Opinion

Last week, the European Space Agency reached out to warn Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. that one of its satellites might collide with a SpaceX communications satellite. When ESA first raised such concerns in late August, the chances of a crash were 1 in 50,000; SpaceX had said then that it didn’t think the risk was high enough to ...

Hong Kong’s stock market is in need of support. While the Hang Seng Index rose the most in more than 10 months after Chief Executive Carrie Lam formally withdrew an extradition bill that sparked months of protests, the benchmark remains 5% lower than in mid-June before the turmoil started. The government should consider cutting the trading tax, or stamp duty, ...

The Business Roundtable touched off a storm of commentary with its abandonment of the “shareholder primacy” view that the goal of a for-profit business corporation should be to maximize shareholder value. Most people celebrating this move seem to think it means stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers and communities will do better if corporate boards and managers treat their interests ...

Investors who are optimistic about the outlook for the US economy and financial markets due to reports of healthy consumer spending, retail sales and an unemployment rate that held near a 50-year low in August need a history lesson. Even though consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the economy, it was a poor predictor of the last two recessions, ...

Democracy, Winston Churchill once famously said, was the worst way to run a country “apart from all the others that have ever been tried.” Unfortunately, he did not make clear what kind of democracy he favoured. Britain’s dreadful Brexit impasse has divided the country into roughly equal camps, both convinced democracy has been traduced. And they both have a point. ...

Marks & Spencer Group Plc (M&S) showed off its key looks for the autumn winter season this week. It is aiming to woo shoppers with 1970s-inspired prints, jewel toned blouses and tailored coats. But the high street stalwart has gone out of fashion with investors. Its shares are set to fall out of the FTSE 100 index for the first ...

The grounding of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max after a pair of accidents killed 346 people might seem an unmitigated disaster for the world’s airline industry. Look at flight data, though, and you can glimpse a grim benefit supporting carriers’ bottom lines. To see why, it’s worth remembering just how crucial the 737 and its arch-rival, the Airbus SE A320, are. ...

Richard Stengel, a former Time editor who became the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy, writes that he was once an information “idealist.” He believed that in the marketplace of ideas, the truth would ultimately prevail. Not anymore. “I think we all now know that this is a pipe dream,” writes Stengel in a disturbing memoir of his three years ...

If the UK parliament can’t clean up the Brexit mess, it might be time for Europe to start spending instead. The economic impact of a worst-case no-deal Brexit on the rest of the European Union is estimated to amount to $250 billion by 2030, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Back in 2017, Ireland suggested that was a good ...

Days after a mass shooting at one of Walmart Inc.’s stores in El Paso last month, the nation’s largest retailer offered a cautious and decorous response. CEO Doug McMillon offered prayers for the families of those affected and pledged the company would be “thoughtful” about how it responded. Now, a month later, the CEO’s thoughts have morphed into company policy ...