Opinion

Nestle SA may have found the right brew for perking up its US coffee business. The consumer-goods giant recently announced a $7.2 billion deal with Starbucks Corp. that allows it to market, sell and distribute the Seattle-based company’s packaged coffees and teas. It’s just the latest in a string of deals orchestrated by Nestle CEO Mark Schneider, who has been ...

This month, the European Union will embark on an expansive effort to give people more control over their data online. Known as the General Data Protection Regulation, it’s ambitious, well-intentioned and largely wrongheaded. As it comes into force, Europe should be mindful of unintended consequences — and open to change when things go wrong. No one could say the GDPR ...

One of the scariest ideas in the world is the possibility that technological progress is petering out. Without it, there can be no long-run economic expansion or ongoing improvement in the human condition. Modern societies and economies are built on the assumption of growth, but even if they were to be reorganized to adapt to a static world, it could ...

Britain’s supermarket industry is in upheaval. And the planet’s retail giant may yet make its mark. Amazon.com Inc. tried to open talks to buy Waitrose last year, according to the Sunday Times. The John Lewis Partnership, which owns the grocer known for its posh clientele, denied that an approach had been made, while Amazon declined to comment. This odd couple ...

I’ve been doing some reporting in the Caribbean and elsewhere abroad recently, which led me to begin using WhatsApp for the first time. In large swaths of the world, people use WhatsApp as their primary texting tool: It’s free, it’s fast, and you can send photos, videos and audio as well as text. And you can set up a chat ...

President Donald J Trump recently wrapped up a three-week whirlwind of summitry, meeting with the leaders of Japan, France and Germany. If his visitors found the experience bewildering, who can blame them? In the past few months the president has repudiated much of what the US once believed about international relations. He’s advocated trade war as an instrument of policy. And ...

I spent the last couple of days at F8, Facebook’s annual tent revival for developers. I’ve consistently found F8 to be the place where Facebook gives the clearest elucidation of how the company sees itself and what it wants to be. This year, Facebook set its renewed mission of connecting people, but this goal comes with a conundrum. CEO Mark ...

Nissan Motor Co.’s jaw-dropping plunge in US car sales shouldn’t be a surprise. The Japanese automaker had it coming all along. Led by industry rainmaker Carlos Ghosn, Nissan’s deliveries in North America declined 28 percent in April. And it wasn’t just one particular make. Sales of almost every model of car and truck slipped, including the high-end Infiniti brand. Japan’s ...

It is generally accepted in economics that financial variables tend to adjust more rapidly than real and policy variables. This seems to be the case this year with the three major transitions that are critical to the longer-term well-being of the global economy and markets. While this process is ongoing, policy makers would be well advised to put these changes ...

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wants the federal government to guarantee a job for every American willing and able to work. The proposal sounds compassionate and enlightened, but in practice, it would almost certainly be a disaster. The fact that it’s taken seriously is evidence that many Democrats, like Republicans before them, embrace loony economic agendas that are more public-relations gestures ...