Opinion

Dump debt ceiling before GOP wins the House

  It’s time: Congressional Democrats need to get the ball rolling on ending the risk of defaulting on the nation’s debt. If they don’t tackle this before the current term ends, we run the risk that a Republican House majority will be irresponsible enough to allow a default to happen. That’s why the Democrats should seize the opportunity during the ...

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Revolutionary monarchy of Queen Elizabeth II

Britain’s longest-serving monarch has died. It feels like a death in the family. Born in 1926, the year that John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of television, and crowned in 1953, the year of Joseph Stalin’s death, the Queen has been with us for so long that only a sliver of the population can remember life without her. ...

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Markets should check bullish impulses

Financial conditions have tightened in the past three weeks, with stocks dropping, corporate credit yield spreads widening and mortgage rates rising back to almost 14-year highs. If the data continues to show inflation is moderating, it could be enough to help convince Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his central bank colleagues to only institute a modest interest-rate increase when ...

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Sorry bankers, you’ll never have an easy life

  It seems blindingly obvious: Banks should not trade shares to help investors claim rebates for taxes they have not paid. Yet, in Germany it took a court ruling just last year to confirm this was illegal a decade after the practice was banned. A string of international lenders are still being investigated; last week, German prosecutors raided JPMorgan Chase ...

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Farewell to the Queen, a monarch for the ages

  The death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday marks the end not just of an era spanning seven decades, but of one of the most remarkable public careers in modern history. Amid war, geopolitical upheaval, social turmoil and technological revolution, the queen’s decency and grace brought stability to Britain and endeared her to generations all over the world. It’s ...

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Gorbachev did save one Communist Party — China’s

  The death of the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev naturally elicited an outpouring of praise from Western leaders for his role in ending the Cold War. If Gorbachev helped bring freedom to most of the former Soviet bloc, however, the revolution he led arguably led to the opposite outcome in China. Without Gorbachev’s example, the Chinese regime might not ...

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Why UBS ditched $1.4 billion deal

When UBS Group AG ditched its biggest acquisition in more than two decades with no explanation, investors and everyone else were left to guess what happened. Wall Street analysts have presumed that $1.4 billion is now just too much to pay for Wealthfront, a US digital investment adviser that won’t make profits for years. Vertigo-inducing fintech valuations have returned rapidly ...

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California’s plan to get fast food workers fired

  Apparently unhappy with the current pace of business migration out of their state, California’s legislators have come up with a good way to accelerate it. They voted recently to create a council of political appointees to set wages in the fast-food industry. The so-called FAST Recovery Act awaits Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature. He can’t squash this ill-conceived initiative quickly ...

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If rate hikes are on autopilot, just say so

  Are robots coming for jobs at central banks, too? Despite protestations to the contrary, the course of interest rates looks to be on autopilot in many economies. The highest inflation in a generation means officials are striding with deliberation toward a pronounced slowdown, if not global recession. If a slump is in the offing, it will be one that’s ...

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Biden can’t see why America is in trouble

President Joe Biden is right that American democracy is under threat. Unfortunately, he seems not to know why, or what to do about it. The president’s prime-time speech was a typical Biden performance — rambling repetition, theatrical intensity, all soul-baring emphasis and next to no content. At least it was brief. And, to be fair, Biden did modify his recent ...

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