President Trump’s Historical Consciousness: Bowling Ball Edition
President Trump, at a recent event, recycled an old chestnut I haven’t heard in years He accused Japan of using gimmicks to deny U.S. auto companies acces...
Category: Economic
Economic History
When desperate to stabilize the currency
I encountered these pages when I was flipping through a thick, unsorted bunch of materials regarding the industrial campaigns that the youth associations conduc...
Generating Power–Electric, hydroelectric, thermal (coal), atomic
I’m back once again to this question of electricity and power in its various forms, as I think the long-term story of generating power in NE Asia (1880...
America’s “Lost Decade”
Paul Krugman wrote a column in which he argued that the last decade in the US has been a waste of time, economically speaking: But from an economic point of vie...
Academia/bibliography/Current/Recent Events/Economic/General/globalization/Historiography/Japan/Nationalism/Pedagogy/Teaching
Adjusting to the new narrative
My China-side colleague, Alan Baumler, noted that China seems to have supplanted Japan as the go-to model for economic development. This has, he says, required ...
The (Ongoing) Economic Crisis
One of my students is doing a summer research project on the Japanese financial crisis of the 1990s and we just looked at Jon Woronoff’s book The Japanese...
When translating, leave currency in the original units
I’m using Ivan Morris’ translation of Saikaku’s The Life of an Amorous Woman and other Writings this semester1, but one thing which is bugging...
Macroeconomics never gives you more than an overview
Stephen Roach, Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia has an op-ed in the New York Times (UPDATE: reprinted in Japan Focus) arguing that Japan’s post-bubble rece...
KTX female attendants – “contingent labour” fights back
There was a time in Korean labour movement history in the 1970s when it were the female workers who actually led the most militant part of the struggle. The rea...
Sell yourself
“Selling yourself” – one of those phrases we use in a somewhat metaphorical sense, but which nonetheless has a more literal meaning than we pr...
“Mass-based dictatorship”? A little info on S. Korea’s welfare policies in the 1960s
In South Korean academia, one of the most long-standing and productive discussions (I have been following it for around 3 years now, but it may have begun even ...
Prof. Yi Hŏnch’ang (이헌창) and his “Outline of Korean Economic History”
A couple of days ago, I had the happy opportunity to meet Prof. Yi Hŏnch’ang (이헌창, 고려대), one of Korea’s leading economical historians. The meeting t...
Manifesto from the Suyu Research Institute on the S.Korea-USA FTA plans – The Twilight of Empire?
Dear colleagues, Below I put the English text of the manifesto penned by two of the most promising post-nationalist scholars I know in South Korea, namely Dr. K...
Thoughts on Yusin
Readers here might be interested in giving thoughts about a query and my comment regarding Yusin on the Korean Studies Discussion List by Dr. Alon Levkowitz. Hi...
Wages
Just a nugget of information I thought I might throw out to our readers, all comments or reflections are welcome: It seems that unskilled wage labourers in late...