Opinion

The customer is always right but up until recently, it felt like that old adage didn’t apply to the airline industry. Customers were packed in like sardines in increasingly tighter rows of seats and battled with each other for precious overhead bin space amid rising baggage fees. Slowly but surely, that’s starting to change. United Airlines Holdings Inc announced a ...

UK house price rises have reached a 17-year high, according to the June Nationwide survey citing 13.4% annual growth. Statistically, this pace looks unsustainable, as prices for the rest of the year will be compared with the swiftly rising prices of the second half of 2020. Those base comparison effects will probably show the annual rate of change topping out. ...

Big Tech got some good news when a US district judge dismissed two antitrust cases brought against Facebook by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a group of states. Curiously, the ruling may also be greeted as good news by the Enemies of Big Tech, who say that existing law is not up to the task of prosecuting monopolies and ...

The shift under way in global monetary policy is more subtle evolution than revolution. For all the talk about a pivot toward higher interest rates, conditions are likely to remain relatively lax for years to come in the economies that matter most. Central banks are unlikely to engage in new aggressive approaches to spurring growth and buttressing markets; the global ...

Facebook Inc investors celebrated the social media giant’s court victory in two major antitrust lawsuits by driving the company’s market value above $1 trillion for the first time. But a closer look at the judge’s decision reveals it may just delay the eventual reckoning. It is not an “all-clear” ruling. US District Judge James Boasberg granted Facebook’s request to dismiss ...

French presidential careers tend to begin euphorically, screech to a halt in the face of protests over promises becoming policy and end somewhere between indifference and contempt when voters bring out the ballot-box equivalent of the guillotine. The results of regional elections seemed to prove the pattern. President Emmanuel Macron’s party racked up a humiliating defeat less than a year ...

As US troops prepare to leave Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of combat, the situation on the ground could hardly be more disheartening. Taliban insurgents are already racking up battlefield gains; deprived of US close air support and help maintaining its equipment, the Afghan military may well crumble against concerted onslaught. Al-Qaeda maintains ties to the Taliban and could pose ...

Credit Suisse Group AG’s franchise has proved indestructible through one crisis after another for decades. Its latest mess looks particularly bad. The Swiss bank faces parallel calamities in investment banking and asset management with the same cause — poor risk control — at a time its rivals are performing well. The case for a takeover is strong in principle. The ...

Over the weekend, Sydney was put under a mandatory stay-at-home order for two weeks in response to the risk posed by the Delta variant of Covid-19. This came as a surprise to many, especially those who rightly view Australia as having been among the best in managing Covid, with its very low infections, hospitalisations and deaths. Australia was not the ...

The past year has been a headache for would-be home buyers who dealt with quickly-rising prices and a shrinking number of options. That buyer squeeze now seems to be easing — and the housing headache is shifting to the rental market. Rising vacancy rates during the pandemic led to stagnant or falling rents in many metro areas, but that’s showing ...