Opinion

  Perhaps Donald Trump will come to America’s rescue after all. The past week leaves no doubt, at least, that the biggest threat to Trump’s campaign for the presidency is Trump. For days, quite unbelievably, he’s been criticizing the Muslim parents of a U.S. soldier who died a hero’s death in Iraq. Khizr Khan’s attack on Trump at the Democratic …

  A bitcoin exchange in Hong Kong has been hit by hackers who stole $72 million worth of the cryptocurrency. Or at least, that’s what it was worth when the theft took place; once news of the hack broke, the market for bitcoins slumped, meaning that the hackers’ haul is now valued somewhat lower. The market slumped, quite understandably, because …

  Japanese growth is still sluggish. Consumers aren’t consuming much, and businesses aren’t investing. The government doesn’t have many options to remedy this, and the Bank of Japan, which has sent both long-term and short-term interest rates into negative territory, has basically no more room to maneuver. The dreaded Zero Lower Bound is starting to bite. The BOJ is buying …

  Mac Margolis Every four years, political leaders have tried to set aside feuds and celebrate the world’s best athletes as they compete for medals and glory — a tradition that harkens back to the first Olympic Games held in Greece some 3,000 years ago. Apparently, the Brazilians didn’t get the message. One day before the opening ceremonies for the …

  In the 1870s, when Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall controlled New York City, and in the 1950s and 1960s, when Chicago’s Democratic machine was especially rampant, there was a phenomenon that can be called immunity through profusion: Fresh scandals arrived with metronomic regularity, so there was no time to concentrate on any of them. The public, bewildered by blitzkriegs of …

  Lawmakers in India’s upper house of parliament on Wednesday unanimously approved the creation of the landmark goods-and-services tax, or GST. It will pave the way for the introduction of a new national sales tax, creating a common market across the country for the first time. The tax, which has been kept in limbo for a decade, is seen benefiting …

  Investors have been enthusiastic about the potential of online marketplace lenders in recent years, but the industry has hit some significant roadblocks. LendingClub’s stock has fallen almost 60 percent this year. Prosper Marketplace cut about 28 percent of its staff in May. Regulators are starting to circle. The question now is whether these technology-based firms will continue to lose …

  Who does a better job of managing money, Republicans or Democrats? Thanks to a new study, we finally have at least a partial answer. The paper, by Marian Moszoro and Michael Bykhovsky, uses Federal Election Commission data to identify equity fund managers by their political contributions. If the managers at a fund gave to only one of the two …

  A lot’s been happening in the health-care markets. California announced that premiums would rise by an average of 13.2 percent on its exchanges, after years of being one of the standouts for low premium growth. Meanwhile, Anthem, a large insurer, said it would expand its presence in the Obamacare exchanges — but only if its merger with Cigna is …

  Francis Wilkinson Melania Trump’s husband says she is a 10. Would Donald Trump marry a woman who wasn’t? The question answers itself. But when she was younger, apparently working as a model in New York, the question is whether the former Melania Knauss was associated with another number — an H-1B or a B1 or B2 visa, or perhaps …