Opinion

What’s wrong with a 50 basis-point interest-rate cut? I’m all for central banks doing their utmost to support high, durable and inclusive growth. But this doesn’t mean throwing everything at the wall when the economy is doing relatively well, financial markets are buoyant, and policy ammunition is limited. Growing pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 50 ...

Debt is the crux of the matter. If you want to understand what makes the world vulnerable to a global recession or, possibly, something much worse, you’ve got to come to grips with the worldwide debt buildup. It’s not the only candidate for calamity, but it ranks first among the possibilities. At the end of March, worldwide debt totalled $246.5 ...

Volkswagen AG announced that 2019 would be the last model year the Golf SportWagen and Alltrack, the automaker’s station wagons, will be produced for the US. The German company has sold wagons in the US since 1966, starting with the Type 3 “Squareback” model. “Customers are speaking clearly about their preferences — it’s an SUV world now,” the company said ...

Money gets a bad rap. In the current environment, amid inequality not seen since the 1920s, too many people find it too easy to disparage wealth and the quest for material goods. There is no doubt that lifestyle creep and the hedonic treadmill are not the paths to true happiness. But what we see today is a backlash caused, in ...

Surprisingly for someone who made her name in part by criticising the practices of Wall Street, Senator Elizabeth Warren is slowly winning the respect of the industry. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel fears a Warren administration, and it would most likely take on certain players in finance – private equity and hedge funds, CEOs, and the very wealthiest Americans. She announced ...

China has birthed some pretty impressive billion-dollar startups. Bytedance Inc.’s TikTok is so hip it makes Snap Inc. look like it’s for your parents. Sensetime Group Ltd. and Beijing Megvii Co. are masters of creepily powerful AI used in facial recognition and surveillance. Even in boring old hardware, Bitmain Technologies Ltd. has a niche in bitcoin; SZ DJI Technology Co. ...

It may be a cliche, but it’s true that the stock market isn’t the economy. Values fluctuate based on a seemingly infinite number of variables, from the real (earnings) to the intangible (sentiment). So even though US equities are near all-time highs, that isn’t necessarily a sign that all is well with corporate America. One sign that executives may not ...

President Donald Trump’s efforts to rein in prescription drug prices aren’t going very well. His attempts to erode the Affordable Care Act are going just fine. A federal judge upheld an administration rule that expands the availability of short-term health-insurance plans that don’t have to abide by Obamacare regulations.The ruling is excellent news for companies that sell those plans; they’ll ...

A disturbing graph is making the rounds. Labelled the “chart of the century” by some commentators, it shows the changes in prices for various goods and services in the US since 1997. Although food, clothing, cars and electronics have all become cheaper, health care, child care and education have soared in price relative to workers’ wages. Why is this happening? ...

Even investor darling Honeywell International Inc. isn’t immune to the slowdown taking place in manufacturing. The maker of jet engines and air-conditioner controls reported second-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ estimates, but sales in the period were weaker than expected, both including and excluding the impact of M&A and currency swings. The 5 percent organic revenue growth Honeywell notched in the ...