Opinion

  So it turns out nothing really is something in the bond market. Big Wall Street firms may lament the persistence of zero interest-rate policies in the US, but they look downright ostentatious when pitted against Europe’s vortex of negative-rate policies. In the past week alone, the volume of negative-yielding euro-zone debt surged 30 percent, to a record 2.6 trillion …

  The unfunded liabilities of public pensions are out of control across the country. My state, Illinois, is the most severe case, with only 40 percent of those liabilities funded. Given the magnitude of the problem, and the political and legal obstacles to fixing it, it remains tempting to underplay the importance of straightforward financial changes that could put the …

  You’ve heard the criticism. Too many American corporate managers are addicted to “short-termism.” They postpone investments and other costs, sacrificing future performance for present profitability. Either they’re pressured by “activist investors” or want to inflate the value of their stock options. If true, it could help explain the economy’s lackluster performance. Now, a new study asserts that it is …

  At this point last year, Twitter was a company that had a hard time attracting new people to surf and tweet, but it was quite skilled at generating ad dollars from its die-hard users. Now Twitter’s problem has reversed. It’s still a mess of a company, but in a fresh way. People are using Twitter more, but advertisers are …

  The news from Afghanistan is as relentless as it depressing: six aid workers murdered by IS, at least 20 dead from a suicide bombing at the Supreme Court, more territory lost to the Taliban, more opium growing in the fields. Maybe that explains Donald Trump’s silence on the war since becoming president. But it does not excuse it. The …

  On November 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India surprised investors and consumers by declaring that 86 percent of the nation’s money stock would no longer be a medium of exchange or store of value. In meetings in Mumbai and New Delhi recently, I learned that the move was intended to ferret out illegally garnered funds, and that the …

  Maybe it’s not so bad to have algorithmic overlords — at least when they are pressured into protecting people rather than exploiting them. Earlier this week, Facebook declared that it will no longer let certain kinds of advertisers engage in racial profiling. Specifically, it will prohibit credit, housing, and employment advertisers from using “ethnic affinity” categories — marketing profiles …

  Fake news on social media stymied the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Now, businesses are wondering what they should do if they’re targeted next. For some, it’s too late. Pepsi’s chief executive never told Trump supporters to “take their business elsewhere,” but websites still falsely claimed she did. Coca-Cola had to deal with bogus reports that a “clear parasite” …

Of the many puzzles posed by Donald Trump’s administration, the role of the National Security Council (NSC) is among the trickiest. The NSC usually tries to act as an “honest broker” among Cabinet agencies. But how will it function under a headstrong president who sees his role as disruptor and tweeter-in-chief? This challenge falls to national security adviser Michael Flynn, …

  Dig around on finance corners of the internet and you find people touting the logic of May-December corporate romances. If Apple bought all or parts of Time Warner or Disney, or Amazon hitched up with Macy’s Inc., or Google owned a traditional automaker, it would be a sweeter combination than chocolate and peanut butter. The experienced hand and the …