Opinion

  With mounting pressure from Euro creditors, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Greek trade union, the Greek parliament voted on a controversial tax and pensions overhaul on Sunday amid protests against the unpopular reforms in Greece. Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose grass-root supporters object to the reforms, pragmatically backs the package of painful measures demanded by the terms of …

  Justin Fox In the spring and summer of 2007, as the first tremors of the coming financial earthquake were making themselves felt, just under 8.4 million people were working in the U.S. financial sector. This April, according to today’s employment report, that number was 8.25 million. That’s not much of a decline. Viewed in the context of the decades-long …

  A widely anticipated trip by U.S. President Barack Obama to Vietnam later this month has raised expectations to unprecedented levels among the boffins in the politburo. Relations between the old Cold War foes have never been better, and that should be a concern to China. Ties struck a friendly peak last July when Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen …

  The Internal Revenue Service has just released its latest estimate of the “tax gap” – the difference between what Americans pay in taxes and what they actually owe. For the years 2008 to 2010 (the IRS’s latest data), the annual gap averaged a huge $458 billion. It’s surely higher now. Gulp. If everyone religiously paid every penny owed, budget …

  Jean-Michel Paul For those feeling sympathy for the European Central Bank, which has pretty much been on its own in trying to stimulate demand in the absence of government fiscal policy and investment, a ray of hope emerged. In Korea. South Korea is not doing badly, mind you. The country is a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation …

  An apparent environmental disaster off Vietnam’s central coastal region, estimated by some as one of the country’s worst ever toxic spills, represents newly appointed Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s first big political test. How Phuc strikes a balance between foreign investor interests and local community rights in handling the case will set an early precedent for his government’s policy …

Gigantic government’s complexity and opacity provide innumerable opportunities for opportunists to act unconstrained by clear law or effective supervision. Today’s example, involving the government’s expropriation of hundreds of billions of dollars, features three sets of unsympathetic actors — a grasping federal government, a few hedge funds nimble at exploiting the co-mingling of government and the private sector, and two anomalous …

  The crackdown on smoking advertising is assuming a global trend. Many countries are moving gradually to tighten grip on smoking promotion to reduce tobacco-related deaths. The tobacco industry, which rakes in huge revenues and gives employment to lot many people, is lobbying hard to put brakes on an all-out war against tobacco even as governments move cautiously to address …

  Cal Wong SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Amid the slowdown in the Hong Kong property market, Hong Kong’s overall tax revenue has fallen for the first time in six years. In total, the taxman collected HK$291.3 billion (US$37.5 billion), down HK$10.6 billion from the year before. Stamp duty takings on property transactions have plunged 16 percent in the 2015-16 fiscal …

  On Tuesday night, the Australian federal government delivered its budget for the forthcoming Australian financial year (1 July 2016 – 20 June 2017). The budget contained no dramatic announcements or big concepts. With an election to be held on July 2, and current polls indicating an erosion of its favorability, the conservative coalition government felt an inability to propose …