Opinion

  It’s fun to imagine a world without cash.Liberated from the burden of physical currency, consumers could make purchases from the convenience of a mobile device. Every transaction would come equipped with fraud protection, reward points and a digital record of its time and location. Comprehensive tracking could help the Internal Revenue Service reclaim billions of tax dollars lost to …

  In a kinder, gentler, alternate universe, Ohio Governor John Kasich is the Republican nominee for president. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is out stumping for Kasich and plotting the education and immigration policies that he’ll pursue in the vice president’s office. (Substitute Senator Marco Rubio in the veep slot if you prefer; I went with the Floridian who demonstrated …

  Over the past eight years, the major central banks have increased their balance sheets to $18 trillion from $6 trillion, predominantly through the purchase of their own government’s bonds. While the Fed has ended its QE program, the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan continue theirs. But those too will eventually come to an end. What happens next …

  Events have lately been mounting an impressive case against referendums. Britain voted to leave the European Union. Colombia rejected a deal to end its decades-long conflict with FARC revolutionaries. Hungary just said no to (modest) European Union quotas for the resettlement of refugees. Poor choices all. These recent cases aren’t anomalies. They’re consistent with a history of bungled decisions …

  The news that the UAE will have a sharia-compliant trade bank soon has given a big boost to the Islamic economy. Earlier, the launch of ‘My Salaam’ portal and mobile app — an innovative step — manifested the keeness of the country to consolidate the Islamic ecosystem. The launch of Awqaf International Organization is also an initiative that will …

  It wasn’t so long ago that rivers of bicycle commuters coursed through Chinese cities. As a means of navigating urban roads, two wheels couldn’t be beat. They were cheap (and China was poor), and Chinese cities were compact enough to allow for conveyance by pedal power alone. As recently as 1986, 63 percent of Beijingers used a bike as …

  The minutes of the September meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee released Wednesday explained why three Fed board members had dissented from the majority’s “close call” decision to keep rates unchanged. The highly anticipated transcript provides insights into internal and external developments, illustrating the “unusual uncertainty” that policy makers must contend with. The transcript is an important …

  Why did the incomes of top earners rise so much after 1980? One reason was the boom in asset markets, which increased capital income from stocks and housing. But much of the gain was because the rich earned a lot more in salaries, bonuses and other labor income. To cite a well-known example, chief executive officers in the late …

  Watching Donald Trump skulking behind Hillary Clinton on the debate stage Sunday night, muttering about locking her up if he wins, was a reminder that we are drifting toward a kind of bullyboy-world, where power is everything. You see this coarsening climate of relations around the globe, in the debasement of the norms that make civilized life possible. Dictators …

  Race is perhaps the worst idea ever to come out of science. Scientists were responsible for officially dividing human beings into Europeans, Africans, Asians and Native Americans and promoting these groups as sub-species or separate species altogether. That happened back in the 18th century, but the division lends the feel of scientific legitimacy to the prejudice that haunts the …