Responding to North Korea’s torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, I blogged a series of recommendations – one being that we should ratify the long shelved Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). It has many economic benefits, and would demonstrate “no retreat by the U.S. from Northeast Asia,” I argued. One skeptical reporter responded with a “like that will happen.” Well, this weekend KORUS got a shot of life. At the G20 summit in Toronto, President Obama and South Korean President Lee vowed to get it done over the …
Will North Korea’s Kim Jong-il get away with murder? That’s a question Koreans, and many in the region, are asking a month and a half after a South Korean naval vessel was sunk, killing 46. An investigation, assisted by U.S. naval intelligence, and other international partners, is still ongoing. Yet it’s all but certain that the Cheonan was torpedoed, an act of war. While North Korean motives (escalation for aid? Kim Jong-il consolidating his power base? rogue captain?) remain the subject of debate, the destruction is clear.
As the Senate moves closer to another cloture vote on Senator Dodd’s legislation, we are again reminded of the several flaws found in the Dodd-Frank approach to financial regulatory reform. Beginning with the rescue of investment bank Bear Stearns in the spring of 2008, the Federal government has committed trillions of taxpayer dollars to institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America, out of fear that the demise of any of these “too big to fail” institutions would trigger a systemic crisis and collapse of the …
