Opinion

Almost 10 years after the Great Recession ended, the growing threat of a new economic slowdown raises a troubling question: When the next recession strikes, what can the world’s central banks do? With interest rates low and their balance sheets still loaded with assets bought to fight the 2008 crisis, do they have the tools to respond? This column is ...

President Donald Trump’s conduct in office has been diminishing the moral capital of the United States for more than two years. The report by special counsel Robert Mueller puts a little of that capital back in the bank. Mueller’s 448-page account is an affirmation that the rule of law still exists in America, despite Trump’s rants and rages against his ...

Bank of America Corp. (BofA) didn’t sugarcoat the path forward for investors when describing its first-quarter results. Yes, the bank generated a record profit, thanks to net interest income (NII) at its consumer unit. But Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan and Chief Financial Officer Paul Donofrio didn’t hide the fact that the pace of growth in NII was bound to ...

I hope T-mobile didn’t already order a bunch of magenta T-shirts to hand out to the Sprint team. Their merger may be a no-go. The Justice Department told T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp. earlier this month that it’s unlikely to approve their deal as it’s currently structured, according to a Wall Street Journal report. It’s especially bad news for ...

We all know Italy’s next crisis is coming, it’s merely a question of when. The country’s budget deficit is slipping out of control and Brussels will at some point have to address the increasingly likely breach of its fiscal rules (even if the EU is turning a blind eye while this month’s European parliamentary elections are taking place). The bond ...

The slowing of the Chinese economy, along with growing evidence of European growth under pressure, cast a big cloud of uncertainty over the global economy coming into 2019. Data released last week provided further support for the notion of short-term stabilization in China, but there isn’t yet a convincing longer-term case for higher growth, or for a less uncertain road ...

If the fire at Notre Dame cathedral had happened 20 or 50 years ago, France’s luxury fashion houses would surely have rushed to support its reconstruction as quickly as they did in 2019. There is no doubting the sincerity of LVMH, Kering SA and their founding families, who led the way with donations after the devastation. The city of Paris, ...

The oral arguments the Supreme Court will hear will be more decorous than the gusts of judicial testiness that blew the case up to the nation’s highest tribunal. The case, which raises arcane questions of administrative law but could have widely radiating political and policy consequences, comes from the Enlightenment mentality of the nation’s Founders, and involves this question: Does ...

Some government foolishness has an educational value that compensates for its considerable cost. Consider the multibillion-dollar federal electric-vehicle tax credit, which efficiently illustrates how government can, with one act, diminish its already-negligible prestige while subtracting from America’s fairness. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., hope to repeal the tax credit, which probably will survive because it does ...

As China posts yet another quarter of six percent-plus growth, analysts have been quick to brand the latest upswing as a rebound. Buoyed by this year’s double-digit stock-market gains, large flows of credit and tax cuts for consumers, Beijing is trying to sell the narrative that growth remains stable. Some official statistics seem to support that theory: Gross domestic product ...