The future of not working - nytimes.com · 25/02/2017 · In October, I visited Kennedy Aswan...
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.. INTERNATIONAL EDITION | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25-26, 2017 Weekend HOW BEES ARE BETTER PROBLEM SOLVERS THAN WE THOUGHT PAGE 4 | WORLD EXPLORING TRINIDAD, THE MORE TRANQUIL SIDE OF THE CARIBBEAN PAGE 23 | TRAVEL REMEMBERING 1992, THE YEAR THE OSCARS WERE ACTUALLY FUN PAGE 18 | WEEKEND WHAT BOOKS ARE CHELSEA CLINTON’S FAVORITE READS? PAGE 20 | BOOKS DAVID PRIESTLAND ON COMMUNISM’S FUTURE A CENTURY LATER PAGE 8 | OPINION MADRID Something is brewing. The world is not as it was. Beneath the Magic Mountain grim tides gather. You hear this kind of thing all over Europe. Old assumptions seem obsolete. Appre- hension is in the air. Let’s connect some dots. Last No- vember, Britain’s Daily Mail screamed “Enemies of the People!” on its front page. The target was Britain’s lord chief justice and two other judges who had ruled that the formal process of British exit from the European Union — known as Article 50 — could not be triggered without a parliamentary vote. This was too much for the howling Brexit wolves of The Mail. Fast-forward to President Trump using the same phrase — “enemy of the American peo- ple” — for the news media, having already taken aim at the judiciary, dismissing as a “so- called judge” the man who had halted his rabble-rousing travel ban against seven mainly Muslim countries. Trump heads a movement. It needs to be fed. It is hungry. Its enemies include Hollywood and the press (with a few exceptions). It demands energy, disruption and anger to grow. “Enemy of the people” is a phrase with a near-perfect totalitarian pedi- gree deployed with refinements by the Nazis, Stalin and Mao. For Goebbels, writing in 1941, every Jew was “a sworn enemy of the German people.” Here the “people” are an aroused mob imbued with some mythical essence of nation- hood or goodness by a charismatic leader. The enemy is everyone else. Citizenship, with its shared rights and responsibilities, has ceased to be. Liberal Western democracies depend on various institutions to mediate differences and provide the checks and balances of lawful governance. They include a free press, an independent Unmaking of Europe has begun Roger Cohen OPINION Technology has enabled many things, including the apotheosis of stupidity. COHEN, PAGE 10 Some female college students received emails a few years ago that sounded like a phishing scam, offering a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity for free travel and a spot on South Korea’s Olympic women’s hockey team. The offers were sincere. Officials in South Korea had apparently scoured on- line rosters for North American college hockey programs, looking for women with last names that looked as if they might be Korean. They were on a shop- ping spree to assemble Olympic hockey teams from scratch for the 2018 Winter Games. As the host of the next Olympics, next February in Pyeongchang, South Korea has automatic berths in the men’s and women’s ice hockey competitions, which are premier events at any Winter Games. But hockey here is an after- thought, so the country had to get cre- ative if it wanted to field teams that would not be humiliated. “I never dreamed this would happen,” said Danelle Im, who was born in Toron- to to Korean parents and was attending Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario in 2012 when she received the curious email. She is now a forward on South Ko- rea’s national team. Countries commonly take advantage of loose citizenship rules to import Olympic-level talent in all sports. South Korea’s hockey project is among the more aggressive and novel examples. For the men’s team, they recruited several North Americans playing on one of the three South Korea-based teams in the Asia League. They offered natural- ization to a handful of players from the United States and Canada — none of whom have any Korean ancestry. Mike Testwuide, a Colorado native, was approached by the national team coach, Jim Paek, a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Pittsburgh Penguins, during his second season with Anyang Halla of the Asia League. On a men’s squad that includes players with a wide range of abilities, Testwuide, a strap- ping 6-foot-5 center out of Colorado College, offers the big, physical pres- Building a hockey team from scratch Marissa Brandt, center, was born in South Korea and adopted by an American family. She now wears her Korean name, Yoon Jung Park, on her national team jersey. TIM GRUBER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA South Koreans scouted North America to upgrade squads for 2018 Olympics BY KAREN CROUSE AND SETH BERKMAN HOCKEY, PAGE 15 The village is poor, even by the standards of rural Kenya. To get there, you follow a power line along a series of unmarked roads. Eventually, that power line connects to the school at the center of town, the sole building with electrici- ty. Homesteads fan out into the hilly bramble. There is just one working wa- ter tap, requiring many local women to gather water from a pit in jerrycans. In October, I visited Kennedy Aswan Abagi, the village chief, at his small red- earth home, decorated with posters cel- ebrating the lives of African heroes, in- cluding JaKogelo, or “the man from Ko- gelo,” as locals refer to former President Barack Obama. Kogelo, where Mr. Oba- ma’s father was born, is just 20 miles from the village, which lies close to the banks of Lake Victoria. Mr. Abagi told me about the day his town’s fate changed. It happened during the sum- mer, when field officers from an Ameri- can nonprofit called GiveDirectly paid a visit, making an unbelievable promise: They wanted to give everyone money, no strings attached. “I asked, ‘Why this village?’ ” Mr. Abagi recalled, but he never got a clear answer, or one that made much sense to him. With little sense of who would get what and how and from whom and why, rumors blossomed. One villager heard that GiveDirectly would kidnap chil- dren. Some thought that the organiza- tion was aligned with the Illuminati. A family homestead in the pilot project village in Kenya. GiveDirectly said it wants to show that a universal basic income is a viable way to aid the world’s poorest people. PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW RENNEISEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES The future of not working Caroline Akinyi Odhiambo, who lives in the village with her husband and her two chil- dren, said she wanted to buy iron sheets for her roof and then maybe pay her dowry. FROM THE MAGAZINE As automation reduces need for labor, an income concept is tested in Kenya BY ANNIE LOWREY KENYA, PAGE 7 The most important economic question for the United States in 2017 and beyond is: How much room is there to run? It has taken eight years of glacial ex- pansion, but the nation is closing in on what economists believe to be its full productive capacity. It’s nearing that level of activity in which nearly every- body who wants a job has one, and fac- tories and offices are cranking at full speed. If the economy grows just 2.5 percent this year, gross domestic product will reach the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the nation’s economic poten- tial by the end of the year. If the Trump administration succeeds at achieving the 4 percent growth the president has said he seeks, we’ll be there by the Fourth of July. If there is in fact more room to grow beyond the budget office’s estimate of “potential G.D.P.,” an economic boom re- mains possible. If there isn’t — if the United States really is near its economic speed limit — higher growth will trans- late into inflation, not higher output and incomes. The question for the Trump ad- ministration, the Federal Reserve and every American who wants a higher paycheck is how much slack there really is in the economy. Economic slack takes the form of empty warehouses and office parks; of machines that run eight hours a day when they were built to run for 12; and, most important, of millions of Ameri- cans who might be coaxed to work in a booming economy but who aren’t even looking for a job now. If there is a lot of slack, then the Trump administration’s ambitious growth targets look more plausible, and Idle offices offer clue to potential for U.S. growth THE UPSHOT Reaching Trump’s targets depends on how much slack is in the economy BY NEIL IRWIN ECONOMY, PAGE 7 THE NEW FACE OF TRANSGENDER RIGHTS A teenager is the lead plaintiff in a case that could put an end to a contentious debate over bathrooms. PAGE 5 AD TRIES TO BRIDGE CHASM IN U.S. On the Oscars broadcast, Cadillac’s message will be about working togeth- er to overcome challenges. PAGE 6 September 13-17, 2017 ATHENS For further details, visit athensdemocracyforum.com Issue Number No. 41,665 Andorra € 3.60 Antilles € 3.90 Austria € 3.20 Bahrain BD 1.20 Belgium €3.20 Bos. & Herz. KM 5.50 Cameroon CFA 2600 Canada CAN$ 5.50 Croatia KN 22.00 Cyprus € 2.90 Czech Rep CZK 110 Denmark Dkr 28 Egypt EGP 20.00 Estonia € 3.50 Finland € 3.20 France € 3.20 Gabon CFA 2600 Great Britain £ 2.00 Greece € 2.50 Germany € 3.20 Hungary HUF 880 Israel NIS 13.50 Israel / Eilat NIS 11.50 Italy € 3.20 Ivory Coast CFA 2600 Jordan JD 2.00 Senegal CFA 2600 Serbia Din 280 Slovakia € 3.50 Slovenia € 3.00 Spain € 3.20 Sweden Skr 30 Switzerland CHF 4.50 Syria US$ 3.00 Norway Nkr 30 Oman OMR 1.250 Poland Zl 14 Portugal € 3.20 Qatar QR 10.00 Republic of Ireland ¤ 3.20 Reunion € 3.50 Saudi Arabia SR 13.00 Kazakhstan US$ 3.50 Latvia € 3.90 Lebanon LBP 5,000 Lithuania € 5.20 Luxembourg € 3.20 Malta € 3.20 Montenegro € 3.00 Morocco MAD 30 NEWSSTAND PRICES The Netherlands € 3.20 Tunisia Din 4.800 Turkey TL 9 U.A.E. AED 12.00 United States $ 4.00 United States Military (Europe) $ 1.90
Transcript of The future of not working - nytimes.com · 25/02/2017 · In October, I visited Kennedy Aswan...
..
INTERNATIONAL EDITION | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25-26, 2017
WeekendHOW BEESAREBETTERPROBLEMSOLVERSTHAN WETHOUGHT
PAGE 4 | WORLD
EXPLORINGTRINIDAD,THE MORETRANQUILSIDE OFTHECARIBBEAN
PAGE 23 | TRAVEL
REMEMBERING 1992,THE YEAR THE OSCARSWERE ACTUALLY FUNPAGE 18 | WEEKEND
WHAT BOOKS ARECHELSEA CLINTON’SFAVORITE READS?PAGE 20 | BOOKS
DAVID PRIESTLAND ONCOMMUNISM’S FUTUREA CENTURY LATER
PAGE 8 | OPINION
MADRID Something is brewing. Theworld is not as it was. Beneath theMagic Mountain grim tides gather. Youhear this kind of thing all over Europe.Old assumptions seem obsolete. Appre-hension is in the air.
Let’s connect some dots. Last No-vember, Britain’s Daily Mail screamed“Enemies of the People!” on its frontpage. The target was Britain’s lord chiefjustice and two other judges who hadruled that the formal process of Britishexit from the European Union — knownas Article 50 — could not be triggeredwithout a parliamentary vote. This was
too much for thehowling Brexitwolves of TheMail.
Fast-forwardto PresidentTrump using thesame phrase —“enemy of theAmerican peo-ple” — for the
news media, having already taken aimat the judiciary, dismissing as a “so-called judge” the man who had haltedhis rabble-rousing travel ban againstseven mainly Muslim countries.
Trump heads a movement. It needsto be fed. It is hungry. Its enemiesinclude Hollywood and the press (witha few exceptions). It demands energy,disruption and anger to grow.
“Enemy of the people” is a phrasewith a near-perfect totalitarian pedi-gree deployed with refinements by theNazis, Stalin and Mao. For Goebbels,writing in 1941, every Jew was “a swornenemy of the German people.” Here the“people” are an aroused mob imbuedwith some mythical essence of nation-hood or goodness by a charismaticleader. The enemy is everyone else.Citizenship, with its shared rights andresponsibilities, has ceased to be.
Liberal Western democracies dependon various institutions to mediatedifferences and provide the checks andbalances of lawful governance. Theyinclude a free press, an independent
Unmakingof Europehas begun
Roger Cohen
OPINION
Technologyhas enabledmany things,including theapotheosis of stupidity.
COHEN, PAGE 10
Some female college students receivedemails a few years ago that sounded likea phishing scam, offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for free travel and aspot on South Korea’s Olympic women’shockey team.
The offers were sincere. Officials inSouth Korea had apparently scoured on-line rosters for North American collegehockey programs, looking for womenwith last names that looked as if theymight be Korean. They were on a shop-ping spree to assemble Olympic hockeyteams from scratch for the 2018 WinterGames.
As the host of the next Olympics, next
February in Pyeongchang, South Koreahas automatic berths in the men’s andwomen’s ice hockey competitions,which are premier events at any WinterGames. But hockey here is an after-
thought, so the country had to get cre-ative if it wanted to field teams thatwould not be humiliated.
“I never dreamed this would happen,”said Danelle Im, who was born in Toron-
to to Korean parents and was attendingWilfrid Laurier University in Ontario in2012 when she received the curiousemail. She is now a forward on South Ko-rea’s national team.
Countries commonly take advantageof loose citizenship rules to importOlympic-level talent in all sports. SouthKorea’s hockey project is among themore aggressive and novel examples.
For the men’s team, they recruitedseveral North Americans playing on oneof the three South Korea-based teams inthe Asia League. They offered natural-ization to a handful of players from theUnited States and Canada — none ofwhom have any Korean ancestry.
Mike Testwuide, a Colorado native,was approached by the national teamcoach, Jim Paek, a two-time Stanley Cupchampion with the Pittsburgh Penguins,during his second season with AnyangHalla of the Asia League. On a men’ssquad that includes players with a widerange of abilities, Testwuide, a strap-ping 6-foot-5 center out of ColoradoCollege, offers the big, physical pres-
Building a hockey team from scratch
Marissa Brandt, center, was born in South Korea and adopted by an American family.She now wears her Korean name, Yoon Jung Park, on her national team jersey.
TIM GRUBER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
South Koreans scoutedNorth America to upgradesquads for 2018 Olympics
BY KAREN CROUSEAND SETH BERKMAN
HOCKEY, PAGE 15
The village is poor, even by thestandards of rural Kenya. To get there,you follow a power line along a series ofunmarked roads. Eventually, that powerline connects to the school at the centerof town, the sole building with electrici-ty. Homesteads fan out into the hillybramble. There is just one working wa-ter tap, requiring many local women togather water from a pit in jerrycans.
In October, I visited Kennedy AswanAbagi, the village chief, at his small red-earth home, decorated with posters cel-
ebrating the lives of African heroes, in-cluding JaKogelo, or “the man from Ko-gelo,” as locals refer to former PresidentBarack Obama. Kogelo, where Mr. Oba-ma’s father was born, is just 20 milesfrom the village, which lies close to thebanks of Lake Victoria. Mr. Abagi toldme about the day his town’s fatechanged. It happened during the sum-mer, when field officers from an Ameri-can nonprofit called GiveDirectly paid avisit, making an unbelievable promise:They wanted to give everyone money,no strings attached. “I asked, ‘Why thisvillage?’ ” Mr. Abagi recalled, but henever got a clear answer, or one thatmade much sense to him.
With little sense of who would getwhat and how and from whom and why,rumors blossomed. One villager heardthat GiveDirectly would kidnap chil-dren. Some thought that the organiza-tion was aligned with the Illuminati.
A family homestead in the pilot project village in Kenya. GiveDirectly said it wants to show that a universal basic income is a viable way to aid the world’s poorest people.PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW RENNEISEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The future of not working
Caroline Akinyi Odhiambo, who lives in the village with her husband and her two chil-dren, said she wanted to buy iron sheets for her roof and then maybe pay her dowry.
FROM THE MAGAZINE
As automation reducesneed for labor, an incomeconcept is tested in Kenya
BY ANNIE LOWREY
KENYA, PAGE 7
The most important economic questionfor the United States in 2017 and beyondis: How much room is there to run?
It has taken eight years of glacial ex-pansion, but the nation is closing in onwhat economists believe to be its fullproductive capacity. It’s nearing thatlevel of activity in which nearly every-body who wants a job has one, and fac-tories and offices are cranking at fullspeed.
If the economy grows just 2.5 percentthis year, gross domestic product willreach the Congressional Budget Office’sestimate of the nation’s economic poten-tial by the end of the year. If the Trumpadministration succeeds at achievingthe 4 percent growth the president hassaid he seeks, we’ll be there by theFourth of July.
If there is in fact more room to growbeyond the budget office’s estimate of“potential G.D.P.,” an economic boom re-mains possible. If there isn’t — if theUnited States really is near its economicspeed limit — higher growth will trans-late into inflation, not higher output andincomes. The question for the Trump ad-ministration, the Federal Reserve andevery American who wants a higherpaycheck is how much slack there reallyis in the economy.
Economic slack takes the form ofempty warehouses and office parks; ofmachines that run eight hours a daywhen they were built to run for 12; and,most important, of millions of Ameri-cans who might be coaxed to work in abooming economy but who aren’t evenlooking for a job now.
If there is a lot of slack, then theTrump administration’s ambitiousgrowth targets look more plausible, and
Idle officesoffer clue topotential forU.S. growthTHE UPSHOT
Reaching Trump’s targetsdepends on how muchslack is in the economy
BY NEIL IRWIN
ECONOMY, PAGE 7
THE NEW FACE OF TRANSGENDER RIGHTSA teenager is the lead plaintiff in a casethat could put an end to a contentiousdebate over bathrooms. PAGE 5
AD TRIES TO BRIDGE CHASM IN U.S.On the Oscars broadcast, Cadillac’smessage will be about working togeth-er to overcome challenges. PAGE 6
September 13-17, 2017
ATHENS
For further details, visit
athensdemocracyforum.com
Issue NumberNo. 41,665
Andorra € 3.60Antilles € 3.90Austria € 3.20Bahrain BD 1.20Belgium €3.20Bos. & Herz. KM 5.50
Cameroon CFA 2600Canada CAN$ 5.50Croatia KN 22.00Cyprus € 2.90Czech Rep CZK 110Denmark Dkr 28
Egypt EGP 20.00Estonia € 3.50Finland € 3.20France € 3.20Gabon CFA 2600Great Britain £ 2.00
Greece € 2.50Germany € 3.20Hungary HUF 880Israel NIS 13.50Israel / Eilat NIS 11.50Italy € 3.20Ivory Coast CFA 2600Jordan JD 2.00
Senegal CFA 2600Serbia Din 280Slovakia € 3.50Slovenia € 3.00Spain € 3.20Sweden Skr 30Switzerland CHF 4.50Syria US$ 3.00
Norway Nkr 30Oman OMR 1.250Poland Zl 14Portugal € 3.20Qatar QR 10.00Republic of Ireland ¤ 3.20Reunion € 3.50Saudi Arabia SR 13.00
Kazakhstan US$ 3.50Latvia € 3.90Lebanon LBP 5,000Lithuania € 5.20Luxembourg € 3.20Malta € 3.20Montenegro € 3.00Morocco MAD 30
NEWSSTAND PRICESThe Netherlands € 3.20Tunisia Din 4.800Turkey TL 9U.A.E. AED 12.00United States $ 4.00United States Military(Europe) $ 1.90
