Opinion

Shale’s suffering indigestion, not a heart attack

The Permian basin is the center of shale’s world, whether it fascinates investors or, as today, repels them. The recent selloff has obscured that. The Permian’s denizens are currently victims of their own success. Production of oil and gas has outrun the pipeline capacity to get it all to market, leading to steep discounts being taken on some of it. ...

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Losing the trade war

If we are to have a ‘trade war’ with China, it would be best to win it. We should be better off after the fighting. Unfortunately, the chances of this happening seem slim to none, because President Trump’s plan of attack suggests that everyone — us and them — will lose. Interestingly, there’s broad agreement over some of our war ...

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A $90bn lesson for the Brexit gang

Airbus has warned it will reconsider its British presence if the country crashes out of the EU without a deal. History is in danger of repeating itself here, with the UK once again failing to recognize where its best industrial interests lie. A British company once owned part of Airbus and sold out on the cheap. London is now threatening ...

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World’s online retailers shouldn’t fear a sales tax

Old-school retailers were doing the press-release version of a touchdown dance last week after the Supreme Court ruled that state governments can require internet retailers to collect sales taxes even if they don’t have a physical presence in that state. Matthew Shay, the CEO of the National Retail Federation, said in a statement that retailers “have been waiting for this ...

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France’s Macron needs to dream a little harder

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have finally laid out their joint vision for the future of the European monetary union. Unfortunately, their Meseberg Declaration looks like a missed opportunity: It is ambitious where it can afford to be vague and modest where it needs to be concrete. The Franco-German plan will be the foundation for next week’s crucial European Council. ...

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Central bankers shouldn’t have to rescue democracy

The history of the financial crisis tells a disturbing tale for those who hold dear prosperity and democracy. Although this should have been the moment for representative governments to rise to the occasion, too often political leaders failed to take the actions needed to preserve the welfare of those who elected them. The institutions that did the most to help ...

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Goldman shouldn’t be able to jawbone the Fed

In the Trump era, bankers and regulators were supposed to get along just dandy. In the wake of this year’s stress test, there is some hope that might not be the case. Last week, after the release of the first stage of the annual bank stress test, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. put out a statement indicating that it was unhappy ...

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Saving the planet? Get carbon out of the air

What is the appropriate response to the threat of climate change? To some climate activists, it means we must give up on economic growth, capitalism or even industrial society itself. This extreme viewpoint, if correct, would require modern humanity to abandon much of what makes life comfortable,secure. It also causes many on the political right to suspect climate activism of ...

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Greece won’t really be leaving its bailout

In a way, the debt relief deal Greece has received as it exits its bailout makes good sense: It keeps the country on a tight leash, all but eliminating the possibility that it will go on a borrowing spree in the financial markets and misspend the money as it’s done before. On the other hand, the scheme gets superimposed uncomfortably ...

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A trade ‘talk’ with Trump can hurt

The US is waging a trade ‘discussion,’ not a war — that’s how Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump’s economic adviser, put it earlier this month after his administration hit the European Union (and other allies) with tariffs on steel and aluminum. The direct impact was seen by some as minimal, given these exports account for 0.05 percent of the bloc’s ...

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