Opinion

Last week the attorneys general of 18 states and 126 members of the US House of Representatives — all Republicans — signed on to a lawsuit aimed at disenfranchising millions of voters and overturning the result of a not-all-that-close presidential election. Though the Supreme Court quickly rejected the attempt, it was understandably greeted as another sad landmark in the political ...

President-elect Joe Biden’s pledge to rejoin the Paris climate agreement sends an important signal to the world about US leadership. But the action will merely take us back to four years ago. To push us forward, on his first day in office, President Biden should bring together a group of G-20 leaders to join the US in endorsing a mandatory ...

Activist investing is hard work, even for tenacious veterans like Elliott Management Corp. The very mention of its name sends shivers up the spines of corporate fat cats. Yet, until recently, the US-based hedge fund hasn’t been able to scare up much success in Asia. Elliott has been in the region for years, picking battles with Korean chaebols and Hong ...

The impact of the housing market on the 2008 financial crisis couldn’t have been more different than what we’ve seen during this year’s recession. While housing acted as a strong headwind slowing the economic recovery 12 years ago, not it’s looking like a tailwind that will help lift the economy as we move past the pandemic in 2021. The damage ...

Angela Merkel has done it again: She’s “merkeled.” In German, that neologism means to hedge, delay, dilute and fudge — as the eponymous German chancellor is wont to do. There’s much to be said for this elastic style of politics, especially in the labyrinthine European Union. Merkel’s latest fudge, however, will weaken and undermine the bloc, and tarnish her legacy. ...

Farmers’ protests are threatening to snowball into the biggest political crisis of Narendra Modi’s tenure. To give in to demands and scrap the laws would be an uncharacteristic admission of defeat for India’s strongman prime minister, who promised they would transform agriculture. But letting the unrest linger could cause chaos in food markets, alienate urban consumers, and potentially derail the ...

There comes a point where you have to stop throwing good money after bad. That moment is already well past for Sinochem Corp and China National Chemical Corp, or ChemChina, the state-owned Chinese giants that have been edging towards a merger for four years. The two chemicals companies are working on a structure that would allow them to combine without ...

Jamie Dimon appears restless. JPMorgan Chase & Co’s chief executive officer is imploring investment bankers — those most tireless of salespeople — to ring him up and pitch M&A ideas. It’s the clearest indication yet that the biggest US bank would prefer not to sit on its excess capital. That’s a nice problem to have, but one the lender is ...

With each passing day, President Donald Trump’s losses continue to mount in court challenges to the election results — as of this writing, by one count, the campaign is 1-53. So it’s tempting to dismiss and mock the ongoing “clown show.” That would be a major error. Not only do the president’s words and actions increase the potential for violence, ...

With the end of the year approaching, I have been thinking about which of my views have changed over the last 12 months. Here’s one: I no longer think Brexit is a bad idea. I’m not ready to endorse it, because I don’t feel comfortable with the nationalism and populism surrounding so much of the Leave movement, but I no ...