Opinion

  Christopher Balding Chinese markets have rarely looked more like Vegas casinos. In recent weeks, investors have driven up trading volumes in China to astronomical levels, betting on everything from rebar to eggs. China traded enough steel in one day last month to build 178,082 Eiffel Towers and enough cotton to make at least one pair of jeans for every ...

  Donald Trump became last week the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S. presidential elections. But those condemned to agonizing suspense and anxiety until November should note that Trumpism, or the politics of hate and fear, also suffered a major defeat last week. I refer to the election of former human rights lawyer Sadiq Khan as London’s mayor. That the ...

  On April 25 2016, the very day that Australia commemorated its war dead who fell in Europe a century earlier, Australia sent a private note to France, its former ally, that it had won the bidding process to be preferred designer of 12 new submarines. In announcing the decision, the Australian government made some understandable historical allusions to past ...

  Marvin Ott / Mick Zloof SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS The Indonesian military (TNI) and the strategic perspectives of the Indonesian political leadership have been shaped by a tumultuous history of domestic security challenges. Indonesia is a sprawling archipelago of thousands of islands and hundreds of more or less distinct ethnic communities. That geography and ethnography virtually guarantee that national ...

Donald Trump: “We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt.” Washington Post: “How long would that take?” Trump: “I would say over a period of eight years.” – March 31 Fortune: “You’ve said you plan to pay off the country’s debt in 10 years. How’s that possible?” Trump: “No, I didn’t say 10 years.” – April 19 ...

  With mounting pressure from Euro creditors, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Greek trade union, the Greek parliament voted on a controversial tax and pensions overhaul on Sunday amid protests against the unpopular reforms in Greece. Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose grass-root supporters object to the reforms, pragmatically backs the package of painful measures demanded by the terms of ...

  Justin Fox In the spring and summer of 2007, as the first tremors of the coming financial earthquake were making themselves felt, just under 8.4 million people were working in the U.S. financial sector. This April, according to today’s employment report, that number was 8.25 million. That’s not much of a decline. Viewed in the context of the decades-long ...

  A widely anticipated trip by U.S. President Barack Obama to Vietnam later this month has raised expectations to unprecedented levels among the boffins in the politburo. Relations between the old Cold War foes have never been better, and that should be a concern to China. Ties struck a friendly peak last July when Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen ...

  The Internal Revenue Service has just released its latest estimate of the “tax gap” – the difference between what Americans pay in taxes and what they actually owe. For the years 2008 to 2010 (the IRS’s latest data), the annual gap averaged a huge $458 billion. It’s surely higher now. Gulp. If everyone religiously paid every penny owed, budget ...

  Jean-Michel Paul For those feeling sympathy for the European Central Bank, which has pretty much been on its own in trying to stimulate demand in the absence of government fiscal policy and investment, a ray of hope emerged. In Korea. South Korea is not doing badly, mind you. The country is a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation ...