Opinion

Bank Indonesia (BI) put in the hard work. Time for at least some reward. The work was a concerted, consistent and not-at-all hysterical approach to the slide in emerging markets in 2018. That meant six interest-rate increases to stem the rupiah’s losses. The message was transparent: Because the Federal Reserve was hiking every quarter, Indonesia needed to prevent a rout ...

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a small country that is about to get even smaller. I know that this simple statement of fact will nevertheless infuriate many English people — and I do mean English people, not Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish. Last week, at India’s Raisina Dialogue, the Spanish foreign minister said that there ...

If you’re looking for one of the worst ideas in contemporary banking, look no further than Germany. The mooted merger between Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG would make a mockery of any notion that EU governments are serious about ending the “too big to fail” problem. It would also turn back the clock on a guiding principle of European ...

Back in 2011, as the US and other countries debated what to do about a recession that was stretching on much longer than expected, economists Brad DeLong and Larry Summers bemoaned what they considered a major gap in their fellow economists’ toolkit. Economists, they noted, learn a lot of mathematical models and empirical facts about the present, but not much ...

As the partial government shutdown drags on, the political cost is mounting for the White House, and the domestic consequences — from uninspected food to long airport security lines — are accumulating. There is also a widely overlooked problem: The shutdown is taking a toll on US foreign policy. With global concerns about the stability of the US government rising ...

If this is prudence, let’s have more of it. The People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) bit-by-bit approach to spurring growth is letting fiscal policy take a welcome turn at the wheel. It also amplifies a trend seen in other major economies, where central banks are carrying less of a burden relative to the past decade. The message was on vivid ...

Indonesia’s booming e-commerce industry is churning out unicorns such as Tokopedia PT and Bukalapak.com. It’s also creating a headache for the government and the rupiah. Authorities are trying to capitalise on this fast-growing cash cow by taxing e-commerce transactions. Starting April, online retailers will need to collect, deposit and report income and value-added taxes. Small and medium-size businesses must pay ...

The UK Parliament has inflicted the biggest-ever defeat on a sitting government in the country’s modern history. It has pretty much shredded the only deal agreed by Brussels and London for a Brexit on amicable terms. The deadline of Article 50 (the two-year withdrawal process) draws near, and there’s still no solution beyond the dread prospect of the UK automatically ...

Many of the headlines coming out of Detroit during the North American International Auto Show will be about electric vehicles – from new electric concept vehicles from Nissan and Infiniti to an emerging partnership between Ford and VW on electric and autonomous vehicles. By all means, environmentalists and others should celebrate progress in bringing more EVs to market. But they ...

For every step General Electric Co. takes towards overhauling its culture, it seems to take a step back. The troubled industrial conglomerate announced that UBS Group analyst Steven Winoker would become the head of its investor relations team. Winoker will replace Todd Ernst, who joined only six months ago from Raytheon Co. This change was needed; GE’s communications with investors ...