Opinion

President Donald Trump’s first budget is truly remarkable in its unseriousness. To see why, try for a moment to take it seriously. The plan purports to be fiscally responsible, saying that the national debt will fall from 77 percent now to 60 percent in 2027. A worthy goal, to be sure. At the same time, it calls for tax cuts …

Talk to critics of the European Central Bank’s ultra-loose monetary policy and a common theme emerges: concern about financial stability. Quantitative easing is seen as creating dangerous asset bubbles. Negative interest rates are said to hurt bank profitability, making the financial system more vulnerable to shocks. These concerns are widely misplaced. In fact, the real worry should be the risks …

For the past two decades, the EU has grappled with a productivity slowdown that has kept wages and economic growth in check. Politicians are increasingly mentioning infrastructure as a possible solution: The hope is that building more roads and better bridges can help companies improve efficiency and re-start growth. However, while infrastructure may indeed provide a much-needed stimulus to Europe’s …

Moody’s Corp. downgraded China’s sovereign credit rating for the first time in 28 years. In doing so, the rating agency is acknowledging the dragon in the room: China will have to pay the price for its epic debt binge, whatever policymakers do from here. The burning question in China these days is whether the government is serious about tackling the …

UK police investigating the Manchester terror attack say they have stopped sharing information with the US after a series of leaks. Since the beginning of this century, the US intelligence services and their clients have acted as if they wanted the world to know they couldn’t guarantee the confidentiality of any information that falls into their hands. At this point, …

If the US economy is going to prosper, it needs to keep taking in immigrants. Fertility is below replacement levels, and no country has discovered a way to raise native birthrates. That means that immigration is necessary for the survival of the Social Security system and the solvency of pension funds. Immigrants will allow small cities to grow and expand …

On one level, there’s nothing so surprising about Moody’s Investors Service’s decision to downgrade China’s sovereign debt one notch to A1. Since March last year, when the rating company and its rival S&P Global Ratings cut their outlook on the People’s Republic’s credit standing, an eventual demotion has been the most likely outcome. Still, it mustn’t have been an easy …

When Enda Kenny’s center-right Fine Gael party came to power in 2011, Ireland was dealing with the collapse of its banking system and struggling to comply with the demands of an international rescue program. Six years later, the economy is booming. Unemployment has fallen from nearly 15 percent to a little over 6 percent, and Ireland pays less to borrow …

Emmanuel Macron is nothing if not persuasive. He’s built a political movement from scratch and won enough votes from France’s established parties to take the keys to the Elysee Palace. He’ll need those skills and more to carry out an essential reform that has eluded all his predecessors — freeing up France’s labor market. Just last year, France debated the …

For a long time, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a point of not disagreeing publicly with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. This year, however, that tradition is broken, and Merkel appears interested in making sure Draghi’s successor is more acceptable to Germany, perhaps even a German. Recently, for the second time this year, the chancellor blamed ECB for euro …