament and that of other countries, Indian writer Amitav Ghosh answered: “yes.” In his acceptance speech for the 2025 Park Kyongni Prize, Ghosh said, “The Korean Peninsula stands as a powerful symbol of our contemporary moment. In many ways, the great themes of your history — of resilience
Dec. 3, 2025 -
[Editorial] Unlearned lessons
One year after the Dec. 3 martial law crisis upended Korea’s constitutional order, the country confronts an uncomfortable truth: The institutions that resisted a president’s unlawful deployment of troops proved sturdier than many feared, yet the political class that presided over the collapse has learned almost nothing from it. The broad facts appear largely settled. Courts now handle the trials of former President Yoon Suk Yeol and senior security officials. Major elements of the alleged chain
Dec. 3, 2025 -
![[Jeffrey Frankel] What will the US debt reckoning look like?](jpg/news-p.v1.20251201.6d038be94ba947519a51f7a9b4aecf4f_t13496.jpg)
[Jeffrey Frankel] What will the US debt reckoning look like?
In the United States, public debt now stands at 99 percent of GDP. The Congressional Budget Office expects it to reach 107 percent of GDP by 2029 — surpassing the record set at the end of World War II — and to continue rising indefinitely. But until when? As Herbert Stein, who served as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Richard Nixon, famously quipped, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” But what will that “stop” look like? A country can move off an unsusta
Dec. 2, 2025 -
![[Allison Schrager] AI likely to cause labor shortage.](jpg/news-p.v1.20251201.f37f99ce5496455dbfcdb21d2fed5c0a_t13496.jpg)
[Allison Schrager] AI likely to cause labor shortage.
There are two big worries when it comes to the rapid advances in artificial intelligence. The first is that it will lead to robot overlords that will eradicate humanity. The second is that AI will eliminate many jobs. The more likely scenario is that it creates a labor shortage, or at least a dearth of skilled workers who can make the most of the new technology. I recently spoke to the head of the informatics program at a large university and asked her about training undergraduates for this futu
Dec. 2, 2025 -
[Editorial] Lax security
The massive data breach at Coupang, South Korea's e-commerce giant — now confirmed to have exposed personal data for about 33.7 million customer accounts — is more than just a technical glitch. It is a serious failure of corporate stewardship and a fundamental breach of consumer trust — a betrayal of numerous users who entrusted their personal information to a private company, expecting it to guard that data responsibly. That the leak went undetected for five months after unauthorized access rep
Dec. 2, 2025 -
![[Man Ki Kim] Korea at a crossroads: Innovation, demographics and the global diaspora](jpg/news-p.v1.20251130.f30cbebdef23468ea46fe4f3401d9863_t13496.jpg)
[Man Ki Kim] Korea at a crossroads: Innovation, demographics and the global diaspora
In just six decades, Korea has risen from the devastation of war to become a global leader in industry, technology and culture. Today, the nation faces a new set of challenges: the fastest population decline in the OECD, widening income inequality, and youth unemployment, all of which threaten social cohesion. Yet, Korea’s 7.32 million-strong diaspora offers a powerful resource. Their creativity, professional networks and global influence can help drive innovation, strengthen soft power and ensu
Dec. 1, 2025 -
[Editorial] Monetary policy limits
The quietest moment in monetary policy often reveals the loudest warning. The Bank of Korea’s decision on Nov. 27 to keep the policy rate at 2.5 percent for the fourth consecutive meeting looked, at first glance, like another routine attempt to buy time. In reality, the central bank signaled the limits of what monetary policy alone can now accomplish. A currency hovering around the 1,470 won level against the US dollar, a housing market that refuses to cool, and an uneven recovery built on a nar
Dec. 1, 2025 -
![[Allison Schrager] US middle class shrinking](jpg/news-p.v1.20251130.846a20afc3654eda89350f52e846ce73_t13496.jpg)
[Allison Schrager] US middle class shrinking
The good news is that Americans have never been richer. The bad news is that most of them don’t feel like it. There has been tremendous growth in income and wealth in the US in the last half century, even for poorer and middle-class households. But because of the nature of that growth, as well as the changing structure of the national economy, a lot of the people who have benefited also believe that the economy isn’t working for them. It is true the middle class is shrinking. In the 1960s the in
Dec. 1, 2025 -
![[Robert J. Fouser] Korean learning boom falters](jpg/news-p.v1.20251127.3d9a2a44d2c8422e8895f6be09f426fa_t13496.jpg)
[Robert J. Fouser] Korean learning boom falters
The past twenty years have seen a boom in people learning Korean. Hallyu and K-pop have put South Korean pop culture on the map, particularly in the evolving global Generation Z culture. Other factors, many of which have received little attention, have contributed to the boom. The first, and perhaps most important, is the expanding interaction with South Korea, which deepens contact with Koreans and inspires people to learn the language. Interaction with Koreans has expanded, both in South Korea
Nov. 28, 2025 -
[Editorial] Gemini shock
The global race in artificial intelligence has largely centered on the combination of OpenAI’s algorithms and Nvidia’s silicon. With the unveiling of "Gemini 3.0" last week, however, Google upended the industry’s strategic chessboard. By demonstrating that state-of-the-art models can outperform incumbents using proprietary Ironwood tensor processing units rather than Nvidia’s flagship chips, Google has signaled the end of a unipolar AI order. For South Korea, standing at the periphery of this te
Nov. 28, 2025 -
![[Aaron Brown] What if gambling used the ‘free price effect’?](jpg/news-p.v1.20251126.6b52a16bd3284ff3bb75c4e3c171a0e0_t13496.jpg)
[Aaron Brown] What if gambling used the ‘free price effect’?
The bedrock life principle, the house always wins, derives from the mathematical advantage casinos build into their games. But what if that wasn’t the price of admittance? On an American roulette wheel, a bet on the number 13 pays off at 35:1. If there were 36 slots on the wheel, both the house and the bettor would break even in the long run, but there are 38 slots (zero, double-zero and the numbers 1 to 36). The house doesn’t win every spin — 13 does come up — but in the long run bettors lose $
Nov. 27, 2025