Opinion

For those who watch China closely, there has never been a more pivotal moment in the evolution of its economy and financial markets. More than 40 years since the start of its “Reform and Opening Up” process, and despite the volatility in US-China relations, China’s commitment to market reform remains. This year will likely see the improvement of market access ...

The grounding of Jet Airways India Ltd., the country’s oldest private-sector carrier, isn’t just bad news for customers and its 23,000 employees. It raises yet again a question that’s puzzled two successive governments and will continue to bedevil whichever party takes power after elections conclude next month: What’s killing capitalism in India? Jet was born in the early 1990s, when ...

Deutsche Bank AG’s decision to abandon an attempted takeover of Commerzbank AG makes sense, but it still leaves both sides scrambling for alternative solutions to the same problem of pathetic returns. After weeks of deliberations, the German behemoth concluded the benefits would not have offset the “additional execution risks, restructuring costs and capital requirements.” The rationale is hardly a surprise. ...

This shouldn’t be a surprising quality in one of the world’s most valuable companies, but it’s worth saying: Facebook Inc. is savvy. This company has a list of problems longer than a drugstore receipt. It’s a creepy data hoarder. It has botched efforts around the globe to stem violence or other abuses on its internet hangouts, and it was an ...

Even as the US and China seem headed towards a truce on trade, their rivalry is heating up in other areas. The threat of espionage taking place under the cover of routine activities appears to be a particular concern. As many as 30 Chinese academics and policy experts have had their US visas cancelled or reviewed in the past year, ...

President Trump and his officials have taken steps lately to make things harder for Cuba, aiming to persuade its government to stop helping Venezuela’s embattled tyrant, Nicolas Maduro. That’s a worthy goal, and Cuba’s material support for Maduro is certainly objectionable, but this is the wrong way to get results. The administration just announced that US citizens will be able ...

After adding more than 1.3 million inhabitants since the early 1990s, New York City has been shrinking since mid-2016. According to estimates released last week by the US Census Bureau, the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area lost population in the 12-month periods ending July 2018 and July 2017 as well. This raises an important question: Is New York shrinking because ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is going to boost human productivity in a thousand ways, transforming everything from transportation to health care to agriculture. Some enthusiastic computer scientists even think we will find a “master algorithm” that will fix our politics and make lives “longer, happier and more productive.” In the grandest of these visions, smart computing machines could automate all of ...

Is it a waste of money to spend the billions of euros that will be needed to rebuild Notre-Dame de Paris? A lot of people seem to consider the whole thing no more than a “vanity project” for the uber-rich. I disagree. One reason is that I’m not so keen on telling other people how to spend their money. Another ...

Kraft Heinz Co.’s problems stem not from a single manager but rather an ethos brought to the company by its private equity owner, 3G Capital, and championed by billionaire Warren Buffett. And so it remains to be seen whether replacing the packaged-food giant’s CEO is enough to right the ship. Kraft Heinz announced on Monday that Bernardo Hees, 49, will ...