Opinion

  The IS hasn’t had much success yet in recruiting militants among the vast Muslim populations in Southeast Asia. But what happens when the caliphate’s capitals in Syria and Iraq are destroyed, and hundreds of foreign fighters from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines try to go home? Experts here in Australia see the counterterrorism challenge as a regional problem, rather …

  By now, almost every finance aficionado knows about the problems in the hedge-fund industry. With almost $3 trillion in assets under management, the industry has been bedeviled by complaints of underperformance and high fees. Large institutions that put money into hedge funds are now reversing course, led by endowments and pension funds. Redemptions totaled $20.7 billion in the three …

  The U.S. Federal Reserve appears to be paying more attention to how its policies affect black Americans. This is a wise move, because blacks stand to gain a lot more than others from the Fed’s efforts to support economic growth. The minutes of the Fed’s July policy-making meeting noted that officials had discussed unemployment rates and other measures of …

  An escalation of tension between Russia and Ukraine augurs bad for both. The two countries are going through throes of deplorable financial crisis and the diplomatic flareup will only worsen the already dismal situation. The hostilities have badly hit their economies and it is in the interest of both that the conflict is not allowed to intensify further. The …

  Hillary Clinton thinks corporate taxes are too low. Donald Trump thinks corporate taxes are way too high. They’re both wrong, and the economic consequences could be huge if either nominee’s tax proposal becomes law. Trump would slash the rate to 15 percent and allow millions of partnerships and single-owner firms set up by hedge fund managers, lawyers and other …

  Megan McArdle Since I last wrote about it, Aetna’s withdrawal from the Obamacare exchanges has ginned up even more drama. Jeff Young and Jonathan Cohn of the Huffington Post published a letter in which Aetna told the Justice Department that it would reduce its exchange participation unless Justice allowed the merger with Humana to go through. This has naturally …

  justin fox Children and teenagers in the world’s developed countries have a more than 50 percent chance of living past 100. By the early 2100s, in other words, “being a centenarian will no longer be a rarity. In fact, it will be the norm.” That’s from Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott’s book, “The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in …

  We are such an anxiety-ridden society that we worry about problems that haven’t happened, and, almost certainly, won’t. Robots are an apt example. Even McKinsey and Co., the high-powered management consulting firm, professes to be concerned. We imagine hordes of robots destroying jobs, leaving millions of middle-class families without work and income. Relax. Unless we adopt self-destructive policies, this …

  The world is braced for the discovery of a fifth fundamental force of nature — the four known ones being electromagnetism, gravity, and strong and weak nuclear forces — that subverts the so-called standard model of particle physics. Given the lackluster outlook for global growth, maybe economics needs a similar revolution. Quantitative easing’s failure to quash the threat of …

  Economists regularly point out that the U.S. has recovered from the recession of 2007 to 2009 much more strongly than other countries. If only it were so. True, the U.S. stands out if one looks only at gross domestic product. For example, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development pointed out recently that U.S. GDP has expanded by more …