중앙데일리

To the victor belong the appointments

The practice of giving appointive offices based on political contributions or loyalty is called “the spoils system.” Cronies competed for good positions as hunters pursued game. Without exception, public administration textbooks consider the spoils system an evil practice because political intent and personal connections outweigh competency and ability. Therefore there is a higher risk of corruption, incompetence and inefficiency. In …

May 24,2004
Can Sweden be a corporate model for us?

Sweden is a small yet powerful Scandinavian nation with many special records. It is the country where a leftist party, the Social Democratic Party, has held power since 1932, the longest such rule in the world. Sweden has the world’s highest equality index, and the highest rate of labor union membership at over 90 percent. The per-capita national income is over $25,000, and union strikes are rare. Women’s status is considered among the h…

May 23,2004
A stereotype overcome as a Sikh leads

We often mistake a big, glaring-eyed giant wearing a turban as a typical Indian. But the villain in the 007 series is in fact a Sikh. They make up only 2 percent of the 1 billion population of India. India is a melting pot of religion, and the Hindus, 80 percent of the population, do not wear turbans. In spite of their small numbers, the minority Sikhs came to be known as typical Indians because of their unique appearance and strong person…

May 21,2004
Let’s invent a solution for the economy

The 26th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was an inventor. He received a U.S. patent at age 40 for a floating dry dock. In the 19th century, most freight was transported through canals and rivers because overland transportation was not developed yet. When a cargo ship had to navigate a shallow river, it would often be beached. So Mr. Lincoln designed a buoyancy room fore and aft. By increasing the buoyancy according to th…

May 21,2004
Counterfactual reasoning on troop moves

If the United States had been a socialist country and the Soviet Union a capitalist one at the end of World War II, would the Cold War have existed? Such a question is counterfactual reasoning used to explore whether the cause of the Cold War was ideological confrontation or the international bipolar system. Given that wars were fought between China and the Soviet Union, and Vietnam and China, over territorial disputes, we could conclude …

May 19,2004
Tunes soothe savage beasts, plants, dogs

In 1993, a U.S.-based psychological research center published a study on the effect of music on the human immune system. The volunteers, college students, listened to Kenny G’s instrumental jazz and Mozart for 15 minutes, and their blood samples were taken for analysis. Seventeen out of 18 samples indicated a noticeable decrease of cortisol, the “stress hormone.” The study suggested that music could be used to treat diseases. Plato said…

May 18,2004
Markets fall, and blame is misplaced

Some say there are only two kinds of stocks: those whose prices go up and those whose prices go down. There is no such thing as a good stock or a bad stock. The point is to determine when the price will go up and by how much. Warren Buffett, the celebrated investor whose nickname is the “sage of Omaha,” makes long-term investment decisions and buys solid but undervalued stocks and waits for their heyday. In contrast, hedge fund investors …

May 17,2004
Humanity has demonstrated its cruel ways

Maybe men are inherently evil. If so, their evil nature is apparent from the photos that depict the cruelty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In 1971, Stanford University professor Philip Zimbardo conducted a notorious experiment on perfectly sane college students to study the psychology of imprisonment. The study effectively proved that evil triumphs over good. It was a role-playing experiment where each student was given a role of eithe…

May 16,2004
Don’t rely too much on China

The Chinese economy has recently drawn attention from the international community after the “China shock.” In the 1980s, the world became interested in China because of its market of 1 billion people, and in the 1990s as a threat to the world economy, when it voraciously absorbed raw materials as “the world’s factory.” Since then, China has been regarded as a big player in the world economy. Over recent years, China has led the global e…

May 15,2004
Atlas shrugged and so, maybe, will Koreans

One day, talented businessmen began to vanish into thin air one by one. Then university professors, doctors, artists and other professionals followed. It was a kind of strike staged by businessmen and professionals. They built Atlantis in a secluded valley, a new world of their own. In Atlantis, individual creativity and spontaneity were guaranteed. What drove them to strike was a society that oppressed reason and demanded certain emotio…

May 13,2004

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