Opinion

As the eighth round of trade talks with the European Union is about to start, UK government officials from the chief trade negotiator, David Frost, to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab have put out the word that Britain is ready to walk away. To underscore the point, Boris Johnson is setting a deal deadline of October 15. The PM  is also ...

Better late than never? Three years of efforts to combine China’s giant state-owned chemicals companies Sinochem Group Co and China National Chemical Corp, or ChemChina, may finally be paying off. A merger between the two unlisted companies is at last “in progress,” Frank Ning, the chairman of both companies, said last week. Such a deal would create a behemoth with ...

The presidential campaign of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has a proposal aimed to restore the value of 401(k) and other deferred tax retirement plans for young median-wage workers. It’s a step almost exactly in the wrong direction. Under current policy, standard deferred tax retirement plans, including 401(k)s, IRAs and other variants, are taxed at distribution time rather than contribution ...

With tensions between the US and China heating up, there are increasing calls for expelling or barring Chinese nationals from US universities and corporations. Whatever the national security justification for these moves, policy makers should be aware of the potential downsides — loss of economic vitality, and the potential for a wave of racial discrimination. Over the past few years, ...

As the financial behemoths of Wall Street and the City of London reassess how they’ll operate in the post-pandemic world (assuming we get there), change is certain. Even with Covid-19 in check, staff working away from an office building will no longer be an exception. Banks will be thinking about saving on their huge urban real-estate costs, and employees about ...

The much-anticipated US jobs report answered some important questions about the state of the labour market. Yet by also leaving some important issues outstanding, it will not serve as the much needed outside catalyst to resolve both the policy stalemate on Capitol Hill and the increasingly visible tug-of-war in financial markets. The narrow message of the jobs report came through ...

All things green tech are seeing the light of day as the global economy digs its way out of the pandemic slump. Valuations have been skyrocketing, with makers of electric cars and solar glass panels the stocks du jour. But there’s room for skepticism. Dubbed the Green-Shaped Recovery, the trend is projected to draw trillions of dollars of funding for ...

India is reeling from a quadruple whammy that is practically unique even during this pandemic. First, growth has taken a hit that appears to be larger than any of its peers, with GDP shrinking 23.9% in the first post-pandemic quarter. While the economy has re-opened somewhat since then, it remains beset by supply constraints. That means — second — that ...

A refrain I’ve heard a lot these past six months is how great it’s been not to have to travel. People who were frequent fliers before the pandemic usually add that they now realise that, thanks to Zoom and its rivals, a lot of travel isn’t truly necessary anymore. Maybe some of it never was. Yes, lawyers need to conduct ...

There’s one surprise entrant in the group of oil companies announcing plans this year for how they’ll reduce emissions: PetroChina Co. China’s oil companies, unlike their peers in the US and particularly Europe, don’t traditionally treat climate targets as a major issue. Beijing, after all, isn’t even promising to hit its emissions peak until 2030. The large fund managers that ...