Here is a famous finding from social psychology. If you want to encourage people to get vaccinated against some disease, it helps to educate them about the benefits of vaccination. But you’ll have a much bigger impact if you give people a map, showing them exactly where to go to get a shot.Elementary though it is, this finding is important, because it demonstrates that when people don’t respond to a suggestion, it may be because they need some help in identifying the specific steps they are bein

Viewpoints Dec. 1, 2013

Some of my best friends are very rich ― people with condos on Central Park West and tastefully refurbished palazzi in Italy. The puzzle: Why do so many of them vote Democratic or praise the high-taxing European welfare state?How rich? When one of them had an art lover on the phone, who was offering to pay $30 million for a famous painting, he refused. Frustrated, the would-be buyer groaned: “Look, man, I just more than doubled the going price for this piece, and you still won’t take it. Why not?

Viewpoints Dec. 1, 2013

The Financial Services Commission has unveiled a vision to foster the financial industry as a growth engine of the Korean economy. Dubbed the “10-10 Value-Up Plan,” it is aimed at increasing the financial sector’s share of Korea’s gross domestic product to 10 percent over the next 10 years.Currently, the financial industry accounts for about 7 percent of Korea’s GDP, relatively small for an advanced economy. In some advanced countries, such as Singapore and Australia, financial services account

Editorial Nov. 29, 2013

Returning home after a six-month stay in Germany, former Prime Minister Kim Hwang-shik recently admitted his envy of the European country’s political culture. He was deeply impressed by the negotiations on forming a coalition government between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and the allied Christian Social Union on the one hand, and the main opposition Social Democratic Party on the other. Surely, it was a scene totally unimaginable here.At the September parliamentary elec

Editorial Nov. 29, 2013

The Communist Party can’t wait to see the back of Gary Locke, the outgoing U.S. ambassador who ruffled many a feather during his two-plus years in Beijing. The 1.2 billion Chinese who aren’t party members should be begging him to stay.After Locke’s Nov. 20 resignation announcement, online commentators claimed Beijing’s toxic air was forcing the ambassador back to Seattle, where his family relocated earlier this year. Locke’s denial that he was fleeing to bluer skies couldn’t quell the rumors, wh

Viewpoints Nov. 29, 2013

According to one of South Korea’s largest newspapers, JoongAng Ilbo, the Pyongyang regime executed 80 North Korean citizens in one day, for crimes including watching smuggled videos or owning a Bible.The report is shocking, and nearly impossible to verify. Some experts are skeptical, but a number of North Korea watchers tell me it is completely consistent with other information and quite credible.If true, the multiple executions by squads of machine gun-firing soldiers ― reportedly carried out b

Viewpoints Nov. 28, 2013

The protracted standoff between political parties over the state spy agency’s alleged meddling in the parliamentary and presidential elections last year is threatening to boil over into a conflict between the government and progressive religious groups.Today, a group of some 1,000 Buddhist monks are to hold a rally at a temple in central Seoul to denounce the National Intelligence Agency’s involvement in the elections and criticize President Park Geun-hye for her “inability to communicate with t

Editorial Nov. 27, 2013

The government is rushing to put in place its part-time job scheme to attain President Park Geun-hye’s promise to boost the nation’s employment rate to 70 percent from the present 64.2 percent.The government’s plan calls for the creation of a total of 930,000 part-time jobs by 2017, 40 percent of the 2.4 million jobs it needs to produce to meet Park’s campaign pledge.On Tuesday, the government organized a job fair to help private corporations recruit part-time employees. A total of 82 companies

Editorial Nov. 27, 2013

The Chinese Communist Party announced grand plans for “reform” at the end of its third plenum meeting in November, including a promise to end its disastrous one child per family policy.Don’t bet on it.That one-child law leads to ugly forced abortions and sterilizations ― as well as rampant cheating. Wealthy people have been having as many children as they want. No one tries to stop them, as long as the parents are willing to pay a fine of $50,000 or more.All of that is bad enough. But the larger

Viewpoints Nov. 27, 2013

Western analysts have been scratching their heads trying to figure out if China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, can properly be labeled a “reformer.”His new policies promise to end labor camps, ease the one-child policy and migrant-residency requirement in cities, grant property rights to farmers, and open up many new areas to a “decisive” role for the market. At the same time, he has strengthened the grip of the Communist Party, accumulated more power at the center, asserted ideological orthodoxy and

Viewpoints Nov. 27, 2013

PARIS ― Remember when you were a kid and you would open a full refrigerator right after mom’s latest grocery-shopping trip, only to complain that there was nothing to eat and that she was starving you to death? Well, that’s Iran right now. Iran has enough energy to light up the entire planet several times over ― 138 billion exploitable barrels of oil and more than 28 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency ― yet it constantly whines that it’s sta

Viewpoints Nov. 27, 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama has had two overarching goals in the Iran crisis. The first was to stop the Iranian regime from gaining possession of a nuclear weapon. The second was to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.This weekend, the president achieved one of these goals. He boxed-in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so comprehensively that it’s unimaginable Israel will strike Iran in the foreseeable future. Netanyahu had his best chance to attack in 2010 and 2011,

Viewpoints Nov. 26, 2013